SOCIAL PROBLEMS AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN WARRI METROPOLIS (GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the study
Anti-social activities are rampant in the contemporary Nigerian Society. This is evident in the deluge of social problems witnessed on regular bases. These problems which include various factors such as social inequality, ethnicity, limited resources, corruption, poverty, criminality, and other socio-economic crises pervade the length and breadth of the country. There is a wide gap between the expectations of the society and its actual manifestations. Hardly would a day go by without a record of one form of social problem or the other.
In line with the above, Osarenren (2002) argued that societal attitudes change because society is dynamic and changes occur quite frequently and to support her claims, she advanced some fundamental reasons for anti-social behaviours in the society. For her, one of the reasons is the change in the structure of the society which happens to be as a result of rapid transition from rural to urbanization and industrialization; secondly, there has been a serious disruption of sense of community solidarity and of the integrity of the extended family structure; and thirdly, it is observed that delinquency is on the rise in deteriorated neighborhoods near the city centres of large cities. One may therefore surmise that delinquency is closely associated with urbanization.
From a sociological perspective, a social problem exists when there is a sizable difference between the ideals of a society and its actual achievements. From this perspective, social problems are created by the failure to close the gap between the way people want things to be and the
way things really are (Coleman, 1999). Certain social conditions are detrimental in any situation (Eitzen, Smith & Baca-Zinn, 2009). These conditions prevent members of a society from developing and using their full potential. Those conditions like poverty, racism, unequal opportunity are, therefore, social problems in any social setting.
There is a common consensus among experts that deviance is a social problem and could be seen as a product of both personal and social traits. Osarenren (2002) argued that any behavior which does not conform to the rules, regulations, norms and values of a given time is viewed as deviance. In line with this position, Ajuzie (2005), submitted that deviance should be eradicated or put to control in the society .She argues further that the best a society could do in order to achieve this is to undertake application of knowledge to practical ends, through corrections, development of policies and programmes for combating crime and deviance, to reform, remobilize and to treat deviants. Matza (1964) came up with the idea of treating deviant cases when he projected a premise that something must be wrong with a deviant actor and which compels him to be lawless and inhibits him from conformity to conventional norms and the laws of the society.
Education is a watchdog that is essential for correcting the problem of deviance and ensuring conformity to institutional rules and regulations. The impact of education on change and adjustment is tremendous in that knowledge is light, it transforms and leads in the right direction. The thrust of this study is to explore the effect of social problems on the academic performance and social adjustment of secondary school students. In this breadth, ‘deviance’ readily comes to mind, because it is a term that is easily associated with social problems among youths in general and secondary school students in particular.
