CHAPTER ONE

                                         INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Home environment is a major factor that determines the health of any child or student. A stable home can be defined as one in which both parent (mother and father) lives together with their children, while a broken home is the one in which one or both of the parents are not living together with the children. It is the level at which the home operates that determine the academic achievement of a students in school. Broken homes been it unstable can influence the achievement of a student’s academically. Also, children that have suffered from neglect or lack of love (in broken homes) are known to be psychologically imbalanced to face the realities of life. When there is disunity in the family, or a difference between a mother and a father, the child is caught in the middle and will be at disadvantage. According to Blackby (2000), adequate research needs to be conducted in this direction to ensure smooth transition of children from early stages to adulthood.

Every second in the country, about 10 children are infected; die from diverse diseases contacted from their home environment or as a result of lack of parental care. These environmental hazards and other illnesses have shortened the lives of millions of students globally. Most of the environmental disease which can hamper the health of a child or student is attributable to a few major risks and they include unsafe water and sanitation, vector-borne disease, indoor smoke from solid fuels, toxic hazards and global environmental change and unsustainable patterns of a the country’s development that contribute to air pollution, traffic injury and other forms of urban environmental degradation. Most broken marriages end in divorce. Divorce, according to Havemann (1990) is a legal process through which a marriage is dissolved. Traditionally, divorce implied that one of the partners was guilty of some transgression in the marriage and that one was at fault. Historically, adultery and physical cruelty were the only basis for divorce, but later, a number of other transgressions were added such as abandonment, habitual drunkenness and mental cruelty. Divorce is considered as unmitigated evil. The experience of the human race, however, seems to prove that there may be a right or wrong use of it. Divorce has become, not only a legal action, but also a range of economic, psychological and social actions. In adults, relationship among physical activity, health related fitness, and health are fairly well established. Low levels of physical activity and cardio-respiratory fitness are both associated with higher risk of all cause and disease specific mortality (Thune et al., 1998). Physical fitness is the ability to perform daily activities willingly and actively. Physical fitness includes not only components of sports but those of health as well as regular physical activity prevents or limits weight gain, and gain in body mass index (BMI) (Kyle et al., 2001). The National College of Health Risk Behavior Survey reported that 35% of American college students are overweight (Lowry et al., 2000). This is not surprising considering that more than two thirds of American adult population are classified as overweight (Flegal et al., 2002), making weight gains America’s leading health problem (Mokdad et al., 2001). The expert committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) described physical fitness as “the ability to undertake muscular work satisfactorily.” Every person has a different level of physical fitness which may change with time, place of work, situation and there is also an interaction between the daily activities, and the fitness of an individual, the point if where to put the level of optimum fitness. From the physiological point of view physical fitness may say to be the ability of a body to adopt and recover from strenuous exercise. Many children are not developing fitness habits our do they value physically active lifestyle. Sedentary behaviors have become common place. Schools have the potential to improve the health of young people by providing instruction in physical education that promotes enjoyable lifelong physical activity. Diseases and health problem resulting from an inactive lifestyle have their origins early in life. This is when an active lifestyle should be established. Fitness begins at birth and should continue throughout a person`s life. Physical activity and fitness behaviors’ should be normal and necessary part of everyone`s life. Fitness improves s general health and it is essential for full and vigorous living.

Naturally, the home of the child is the first place he/she steps into when born into the world by parents. A home is a place where pupils, children reside with their parents or guardian and it is the place where they are raised. It is a place where a child starts to learn good and acceptable behaviors and values of the society in which they find themselves. The family is a social unit and it is the source of early stimulation and experience in children. Broken home environment negatively affects a child at the most earliest stage of his or her life, specifically, at the time when his mind is most willing to receive. It gives the first impression which may probably last through the whole life of the child. The child sees the parents, siblings and other things in their direct environment to be most important and those things/people are also capable of promoting or demoting him when it comes to self-worth, health and academic performance. According to McDonald (1978) - as cited earlier on, divorce is defined as the dissolution of a relationship, which is recognized as marital relationship. It is marked by formal court proceedings and its decree is divorce. Divorce is usually accompanied by formal arrangements for the owning of property, custody and support of children, if there are any. The property adjustment may also include a provision requiring alimony to be paid by one partner to the other although alimony is less frequently granted today.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

In our society today, children are sometimes exposed at an early age to all sort of dangers arising from malnutrition, diseases and various temptation of surviving due to absence of one of their parents. Student’s life in broken homes is observed to be associated with emotional stress that can impair intellectual development, thereby giving way for such children to grow up without being trained properly. However, absence of one or both parents deprives young children of the stable love, care, security and total support they have been accustomed to and tend to make children different in the eyes of the peer group. If children are asked where the missing parent is or why they have a new parent to replace the missing parents, they become embarrassed and ashamed. They may also feel guilty and unwanted by the society, such stressful situation leads to psychological, emotional and intellectual imbalance in growing children. These subsequently result to quitting from school or poor academic achievement of secondary schools student as education require critical thinking, relax mind and proper family support to be able to perform to expectation in the school. Hence it becomes necessary to investigate factors that leads to broken homes and health related component with a view to finding solution to the problems for psychological well-being of growing children in our society, and these lead the researcher to look at the influence of broken homes on the academic performance secondary schools students in Nigeria.  

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this research work includes the following. To assess the influence of broken homes and health related components of secondary schools students in Lagos state. The researcher intends to outline the following sub-objectives:

i)             To investigate the effect of broken homes on the academic performance of secondary school student.

ii)           To ascertain the effect of broken homes on the health of the student.

iii)          To ascertain the impact of broken homes on the emotional health of the student.

iv)         To investigate the effect of broken homes on the social health of the secondary school students

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

For the successful completion of the study, the following research questions were formulated by the researcher

1) Are there any effect of broken homes on students’ academic performance?

2) what is the effect of broken homes on the health of secondary school students?

3) What is the impact of broken homes on the emotional health of the students?

4) is there any relationship between broken homes and the social health of the student?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

Ho: broken home have no significant effect on student’s academic performance.

H1: broken home have a significant effect on student’s academic performance.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study is to find out influence of broken home and health related components on academic performance of secondary schools students in Lagos state.  This is with a view to suggest ways of minimizing and overcoming the problem. Home play very significant role in child personality formation and socialization, broken homes are identified as one of the factor that undermined the socialization process at home, which consequently affect the performance of student. If the concern of education, secondary schools in particular is to look after socialization process of the child as well as his intellectual development, then this research work would be of great importance to parents in the area of building a healthy family relationship that will aid their ward’s academic performance. To teachers for the need to support students from single or broken home, academically, emotionally and socially. To the society at large that absence of one or both of the parent affect children educational career.

Lastly, it will be of benefit to future researchers as the finding will serve as a source of literature review.

1.7 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Though, the questions which prompted this study were found to be in existence in different part of the country, most especially in the western part of the country, it is not possible for this research to cover all such areas. This is because the research/ researchers cannot obtain data from all places concerned due to lack of time and resources (both human and material resources). As the title of the research reads, the research will be limited to only Lagos state and it should be noted that the work may not represent some local governments and not all people during the course of the research exercise will cooperate, hence the research is bound to experience limitation such as:

Time: the time at the disposal of the researcher which was allocated for the study was a major limitation as the researcher had to combine other academic activities with the study.

Finance: The finance at the disposal of the researcher in the course of the study could not permit wider coverage as resources are very limited as the researcher has other academic bills to cover.

AVAILABILITY OF RESEARCH MATERIAL: The research materials      available to the researcher at the time of this study was insufficient, thereby limiting the study.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Home: A home or domicile is a dwelling-place used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for an individual, family, household or several families in a tribe. It is often a house, apartment, or other building, or alternatively a mobile home, houseboat, yurt or any other portable shelter. Homes typically provide areas and facilities for sleeping, preparing food, eating and hygiene.

Broken home: a house containing a family that is set apart due to tensions and certain problems. Example a kid's parents constantly fight and he/she feels lonely, depressed, and angry. That is a product of a broken home, who may usually get away from the problems by doing bad things (drugs, drink, etc.).

Family: In the context of human society, a family (from Latin: familia) is a group of people affiliated either by consanguinity (by recognized birth), affinity (by marriage or other relationship), or co-residence (as implied by the etymology of the English word ‘family’.

Academic achievement: Academic achievement or (academic) performance is the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has achieved their short or long-term educational goals. Cumulative GPA and completion of educational degrees such as High School and Bachelor's degrees represent academic achievement.

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