Parenting Styles And Academic Achievement Of Primary School Pupils
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Right from infancy, children learn and acquire traits and behavior that they exhibit throughout their life time. During socialization, parents and other authoritative figures endeavour to form children in such away as to make them acquire worth-virtues cherished by the society parents are customarily obligated to carry out this importance roles of socialization to their children into their social milieu (the social environment that you live or work in) as primary agents of socialization. They are expected to become an important influence on the emotional, cognitive and social development of children (Hughes, Kroehler and Zanden, 2011). It is believed that there are some roles that are better performed by parent which children tends to accept most reality that any other person in their life. Therefore, parents play a highly influential role in their children’s all round development and as these roles are essentially formative, their influence in the socialization of children cannot be overemphasized. It is this understanding that brought about this study which aimed at examining the influence of parenting styles on academic achievement of primary school pupils in Uyo Local Government Area.
According to Darling and Stemberg (2013) defined parenting style as an emotional climate in which parents raise their children and it is characterized by dimension of parental responsiveness and demandingness. Most of the studies on parenting style have indicated that the kind of parenting styles adopted by parents has monumental impact on children’s attitude, academic achievement and carrier choice (Maccoby and Martin 2013; Mandara 2006). This under core why children raised in entirely different environment but received the same kind of parenting tends to exhibit similar characteristics and behaviours. Different parenting styles produce different characteristics traits of children including those demonstrated at school.
Parenting Styles And Academic Achievement Of Primary School Pupils
Parenting styles can be categorized according to the levels of parental demandingness which are controls, supervision and maturity demands and levels of parental responsiveness which are warmth acceptance and involvement (Maccoby and Martin, 2013). Parenting styles have often been presented as a three-category structure which is authoritarian, neglectful and permissive parenting styles Dornbusch (2007). An authoritarian parent demands obedience from the child and tries to shape and control the child’s behavior with an absolutes set of standards. In contrast, a permissive parent tends to offer as much freedom as the child wants not demanding any form of conformity as long as the child’s physical safety is not risk. On the other hand, neglectful or uninvolved style is the kind of parenting styles wherein parents have zero involvement with the parenting process on the child. (Baumrind, 2003).
1.2 Statement of the Problem
A person’s upbringing has a profound influence on how they see the world and how they process information (Bowman, 2008) Stevenson (2008) observed that different pupils view education as having different goals this means that parenting style can create a pool of informed citizens with a developed ability to think and reason and it can be used to establish pupils who share socialization into the way things are done in a particular society. However, Broman and Stevenson fail to relate the parenting styles and academic achievement of pupils. This therefore creates a gap that this study aims to fill. Recent developments in the field of parenting and family studies have led to the renewed interest in the relationship between children’s academic achievement and parenting styles. These developments have heightened the need for the study on children’s academic achievements since the family is the first window of the child, parenting styles and its influence on children could greatly affect their understanding, attitude and academic achievements. Accordingly, there are several research works done on parents-child relationship and children’s academic achievement and behaviours that are required for a successful adoption to the society and the family (Ladd and Pattit, 2002). However, few scholars have focused on the children’s academic achievement; more so, most of the studies have focused on developed countries which have different characteristics and experience. Therefore, this study investigates the influence of parenting styles on academic performance of pupils in primary schools in Uyo Local Government Area.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of this study was to examine the influence of parenting styles on pupils’ academic achievement in social studies among primary schools in Uyo Local Government Area. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to:
(i) Examine the influence of authoritarian parenting styles on pupils’ academic achievement in social studies.
(ii) Examine the influence of permissive parenting styles on pupils’ academic achievement in social studies.
(iii) Determine the influence of neglectful parenting styles on pupils’ academic achievement in social studies.
1.4 Significance of the Study
(i) The finding of the study will be significantly importance to the pupils as they will be enlightened on who their parenting styles affect their academic achievement.
(ii) Also the finding will be utmost importance to the parents as they will realized the importance of parenting styles on pupils’ academic achievement.
(iii) Recommendations that will be made at the end of the study will be significance to teachers as it will lead to improved academic achievement.
(iv) Finally, the finding of this study will add to the body of existing knowledge and will be significant to other researcher who will carry out research study in related area to this present study.
