ABSTRACT
The study examined the
influence of social demand, peer pressure and economic instability on
adolescents’ behavioural pattern in Lagos
State: Implication for
Counselling in Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos State. In this study,
the researcher made some important recommendations that would help in finding
possible solutions to the problems identified and investigated in this study.
The study employed the descriptive research survey design which was used to
assess the responses of the representatives of this study with the aid of the
questionnaire and the sampling technique.
Also, a total of 200
(two hundred) respondents were selected and used in this study. And a total of
four null hypotheses were formulated and tested with the aid of Pearson Product
Moment Correlation Statistics and the independent t-test statistical tool at
0.05 level of significance.
At the end of the
testing of hypotheses, the following results emerged:
Hypothesis one revealed that there is a significant influence of
social demand on adolescents’ patter of behaviour.
Hypothesis two should that there is a significant relationship
between peer pressure and adolescents’ social adjustment.
Hypothesis three showed that there is significant relationship
between economic instability and adolescents’ academic performance in school.
Hypothesis four showed that there is no significant gender
difference in adolescents’ social adjustment in school.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgement iv
Table of contents v
Abstract vii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
Background to the Study
1
Statement of the
Problem 5
Purpose of the Study 6
Research Questions 7
Research Hypotheses 8
Significance of the
Study 8
Scope and Limitation of
the Study 11
CHAPTER
TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 12
Introduction 12
2.1 Theories and Problems of Adolescent
Development 13
2.2 The Social Implication of Psychoanalytic
Theory 15
2.3 Adolescent and Social Adjustment 17
2.4 General Problems Encountered During
Adolescence 23
2.5 Adolescent and Home Relationship 33
2.6 Adolescent Adjustment and Parental
Responsibility 34
2.7 A Review of the Effect of Family Conflict,
Divorce and Disorganisation on Adolescent Emotional Development 39
2.8 Child
Emancipation and Social Adjustment 40
2.9 A
Review of the Social Learning Theory of Adolescent
Development
45
2.10 Peer
Group Pressure and Adolescent Social Adjustment 48
2.11 Summary of the Review 52
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 54
3.0 Introduction 54
Resign
design 54
Population
of the Study 54
Sample
Size and Sampling Technique 55
Instrumentation
55
Procedure
for Data Collection 55
Procedure
for Data Analysis 55
CHAPTER FOUR: Data Analysis and Presentation of
Results 56
Introduction
56
4.1 Hypotheses Testing 56
Summary of
Findings 59
CHAPTER
FIVE: DISCUSSIONS, SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS,
AND
RECOMMENDATIONS 61
Introduction 61
Discussion of findings 61
Summary
of the Study 66
Conclusions
68
Recommendations
68
References 71
Appendix 76
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background to the Study
Adolescents
today, are generally perceived by the adults as a group who constantly engage
in activities which are contrary to the norms, ethics and values of the
society. According to Omoegun (2000), the adolescents due to their behaviour
which are inimical to society’s norms and values, many at times, fail short of
the demands of the society. The society demands that the youths should present
good conducts and norms which are acceptable to the general community, which
are also prerequisites for healthy living and good interactions in the society.
As Onyedika (2003) observes, no decent society would like its youths to be
recalcitrant to its laid down values and accepted norms.
According
to Onwuama (1988), the youngsters are seen as a group constantly seeking
independence from the adult society, particularly, of parents and other
authority figures. This need for independence has led adolescents to take a
position and views different from those of their parents and other adults, and
to act in conformity with their peers, however unconventional their actions may
be. Nowadays, it is not unusual to hear some parents complaining about their
children’s uncooperative attitudes. These days, children tend to disobey their
parents and obey their friends and take directives from them. Agunloye (2000)
states that it is very essential for parents to watch out for the company that
their adolescent children associate with or keep. A popular adage says, “show
me your friend and I will tell you who you are”. This means that if a child
associates with drug pushes or abusers, sooner or later, he would join the
group. Or if he/she associates with rogues and armed robbers, he/she would
sooner or later be persuaded to join the group on one of their trips and share
in the booty”. A trial will convince you! So they say.
According
to Onuoha (2005), parents are largely responsible for the lapses in the
adolescent behaviour, because, they are expected to serve as role-models.
Parents need to give more attention to the development of their adolescents in
order to inculcate the right sense of discipline and correct orientation in
them. This is because, where parents fail to train or bring up their child in
the right direction, they (adolescents) tend to uphold the tenets of their of
peers. These peers are seemingly inexperienced in child-upbringing, therefore,
they inculcate in their friends wrong ideas that do not conform with the norms
accepted in the community (Ayodele, 2002).
No
doubt, adolescents in our contemporary society, need to be counselled and
directed on the best part to follow in life. According to Mundi (2001), the
school counsellors have enormous work on their hands, because they cannot
afford to sit down and watch the youths who are regarded as the greater
tomorrow to act as they like and then turn to deviants in the society. When the
counsellors and other significant adult members of the society fail to advise
and direct the adolescents against wrong behaviour, they (adolescents) would
continue in their wrong acts and uphold them till adult life, and the resultant
effect is a disjointed and perverse community in which anything goes, a wild
jungle where anarchy reigns supreme.
Due
to economic down-turn in Nigeria,
and generally in the world today, parents have lost the firm grips they had on
their children’s characters (Ajibola, 2000). According to Ajibola, in the olden
days, when the economy was stable and in good condition, when parents were
indeed breadwinners, they (parents) used to give effective instructions and
directions to their children and these instructions were followed to the last
letter, but these days, many parents are no more financiers of the home, and
this has caused them to loose grips on their command structure to their
children. Many parents these days, do not take proper care of their children.
For instance, due to economic adversity, in many homes, children go out to
work, by way of hawking and doing menial jobs and come to feed their parents.
This situation does not warrant these parents to have the moral rights to
discipline these children even though in the face of flagrant disobedience of
parents’ rules and regulations.
In
this perspective, guidance and counsellors have a lot jobs to do, because their
natural duties are to advise and diplomatically persuade individuals to follow
the part of good life in order to come out of their problems. According to
Uzoma (1998), the school should use the counsellors to return the wrong
behavioural pattern of the adolescents to the good behavioural patterns where
they would conform to the demands and aspirations of the decent society,
especially that of the parents, teachers and the significant others in the near
community.
1.2
Statement of the Problem
Adolescent
life is no doubt, a life full of storm and stress. Many adolescents have grown
wings and flown above parental control, due to peer pressure and bad ganging
up. In many circumstances now, the youths in the society have turned
recalcitrants, they hardly obey the rules and regulations stipulated by their
parents, teachers and the significant others in the community or the school.
The economic downturn in Nigeria
today, has caused parents and many adults to become handicapped, and could not
usurp authorities on the young ones. In this circumstance, the youths have
turned away from their parents, and have focused attention to their peers who
have swayed them into becoming armed robbers, prostitutes, violent
demonstrators, examination cheats, thieves, hired assassins, thuggs, rioters,
rapers drug abusers and addicts etc.
Due
to the fact that youths of these days have not met the social demands of good
values and norms of parents, teachers and others in the larger society, it has
not augured well in the social community where orderliness and decorum are
expected of all decent members of the society. For this lapses in lives of the
young ones, the society, and indeed, parents, teachers and other adult members
of the larger community have been at great pain and distress due to the seeming
lack of good behaviour in majority of our youngsters. For instance, the laid
down norms and expected values of the society, especially of parents and
teachers are neglected by the youths, this has caused our social system, a
great collapse, and no wonder there is so much decay in the system nowadays.
The
above problems necessitated the examination of the influence guidance and
counselling on psychosocial adjustment of students in secondary schools.
1.3 Purpose
of the Study
Specifically
the study intends to:
1.
Examine the
relationship between school counselling practices and psychosocial adjustment
of students.
2.
Investigate the
perception of students to guidance and counselling.
3.
Assess the
extent of psychological adjustment problems among students.
1.4 Research
Questions
The
following research questions addressed the following:
1.
Is there any
relationship between school counselling and students’ psychological adjustment?
2.
To what extent
does the students’ perceive guidance and counselling positively?
3.
To what extent
does the students’ perceive guidance and counselling negatively?
4.
To what extent
do students have psychological problems?
1.5
Research Hypotheses
The
following hypotheses were formulated and tested in this study:
1.
There is no significant
relationship between school counselling and psychosocial adjustment.
2.
Students will
not positively perceive school guidance and counselling.
3.
Students will
not negatively perceive school guidance and counselling.
4.
The students in
schools have poor psychological adjustment.
1.6 Significance
of the Study
This
study is essential when we consider the power of peer group influence on the
students and the need for guidance to enable the students understand and adjust
well within the school environment.
The
work would be a contribution to knowledge and literature in the area that the
study covered.
It
will help to check some re-occurring problems which may hinder the attainment
of well planned curriculum.
This
study will also be beneficial to the following individuals:
Parents: Parents, no doubt, are those who nurture and take
care of children after giving birth to them in the home. With this findings and
recommendations made in this study, parents would be well informed, pertaining
to different levels of patterns of parenting in the home. This study, no doubt
will enable parents/guardians to be able to know how best to rear their
children and wards, it will help them to be able to identify those recommended
parenting styles that will give the children or wards good rearing process and
upbringing in the society. This is because children reared in proper ways by
good parenting styles, will be different from the children reared under bad or
harsh parenting styles. With the application of this recommended styles of
parenting, parents would be able to rear children who would be very respectful
to them and the society.
Adolescents: The children, especially the youth in the society
would benefit from the recommendations of this study because it will help them
to understand the way of nurturing and bringing them up as adolescent. With
this study, children would be able to identify some of the values in the family
and society. With this study also, adolescents would be enable to know that
they ought to be controlled and obedient to their parents, teachers and the
significant others in their communities.
Teachers: Teachers would no doubt, be able to understand
more, the different aspect of adolescents’ behaviours. Some teachers are
parents also, they will be exposed to the essence of child-upbringing by
reading this work. This study will create important knowledge on parents’
demands, peer grouping and economic instability. Teachers will also be able to
learn the more, that good parenting would be beneficial to both the teachers
and the school system where both the teachers and the children are found. This
is because, if the children are well brought up, they would be good and right
thinking individuals in the society and the school.
The Society: The society will benefit from this study because
there will be great impact of this study on the individual in the society. Also
both the new researchers and students who want to carry out new research on
topics related to this study will find this study a reference point or material.
1.7 Scope
of the Study
The
study covers the influence of guidance and counselling on the psychosocial
adjustment of students in secondary schools in Mainland Local Government Area
of Lagos State.
1.8
Definition of Terms
The
following terms were defined in this study:
(1)
Adolescence:
This is described as the age of storm and stress. It is the age before eighteen
years. It is a period between childhood and adulthood.
(2)
Psychological Adjustment: This is the term that denotes the psychosocial and
socialization of an individual child.
(3)
Transition Period:
This is the period in which an individual or a thing changes from one level to
another.
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