B. O. AJIDAHUN 399
Akinbola (2004) observed that parents who are together may
suffer poverty. It is a state where an individual is not able to
cater adequately for his or her basic needs of food, clothing and
shelter. He is unable to meet social and economic obligations.
Lack of gainful employment, skills, assets and self-esteem has
limited chances advancing his or her welfare to the limit of his
capacities. Due to this high rate of poverty in the country, most
parents find it difficult to provide adequate food, clothing,
shelter or even good education for their children. Akinbola
(2004) further affirmed that adolescents who are deprived of
basic life necessities by poverty exhibit aggression and poor
social dispositions. They are predisposed to violence due to
lack of basic provisions of good nutrition, shelter and health
care.
This aggression has manifested in the high rate of armed
robbery cases committed by adolescents. In addition to this
cultism, rape, sexual abuses and drug abuses are common
among adolescents from poor homes. Poverty can harm chil-
dren’s development through its impact on parents’ emotional
state and parenting practices and on the home environment they
create. Poor housing for parents make them worry and those
who have lost their job worried about their next meal and this
makes them to feel a lack of control over their lives and even-
tually they may likely become anxious, depressed or irritable.
And they are likely to project these negative emotions on their
children.
Parents may become less affectionate with and less respon-
sive to their adolescent children. The children in turn tend to
become depressed themselves. According to Evans and English
(2002) adolescent’s children have trouble along with peers and
also lack self-confidence. As noted by the researcher, poverty,
family stress, and adolescents’ social and emotional problems
exist among rural, low-income Nigerians. Families under eco-
nomic stress are less likely to monitor their children’s activities
and lack of monitoring is associated with poorer school per-
formance and social adjustment. Poverty has the tendency of
sapping parents’ confidence in their ability to affect their ado-
lescent children’s development. Evans et al. (2002) observed
that lack of financial resources can also make it harder for
mothers and fathers to support each other in parenting. Many
poor parents neglect their adolescent’s children by not being
involved in their activities. They never knew the whereabouts
of their children. And, these attitudes may make the adolescents
to be socially incompetent and also expose them to biological
risk factor such as AIDS.
According to Bolland (2003) a nation is deprived of compe-
tency and productiveness as it ought to have if her adolescents
reach adulthood unhealthy, unskilled, or alienated. Poverty is
an economic hardship and it has effects on adolescents from
poor homes. This hardship may be in terms of poor health,
inadequate house, homelessness, exposure to diseases and un-
supportive neighbourhood. All these hardships experienced by
adolescents from poor homes have implications on their be-
haviours. Such adolescents are invariably involved in robbery,
kidnapping, prostitutions, and cultism and so on. The psycho-
logical ramification of living in poverty makes one to look
down on himself; they are vulnerable to any behavioural psy-
chological problems.
Peer pressure is another variable that affects the behaviour of
the adolescents. Peer pressure can be both negative and positive.
The researcher observed that the negative aspect of peer pres-
sure strives more than the positive aspect. Adolescents belong
to one peer group or the other as a source of identity and social
support. They conform to the ideas, beliefs and judgment of the
peer group and they spend much more time, with their peers
than parents. According to Conger and Chao (1996), adoles-
cents spend more time with peers because of low self-esteem,
and internal pressure which makes adolescents susceptible to
peer pressure. The authors believe that adolescents who see
the msel ves as unintelligent, unpopular and unattractive are more
vulnerable to peer pressure because their hunger for a sense of
acceptance and approval compel them to seek such things
through conformity. Roediger (1996) is of the opinion that the
influence of peer group on behavioural development of adoles-
cents can be examined by how they spend their free-time.
Adolescents spend much time with peers and receive less
adult supervision and control. They try to avoid close supervi-
sion by parents. They become more aware of the values and
behaviour of their peer group. And this lures them to some
behavioural problems which are anti-social in nature such as
robbery, cultism, prostitution and drug abuse. In order to feel
belonged and be part of their groups, adolescents sometimes
conform most of the time because of the benefit they derive in
joining their friends. Some of the benefits may be financial
benefits, hailing and acceptance.
Research Instrument
The data for the study were generated through “Adolescent
Behavioural Questionnaire” prepared by the researcher. The
questionnaire contains 18 items and is divided into section A
and B. Section B consists of 18 items which are intended to
find out the cause of behavioural problems among adolescents.
The response format is agree and disagree.
Data Analysis
Chi-Square was used to test the hypotheses. All the hypothe-
ses were tested at 0.05 level of significance.
Population: The population for this study is all students in
the Faculty of Education, Adekunle Ajasin University , Akungba-
Akoko, Nigeria. One hundred (100) students were randomly
sampled from all t he departments and levels.
Hypothesis One: Poverty is not significantly related to be-
havioural problems of adolescents.
The result is significant because the Chi-square calculated is
greater than the table value of 3.841.
Hypothesis Two: Single parenting is not significantly related
to behavioural problems of adolescents.
The result is significant because chi-square calculated is gr-
eater than the table value. The hypothesis is, therefore, not ac-
cepted.
Hypothesis Three: Broken home is not significantly related
to behavioural problems among adolescents.
The result is significant. Therefore, the hypothesis is not ac-
cepted.
Hypothesis Four: Peer Pressure is not significantly related to
behavioural problems among adolescents.
The result is significant. Therefore, the hypothesis is not ac-
cepted.
Discussion
The result in Table 1 shows that there is significant relation-
ship between poverty and adolescents’ behavioural problems.
Factors like inadequate feeding, lack of shelter, hunger and