Effect Of Gender And Families Socio-economic Status On Academic Performance Of Secondary School Students
[IN IDEMILI - SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF ANAMBRA STATE]

Mba (1991) lamented that poverty of the parents has made education and learning impossible for children especially disabled children in the rural areas. He maintained that poverty has further caused other problems, such as disease, frustration, poor performance, and psychological problems.
Most parental income was found not to be sufficient to sustain the academic and personal social life of the students in school. This to a large extent affects the psychological balance in the classroom, which causes them low concentration, low perception frustration, sickness and emotional disability. The result of all these is that  when many children from low socioeconomic status run into this type of difficult challenges, they engage in negative self-talk and may perceive their failures as challenges they cannot overcome. They may not increase their efforts and may become despondent if they interpret failure to mean they are personally deficient. Because of the culture they live in, they may also feel exploited or disrespected and thus they begin to respond hostilely.
Levitt, S. and Dubner S. (2005) have hypothesized that children whose parents are of a higher socioeconomic status are more likely to have higher IQs, test better, and advance their education further than those of a lower socioeconomic status. According to them, this may be due to several reasons. First, there is genetics: if the parents received advanced education, they are probably intelligent and therefore passed that on to their children. These parents are more likely to value education because of their experience in the effects of higher education. Conversely, students whose parents don't have advanced degrees don't have time or money to spend on helping their children advance to a higher level. Therefore, a cycle is created where those in middle and lower classes generally perform below average in academics.
In conclusion therefore, parental income has been identified to be a cogent factor upon which the academic success of secondary school students lies. This why Johnson (1996), declared that poverty of parents has elastic effects on the children’s academic performance; therefore, if a child is deprived of the essential needs, he may be found to perform poorly in his schoolwork.
EMPIRICAL REVIEW OF THE STUDY
As we have noted earlier in the theoretical framework, social status is the standing one holds in the society based on prestige. It is affected by a number of factors such as occupation, wealth, education, and family background. In stratified societies, people are divided into social classes that are valued differently in the society. In Wikipedia encyclopedia, social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. Social class influences socioeconomic status because how people are treated depends on the class they come from, which may be determined by various factors.
In stratified societies, social status endows different value to individual members of the society. If education and wealth are considered main indicators of social status, then education will become more valued, and more expensive. Hence, low socioeconomic status strongly influences the varying student perspectives on the value and attainability of basic education. The probability of students attending schools, especially of higher education is more likely in students from the family with higher socio- economic background. This is because the increasing cost of colleges and universities seems to be a deterrent for students from the family with lower socioeconomic status. Students may feel that cost itself would hold them back.
Recent studies conducted by some researchers have proven the above hypothesis to be true. For instance, Akanle (2007) conducted a study that examines the socio-economic factors influencing students' academic performance in Nigeria, with some explanations from Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State. The time frame of the study covers the period of 2004 to 2007. A total of one hundred and twenty (120) copies of questionnaire were administered to respondents. The target populations for the study were the secondary school students in three selected secondary schools in the area. They were made up of 60 male students and 60 female students. The major instrument used in collecting data for the study was the self-developed instrument tagged social-economic and academic performance rating scale of the students. The data collected were analyzed using t-test at (0.05 alpha level). The result revealed that the male score a mean of 21.68 while female out scored with 22.4. From the score of the respondents, it is evident that the home/family contributed a lot to the academic performance of the students. Parental income was identified in this work to be a cogent factor upon which the academic/vocational success of secondary school students lies. This was found to be low in the sub-rural areas in Ido in which this study covers. Most parental income was found not to be sufficient to sustain the academic and personal social life of the students in school. This to a large extent affects the psychological balance of the students in the classroom, which causes low concentration, low perception frustration, sickness and emotional disability in academic performance of the students.