Family Socio-Economic Background

INTRODUCTION

Family is generally is the smallest social unit in society. In Tanzania it consist of a man, his wife, children and other immediate relations that is extended as different from the nuclear family. The family has among others roles the responsibilities of socializing and providing the basic needs of the child as explained by Okorodudu, 2010. Implicitly, a child’s family socio-economic background may impact the child’s self-concept and academic achievement including resources and prestige within a community. Also Jencks 91978) said that a family is the oldest human group and basic one and a particular form of a family structure may and does vary from society to society. A family play a crucial role in the dissemination of

Hence, SEB can be defined as a composite measure of income, level of education and occupational prestige. Some studies argue that higher levels of SEB directly leads to more positive attitudes toward schooling in children and positive attitude leads to higher academic achievement. Wells, at al (2000) pointed out that socio-economic background is a most critical variable in the determination of achievement, stressing that the opportunity to achieve success is influenced by learning, availability of issue of socioeconomic background and its relationship to students’ achievement can also be explored specifically on the level of parental education, income and occupation. Literature on academic achievement seems to show that parent level of education is important in predicting children’s academic achievement as said by Klebanov, at al (1994). In the other hand Haveman & Wolfe, 1995) argued that father’s occupation, social status and life style have considerable influence on the ease or difficulty with which students can gain recognition in the society. In other words, it is observed that, to a large extent, parents’ social status may determine the influence of home in the student’s up-bringing special help at home, reference materials and tutors. Another relating factor is energy level which reflects the quality of

The study of these students with modal age of 16 years, reveal that socio-economic status of the parents influence students’ in secondary school education involvement. In another setting, Khan and Jemberu, (2002) studie the influence of family and socioeconomic background on educational achievement and occupational aspirations of high and low achieving adolescents. The sample consisted of 80 students selected from 4 four socio-economic status. These are the high, middle, low and lower classes. Results showed that the impact of socioeconomic background on educational achievement was not