Gender and academic success in social studies: a nigerian perspective

Abstract

The objective of this Study is to comprehensively understand how gender influences academic success in Social Studies among students in Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive research design of the ex-post facto. The population of the study consisted of 21,510 student in Junior Secondary Schools in the 16 Local Government Areas of Ekiti State, Nigeria. The sample of the study consisted of 600 students selected using multistage random procedure. This was done by first dividing the state into three senatorial districts. The second stage was the selection of a Local Government Area from each of the senatorial districts after which four schools were selected from each of the LGAs using simple random sampling techniques making it a total of 12 schools. In each of the schools selected, 50 students were sampled taking into consideration their gender. Hence, 25 male and 25 female students were sampled in each of the schools selected for the study. This made it a total of 600 students. A self-design instrument tagged, Questionnaire on Gender Influence and Inventory on Students Performance in Social Studies were used to collect data for the study. The instruments were administered by the researcher through the help three trained research assistants. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics of frequency counts mean, standard deviation, and bar charts. The finding of the study revealed that the trend in the performance of male and female students are across different score range are similar, societal norms and cultural expectations significantly impact the academic performance of male and female students in Social Studies, economic background influences access to educational resources for both male and female students in Social Studies, teachers' attitudes significantly shape performance differences between male and female students in Social Studies and societal norms and cultural expectations, economic background, teachers' attitudes, and peer interactions significantly predict the performance of female students in Social Studies. It was recommended among others that there should be the implementation of awareness in schools and communities to challenge and change societal norms and cultural expectations that negatively impact students' academic performance.