Effect of family conflicts on childrens' academic performance in Namibia: a case study of Katutura West constituency.

Abstract

Family conflict is a common problem in today’s world. The family relationship seems to be vulnerable and it’s connected effects on individuals like children in school needs some special focus in research and policy making circles. This phenomenon is a huge social problem in developed countries and has been increasing in developing countries as well. As the literature review below shows family conflict can have a negative effect on the academic performance of children. This study therefore aimed to assess the effect of family conflict on children’s academic performance in Katutura West Constituency, Windhoek Namibia. The objectives of the study were: (a) to determine the effects of family conflict on children’s academic performance in Katutura West Constituency; and b) to determine the strategies that can be used to mitigate the effect of family conflict on academic children’s academic performance. The study explored existing theories through which family conflict has been described by various researchers. These include the social conflict theory and the social development theory. The target population of the study was 310 people in Katutura West, which included parents, school teacher’s community leaders and MOE officials. From this population, sample of size of 33 which was representative of the four aforementioned groups was established. A qualitative research design was used for the study, using questionnaires and interviews and documents reviews as data collection instruments. Data gathered during the study were analyzed using Microsoft excel to produce the graphs. The study revealed that forms of family conflict experienced in households of school children in Katutura include verbal disagreements, verbal fights, physical fights and other conflicts, with verbal fights or quarrels, and verbal disagreements being the most prevalent. This can be attributed to stress and misunderstandings. Family conflict was certainly found to have negative impact on children’s academic performance, leading to decline in academic performance, academic failure and school dropout. However among these factors, school drop- out was found to have a major effect on academic performance of children in Katutura, which implies that family conflict has the potential to influence children’s motivation towards in school, thereby resulting in them dropping out. Thus introducing both learners and parents to psychologists is one of the possible solutions to counter the problem.