Relationship between students’ self-esteem, orphanhood and educational performance in nyeri and kirinyaga counties, kenya.

ABSTRACT

The environment in which a child is brought up is likely to influence the level of self- esteem of the child. As such, the death of parents that results in orphanhood may have setbacks on the development of self-esteem of orphans. The orphanhood crisis that has overwhelmed Africa is largely associated with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, road accidents and land clashes. The death of prime age adults has jeopardized the wellbeing of orphaned children thus compromising their opportunities and development of self-esteem of such students. In effect, the purpose of this study was to find out the relationship between the students‟ self-esteem and orphanhood in Kirinyaga and Nyeri Counties, Kenya. This study was guided by Maslow‟s theory of hierarchy of needs, Bowlby‟s theory of attachment, Erikson‟s theory of psychosocial stages and Carl Rogers‟ self theory. The hypotheses of the study tested the level of self-esteem between orphan and non-orphan students, relationship between gender of orphans and self-esteem, relationship between socio-economic status and self-esteem, duration of students‟ orphanhood and self-esteem and gender differences in self-esteem among orphans and non-orphans The study was a survey, which utilized casual comparative research design. According to district education offices in the three districts, the total population of students in the districts was 58,448. Out of this population, 426 students constituted the sample of this study. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. The questionnaire was pre-tested to establish its validity and reliability before being administered to the respondents. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to aid in data analysis. In data analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics was used. In descriptive, frequencies, percentages, and standard deviation were employed. In inferential statistics, Chi-square and t test and ANOVA were employed. The major finding in this study was that orphans registered lower self-esteem than non orphans. The government should come up with comprehensive policies to promote the wellbeing of the orphans either reaching the orphans through local administrators or teachers in schools. This would contribute to self-esteem enhancement of the orphans. The school administrators and teacher counsellor may help in providing appropriate interventions to such students through guidance and counselling to enhance their self-esteem for effective leaning and personal growth. Self-esteem was also found to be influenced by gender therefore; the socialization by the society should not be gender discriminative that is all children should be treated the same way. The Government should also initiate policies that would enable orphans to retain the property of the deceased parents in an attempt to make them meet their physiological needs. The Government should asses the standards of all orphanages since the orphans in these institutions registered the lowest self-esteem level and find out the reasons behind this finding.