Parental Income and Student Discipline: Evidence from Catholic Diocese Secondary Schools in Morogoro, Tanzania

The issue of discipline among students is one of the questions which are that is of concern to not only educators, but also parents, especially in secondary schools, where the manner of the adolescent students is influenced by a wide range of social and economic factors. This research basically studies the role of the income level of parents on the discipline of the students in a sample of secondary schools owned by the Catholic Diocese of Morogoro. Mainly, it concentrates on the role of different socio-economic variables/conditions concerning parental income, employment, and family socio-economic stability in ensuring that students stick to school regulations, behaviour and academic achievements. The study aims to examine how economic security levels in the household influence the character of students and how the issues related to consistent discipline in the school environment can be addressed. The convergent mixed design will be most appropriate when carrying out this research study. The guiding principle of Family Systems Theory can be explained by the fact that it studies behaviour through the inclusion of the family system. The study was conducted in five privately run secondary schools in Morogoro Municipality, and the sample size used was 60 respondents, who were the students, the teachers, the school heads, and parents. Data was collected in the form of questionnaires; the methods of qualitative research were applied. Through the analysis, it can be seen how the families that have a higher level of income and formal employment perform much better in terms of discipline since those students have more chances of following the rules of the school, behaving more maturely, and receiving better grades. Conversely, lower and unemployed families are likely to produce students having difficulties meeting school regulations, but mostly because of their restricted access to assets, the absence of parental oversight, not to mention the problems of the economically strained families. Also, the parental involvement has been observed more in the case of the family with a stable income, which has led to more disciplined students. From the findings, most of the teachers and head teachers do not believe that income level has any influence on the students' acts, but rather that they are influenced by their own family`s acts. The study concluds that parents' socio-economic status is critical towards influencing behaviour amongst students and advocates the need for interventions which focus on the work of the students who are economically disadvantaged and which would address the issue of discipline amongst such students. The paper suggests that the schools can undertake to improve the involvement of parents in the school, mentor and counsel the needy learners and implement policies that would alleviate the impact of social and economic differences on the discipline of students. This paper contributes to the scarcity of the literature on socio-economic factors of student behaviour in private secondary education in the context of Tanzania and usefully informs educators, policymakers, and parents about the way to influence the holistic development of students based on empirical evidence.