Teachers’ and Students’ Attitudes Toward Disruptive Behaviour and Disciplinary Styles: A Comparative Analysis of England and Nigeria

The issue of disruptive behaviour in schools has become a major stress and concern to teachers. However, in order to minimize these behaviours, teachers are utilizing various disciplinary strategies. The aim of this study was to examine students’ and teachers’ attitudes toward disruptive behaviour and disciplinary styles and to compare the views of the participants from Nigeria and England. 285 students and 41 teachers from high school completed the disruptive behaviour and disciplinary styles questionnaires which contain behaviours and intervention methods commonly reported in high schools. These questionnaires measure individual’s attitudes toward behaviour problems and the strategies used to regulate such behaviour. The results depict that there is a relationship between disruptive behaviour and disciplinary styles. Significant difference was found among nationality, gender, student and teacher toward disruptive behaviour and disciplinary styles. Nationality also significantly predicted disruptive behaviour, while aggressive style and relationship based style of discipline predicted juvenile delinquency and school misconduct respectively. In conclusion, the style of discipline adopted in school is associated with students’ judgement of behaviour. The implications of the findings to disciplinary styles that may be most effective at regulating disruptive behaviour are discussed. Keywords: Disruptive behaviour, disciplinary styles, attitudes, student, teacher.

Poverty Implications of COVID-19 and Government Social Protection Programmes in Nigeria

The sole objective of this paper was to investigate the poverty implications of COVID-19 on Nigerians, relative to the effectiveness of the government’s social protection programs in mitigating the socioeconomic strain caused by the pandemic. The paper used documentary analysis to assess the impact of COVID-19 on Nigerians’ socioeconomic lives and the government’s policy response to the situation. The review found that COVID-19 exacerbated the existing poverty in Nigeria, and most of the government policy programs were not effective in mitigating the effects. We concluded that government policy responses to the socioeconomic strain caused by the pandemic were ineffective due to the pre-existing poor performance of social protection programs in Nigeria before the onset of COVID-19. As the world prepares for future pandemics, we recommend that the Nigerian government overhaul the existing social protection programs on poverty alleviation in Nigeria by addressing all gaps and looking for effective and strategic ways such programs can achieve desirable results