Discrimination against Religious Minorities in Nigeria: An Analysis with Reference to Human Development in the 21st Century

  This study examines religious discrimination against religious minorities like Muslims living in Christian populated areas in the south east, Christians are as well living in Muslim dominated areas. Minority Traditional worshippers in either Muslim or Christian majority areas, private institution, companies owned by Christians or Muslims etc. The discrimination against religious minorities has mitigated the peaceful co-existence among religious identities and other major life events which has culminated national development in all spheres of human engagement such as economic, social, political, security, etc. The researchers have tried to provide an analytical study of the empirical data as well as of the existing literature. The result of our findings shows that many religious identities have been denied of securing job opportunities, professing religion of their choice, finding it difficult to receive health care services, managing religious institutions, denied of equal rights of citizens, get political appointments, among others. The study recommends that people of different religions should embrace and tolerate one another, avoid the use of fanaticism, allow religious minorities to practice religion of their choice in order to dislodge prejudices from the society.

Relationship of Institutional and Social Factors With Adolescents’ Socialization and Attitude Towards Learning

This study was designed to explore the relationship of the institutional and social factors with adolescents’ socialization and attitude towards learning. It further aimed to highlight the impact of demographic variations such as adolescents’ age, gender, academic achievement, parents’ qualification and socio–economic status of the family on their socialization and attitude towards learning. The objectives also included to discover which of the factors influence students’ socialization and attitude towards learning more; institutional or social. For measurement of the perception of adolescents, teachers and parents about the adolescents’ socialization and attitude towards learning three indigenous inventories were developed separately, each having four subscales. Teachers’ role, discipline, hidden curriculum, peer relationship were the subscales of the variable institutional factors. The variable social factors have four subscales such as, relationship with parents, home environment, media impact and community influence. For the variable socialization the four subscales were positivity, confidence, self-respect, organized. For the variable attitude towards learning the four subscales were responsibility, behavior, diligence and decision making. The sample was comprised of 300 students; 200 teachers and 200 parents taken from the population. The data was analyzed through various statistics on SPSS. Results revealed that there was a remarkable difference in the perception of adolescents, teachers and parents regarding the impact of various institutional and social factors on adolescents’ socialization and attitude towards learning. Adolescents whose parents were highly qualified were better in their socialization. It was also concluded that when the adolescents were asked to compare their relationship with the teachers and with the peers they answered that peer have a stronger impact on their attitude towards learning rather than teachers. It is recommended to bridge the communication gap between the adolescents and their adults. Supportive and caring relationship with the teachers’ help adolescents build the attitude towards learning and would promote academic achievement. Teachers may learn to deal with the variations in the nature of adolescents that vary from individual to individual which is also commonly known as the individual differences. Parents may build a friendly relationship with their children based on trust, peace and harmony.