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A Binary Model of Broken Home: Parental Death-Divorce Hypothesis of Male Juvenile Delinquency in Nigeria and Ghana

Violence and Crime in the Family: Patterns, Causes, and Consequences

ISBN: 978-1-78560-263-4, eISBN: 978-1-78560-262-7

Publication date: 3 September 2015

Abstract

Purpose

In terms of the concept of broken home as a juvenile delinquency risk factor, whilst Nigeria and Ghana are culturally different from western nations (Gyekye, 1996; Hofstede, 1980; Smith, 2004), parental death (PDE) and parental divorce (PDI) have been previously taken-for-granted as one factor, that is ‘broken home’. This paper aims to deconstruct the singular model of ‘broken home’ and propose a binary model – the parental death and parental divorce hypotheses, with unique variables inherent in Nigerian/Ghanaian context.

Methodology/approach

It principally deploys the application of Goffman’s (1967) theory of stigma, anthropological insights on burial rites and other social facts (Gyekye, 1996; Mazzucato et al., 2006; Smith, 2004) to tease out diversity and complexity of lives across cultures, which specifically represent a binary model of broken home in Nigeria/Ghana. It slightly appraises post-colonial insights on decolonization (Agozino, 2003; Said, 1994) to interrogate both marginalized and mainstream literature.

Findings

Thus far, analyses have challenged the homogenization of the concept broken home in existing literature. Qualitatively unlike in the ‘West’, analyses have identified the varying meanings/consequences of parental divorce and parental death in Nigeria/Ghana.

Originality/value

Unlike existing data, this paper has contrasted the differential impacts of parental death and parental divorce with more refined variables (e.g. the sociocultural penalties of divorce such as stigma in terms of parental divorce and other social facts such as burial ceremonies, kinship nurturing, in relation to parental death), which helped to fill in the missing gap in comparative criminology literature.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Claire P. Monks for proofreading this paper. I thank Lucinda Platt, Onwubiko Agozino, Justice Tankebe and Sally Mann, for their academic advice. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for useful comments on earlier draft of this paper. My profound gratitude goes to God Almighty for his grace, my family, and friends (Dave, Jovan, Craig, Ben, Sophie) for their emotional support. I am also grateful to all CDT members, the EPSRC and the UK government as part of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Citation

Ibrahim, S. (2015), "A Binary Model of Broken Home: Parental Death-Divorce Hypothesis of Male Juvenile Delinquency in Nigeria and Ghana", Violence and Crime in the Family: Patterns, Causes, and Consequences (Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 311-340. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1530-353520150000009014

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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