Abstract:
The purpose of this research is to ascertain the life expectations of street children. Structured in-depth interviews, containing questions on personal characteristics, life history and parental background as well as educational, occupational, family expectations, were administered to a sample of 36 male and 14 female street children who were provided refuge at the Foundation for The Better Life of Children. Indices of education, occupation family and community life expectations were constructed. The responses were analyzed by using SPSS-X. The results show that 76% of the children have low educational expectations, 20% have moderate and 4% high expectations, Sixty percent of the children have low occupational expectations. The remaining 40% have moderate expectations. With respect to family, 76% have low expectation; 24% have moderate expectations. Community life expectations are somewhat higher with 38% of the sample having low expectations and 62% having moderate expectations Overall, however, 64% of the children have low life expectations and the rest (36%) have moderate life expectations. The sex and age of respondents did not significantly (p < .05) affect their life expectations. Parental characteristics wee also found to have no significant (p < .05) effect. When disaggregated by birth place, however, it is found that there is a significant difference in the life expectations of those from the Central and Northern parts of country.