EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT AND CHANGE IN CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR: A QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT CONDITIONS AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR

Abstract

Among all social environments, educational environment is an important factor which contributes to the development of behavioural norms social values, knowledge, social skills and mechanism of social control. Some elements of educational environment like education curriculum, character building programs, teaching methods, educational opportunities, vocational education, and teacher student relation may be considered as important to understand the changes in Criminal behaviour. This study focused on examining the association between educational environment and change in criminal behavoiur using quantitative data collected from 384 respondents of the district North Waziristan previously known as FATA Pakistan. The variable educational environment was measured by ten questionnaire items which covered curriculum, moral education, teaching methods, educational opportunities, school dropouts, character building programs, discipline, vocational education, educational reforms and teacher student relationships in school. Reliability analysis showed excellent internal consistency for educational environment scale, Cronbach’s α= 0.974. Descriptive results demonstrated a consistently high affirmative responses across all individual items ranging from 80.7% to 82.8%. At item level analysis the Pearson’s Chi-Square and Fisher’s Exact Test were utilized to find out association between these ten individual questionnaire items and change in Criminal Behaviour. All items indicated statistically significant results with fisher’s exact test and Chi Square results with p values ranging from 0.016 to <0.001. Similarly, at the composite level analysis both the variables were statistically significant at Pearson’s  α(4) = 321.214, p < 0.001.  the results produced statistically significant relationship between educational environment and change in criminal behaviour. However, it is worth mentioning here that as this study was cross sectional and based on bivariate association and therefore, does not show the proof of causation.  The study ends with the findings that educational reform, effective teaching methodology, educational opportunities, positive institutional relationships, moral education and supportive school environments deserve consideration within broader criminological prevention strategies.