The study examined the relationship between family attachment patterns and school adjustment of secondary school adolescents in Rivers State. The study adopted correlational design targeted at establishing the relationship between family attachment patterns and school adjustment. A total of 1,000 adolescent students were drawn through multi-stage sampling technique. They responded to two questionnaires titled; Attachment Style Classification Questionnaire (ASCQ) and School Adjustment Scale (SAS) on a four point scale. These instruments were validated and had reliability coefficient values of 0.733 for ASCQ and 0.728 for SAS respectively. Four research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. Relevant data gathered were analyzed with Pearson Product Moment Correlation statistic and multiple regression analysis as statistical tools. The results of the study showed that there is a positive relationship between family attachment patterns and school adjustment which are all statistically significant at 0.05 level of significance. Also, family attachment patterns-secure, anxious/ambivalent and avoidance collectively predict school adjustment of secondary school adolescents. The predictive relationship with an F-ratio of 204.638 was statistically significant at 0.05 level of significance. In addition, the three family attachment patterns, jointly explains 38.5% of the variance in school adjustment of secondary school adolescents. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that families should be encouraged by stakeholders such as teachers, counsellors, school authorities etc to support their children and wards with school adjustment challenges in view of the fact that family attachment patterns relate with adolescents school adjustment.
Keywords: Adolescents, Family Attachment Patterns, Rivers State, school adjustment
