EMERGING AND CONTINUING TRENDS OF DEVIANCE SUBCULTURE AND IDENTITIES AMONG UNDERGRADUATES IN NIGERIAN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

Deviance is a continuing problem in Nigerian institutions of higher learning. The deviant subculture has undergone some metamorphoses in the past one decade. The growth of cyber technologies has led to the emergence of a new deviant sub-culture on Nigerian campuses. Cultism and drug addiction that characterized the 1980’s and 1990’s seems to have been overtaken by cyber deviance and academic corruption/fraud. Although, undergraduate deviance has been an age long problem, it is critically under researched in Nigeria. Most sociological and criminological researches on deviance have tended to focus largely on deviance in the larger society, thereby neglecting the perennial problem of deviance in institutions of higher learning. This paper attempts to fill that gap by identifying some emerging and continuing patterns of deviance in Nigerian tertiary institutions and strategies for managing them.