Name: Adegoke Oluwasegun Isaac

Matric No: 207121

Attendance Number: 2

Department: Health Education

Faculty: Education

Course: HEE 401

Course Title: Population Education

Course Facilitator: Prof. Francisca C. Anyanwu

Assignment: Discuss briefly 10 special populations

that could benefit from population education.
 Special Populations
According to Study.com, special populations refer to individuals or groups who are
experiencing life conditions that would act as barriers to their respective lifestyles. These
barriers are identified as ones which may require additional support and opportunities to
be provided to them in order to provide them with an equal opportunity to survive. The
types of barriers which qualify such individual and groups to be members of special
population groups vary and can change.

Sheikh, M. (2021) defined population education as a structured program of teaching that

focuses on the development of knowledge, skills, beliefs, and values related to population
issues in order to benefit oneself, one's family, and the general public. To avoid an
unprecedented population increase, it is critical to comprehend the notion of population
education.

In Nigeria, the goal of population education is to reach not only those in school system.
As a result, the population education programme must be applied in a variety of areas as
highlighted by Anyanwu C. Francisca in one of her notable writings. Special populations
that can benefit from population education include the following;

1. Single Parents
A single parent, according to Collins English Dictionary, is an individual who is
unmarried or legally separated from a spouse, who has a minor child or children for
whom the parent has either custody or joint custody, or who is pregnant.

Miriam-Webster Dictionary also corroborates this by defining a single parent as a

person who has a child or children but does not have a spouse or live-in partner to assist
in the upbringing or support of the child. Reasons for becoming a single parent include
divorce, break-up, and abandonment, becoming widowed, domestic violence, rape,
childbirth by a single person or single-person adoption. A single parent family is a family
with children that is headed by a single parent. (US Legal Department)

2. Out-of-Workforce Individuals
This is an individual who is a displaced homemaker having worked primarily without
remuneration to care for a home and family, and for that reasoning has diminishing
marketable skills or is unemployed or underemployed and is experiencing difficulty in
obtaining or upgrading employment. (Joint Special Populations Advisory Committee)
 3. Incarcerated Individuals/Prisoners
The Bureau of Justice Statistics defined the incarcerated population as the population of
inmates confined in a prison or a jail. A prisoner (also known as an inmate or detainee),
according to the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary is a person who is deprived of
liberty against their will. This can be by confinement, captivity, or forcible restraint.

The term applies particularly to serving a prison sentence in a prison. “Prisoner” is a legal
term for a person who is imprisoned. (John Rastell, 1636)

In Section 1 of the Prison Security Act 1992, the word "prisoner" means any person for
the time being in a prison as a result of any requirement imposed by a court or otherwise
that he be detained in legal custody.

4. Asylum Seekers
According to UNHCR (19 May 2016), a person becomes an asylum seeker by making a
formal application for the right to remain in another country and keeps that status until
the application has been concluded.

The relevant immigration authorities of the country of asylum determine whether the
asylum seeker will be granted protection and become an officially recognized refugee or
whether asylum will be refused and the asylum seeker becomes an illegal immigrant who
may be asked to leave the country and may even be deported. (Horning A., 2020)

5. Refugees
The first modern definition of international refugee status came about under the League
of Nations in 1921 from the Commission for Refugees. Following World War II, and in
response to the large numbers of people fleeing Eastern Europe, the UN 1951 Refugee
Convention defined "refugee" (in Article 1.A.2) as any person who, owing to well-founded
fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a
particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is
unable to return to it, or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection
of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his
former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is
unwilling to return to it.

6. Orphans
Various groups use different definitions to identify orphans. One legal definition used in
the United States is a minor bereft through "death or disappearance of, abandonment
or desertion by, or separation or loss from, both parents" (USCIS)
In the common use, an orphan does not have any surviving parent to care for them.
However, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), and other groups label any child who has lost
one parent as an orphan. In this approach, a maternal orphan is a child whose mother has
died, a paternal orphan is a child whose father has died, and a double orphan is a
child/teen/infant who has lost both parents. This contrasts with the older use of half-
orphan to describe children who had lost only one parent. (UNAIDS Global Report, 2008)

7. Children in Foster Care/Home

Foster care, according to Wikipedia, is a system in which a minor has been placed into a
ward, group home (residential child care community, treatment center, etc.), or private
home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent" or with a family
member approved by the state. The placement of children is normally arranged through
the government or a social service agency. The institution, group home, or foster parent is
compensated for expenses unless with a family member.

The state, via the family court and child protective services agency, stand in loco parentis
to the minor, making all legal decisions while the foster parent is responsible for the day-
to-day care of the minor. Foster care is correlated with a range of negative outcomes
compared to the general population. Children in foster care have a high rate of ill health,
particularly psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.

8. Racial and Ethnic Minorities

The term 'minorities' has different usages depending on the context. According to its
common usage, minorities can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes
within a population i.e. a group in society with the least amount of individuals is
therefore the 'minority'. (Joseph Healey, 2018).

However, in terms of sociology, economics, and politics; a demographic which takes up

the smallest fraction of the population is not necessarily the 'minority'. For this reason,
Black Africans are the 'minority group', despite the fact that they outnumber white
Europeans in South Africa.

This is why academics more frequently use the term 'minority group' to refer to a
category of people who experience relative disadvantage as compared to members of a
dominant social group.
(Louis Wirth, 1945) defined a minority group as "a group of people who, because of their
physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which
they live for differential and unequal treatment and who therefore regard themselves as
objects of collective discrimination".

9. Homeless Individuals
For the purpose of this assignment, the definition of homeless individuals or persons is
the same as that in P.L. 100-77, the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act,
enacted in July 1987 (U.S. Congress, House, 1987):
 an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence
 an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is—
i. a supervised or publicly operated shelter designed to provide temporary living
accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional
housing for the mentally ill)
ii. an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be
institutionalized
iii. a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping
accommodation for human beings.
This definition refers specifically to homeless individuals, but it is equally applicable to
homeless families.

10. People Living With Disabilities

Disability is part of the human condition. Everyone is likely to experience it, either
permanently or temporarily, at some point in their life (WHO & World Bank, 2011, p. 3).
People with disabilities are diverse and not defined by their disability (Al Ju’beh, 2015, p.
14; WHO & World Bank, 2011, p. 7). Disabilities may be visible or invisible, and onset can
be at birth, or during childhood, working age years or old age. There is no single
definition of disability. (Mitra, 2006, p. 236)

Defining disability is complicated as it is ‘complex, dynamic, multidimensional and

contested’ (WHO & World Bank, 2011, p. 3). The UN Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) recognizes that ‘disability is an evolving concept’
(UNCRPD, 2006, p. 1). Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term
physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various
barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with
others. (UNCRPD, 2006, p. 4).
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