Violence in Schools
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Abstract
Violence in schools is experienced across many countries around the world. There are various types of violence in schools ranging from physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, and verbal among many others. This discussion delves on the questions of violence in schools broadly. Various childhood theories are adopted to enhance understanding of violence behaviors among children. The paper defines violence and discusses violence among children and adolescents in primary and secondary schools. It also covers on the types of violence, causes, the preventive measures, and the consequences of school violence. The causes of violence in schools include environmental factors, community, family, and the introduction of advanced technology, which has contributed to influencing children and adolescents through violent video games. Preventive programs are categorized into three, including school management based programs, environmental modification and educational and curriculum based programs. The paper concludes by proposing the best ways to manage violence cases in schools. It is for all stakeholders including parents, children, teachers, and government to work together to mitigate the violent acts and ensure that children have better future by concentrating on their learning.

Violence in Schools
School environments mold children to become responsible members of the society. These environments nurture and instill discipline and moral virtues in children, to help them become productive members of the society after their schools. Despite the roles that schools play, violence is one of the problems experienced in schools, which deters effective learning. Violence is schools translate into more serious behavioral pattern threats that relate to physical and verbal violence towards the peers and teachers. It also threatens the teaching-learning process in the classroom, social relations and integration in some of the children. Violence is a behavioral intention dimension that implies the use of hostile conduct aimed at causing damage, which is used to achieve someone’s own interest.
This paper delineates on the issues of violence in schools, factoring in different child psychology and development theories. Violence originates from the mind and from learning in the environment, and this is best explained by these theories. The paper further delineates on the various forms of violence, causes, preventive measures, and consequences of violence in schools.
Various child psychology theories help in understanding how children behave and think. One category refers to the psychoanalytical theories developed by Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson. Freud postulates that early childhood experiences affect the development of a child. Therefore, a child raised in a violent environment will be affected. Erikson uses eight stages of development that an individual goes through until maturity and end of life. Every stage has its own characteristics (Bosacki, 2013). Cognitive theories of development on the other hand look at how thought processes and mental operations influence change and growth. One of the proponents of these theories is Jean Piaget, who suggests that children are not passive receivers of information, but they construct their own knowledge and understanding of the world (Bosacki, 2013). These theories are therefore relevant in explaining why children engage in violent behaviors. The things they learn and share with others lead them to behave violently. Furthermore, there are aggression environmental theories that explain why children engage in violent behaviors in school. One of the theories is social learning, which postulates that aggressive behaviors are learnt by observing praises made to those that have engaged in violent behaviors (Bosacki, 2013). Social interaction theory states that aggression is a product of interaction with people that are violent in the social environment. Therefore, these theories contribute to understanding children’s aggression and violent behaviors.
School violence is a kind of behavior that includes the general characteristics of violent behaviors perpetrated by kids and adolescents. These behaviors are manifest in the primary and secondary schools where children stay together for the duration of time. In the school context, it therefore implies that these violent behaviors are done by children who have failed to comply with the school rules and regulations (Kuntsche, 2004). Most of the children who engage in violent behaviors in school have different reasons for their behavior. Some of them want to achieve and maintain high social status, some have power and want to control others, others are vengeful and some want to challenge the authority by opposing the established social controls they feel to be oppressive. Others may want to experiment new risky behaviors, which make them practice violence and other anti-social conducts (Kuntsche, 2004).
Different types of violence exist. Children engage in violence to hurt others or for fun, intentionally for their own gratification and feeling of high self-esteem. The types of violence experienced in schools include the physical, sexual, emotional, psychological and verbal violence (Newfound land Labrador, 2013). The common form of physical violence is bullying, which consists of such acts as shoving, puling, burning, assaulting, stabbing, murder, kicking, pinching, biting, and choking among many others. Emotional violence includes behaviors such as calling names, constant criticism, threats, intimidating, threatening to commit suicide and many others. Verbal violence happens when someone uses language either oral or non-verbal to cause harm to others. This kind of violence is not limited to cursing, repeated insults, expressing negative expectations and name-calling. Most bullies in schools achieve this through physical, verbal, and relational strategies. Relational burliest usually gossip and spread rumors about someone, tell someone to stop looking others or ignore, or to stop talking to others (Lindstrom, 2009). The motivation for such behaviors is to achieve some basic needs, which include need to stand out. The aggressor wants to stand out and to be seen, accepted, and praised by others. There is also need for power, as they want to feel more powerful than their peers. Other motivations for the behavior are the needs to feel different and emotional void.
The causes of violence in schools are diversified. Various studies conducted have related school violence on different factors. Reviews by Hawkers & Boulton (2000) based on a study conducted for two decades indicated that victimization and violence in school were associated with loneliness, depression, both generalized and societal anxiety, and low global and social self-worth. Other causes were linked to low academic achievement, school avoidance, lack of school enjoyment, rejection, having few friends, low friendship quality, and peer group pressure (Hawkers & Boulton, 2000). According to the Constitutional Rights Foundation (2013), cyber abuse and cyber bullying is one major cause of violence in schools. The introduction of technology in schools has allowed students to access to various violent video games. Video games affect the behaviors of the children by causing them to become violent. In a study conducted at Ohio State University that explored on the effects of violent video game exposure on adolescents and children, it found out that children who were exposed more to violent video games were likely to have more violent attitude. Furthermore, they were less forgiving, had personalities that were more hostile, and believed violence to be normal, which contributed to violence in school (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2013). Email and cell phone texting is a new form of violence, which is also called cyber bullying and occurs among students. They insult others through their cell phones and computers.
Environmental impact is a major influence of violent behaviors in school. The school environment or setting can be a cause of violence in school (Johnson, Burke & Gielen, 2011). Violence is likely to occur in schools which have poor leadership to instill discipline among the children. The history of the children also contributes to the violent behaviors among them. The size of the school also plays a role in the rate of violence; a school with high population is likely to have problems of violence compared to those with low population because governing and monitoring their behavior and conduct is easier (Johnson, Burke & Gielen, 2011). Community environments also play a part in the school violence. If communities neglect their children and fail to take good care of them, this is likely to result to children engaging in violent behaviors (Johnson, Burke & Gielen, 2011). Parents should monitor their children at home to ensure that they do not join peers that influence them negatively. Transformation of communities is also associated with school violence. Constantly shifting school demographics is an indication of upheavals as the communities undergo change in economic well being, size, ethnic, and racial mix.
Family environments are other causes of violence in schools. Parents have the responsibility to nurture and teach their children to behave well and reinforce positive behaviors (Constitutional Rights Foundation, 2013). Good parents that provide good care of their children help to protect their children from engaging in violent acts in school. Even though schools help in molding behaviors, they are restricted to some levels and this requires that parents and family involve in nurturing and inculcating good morals to their children. Parents should be responsible to ensure that they do not discriminate in terms of providing and loving their children, should support them financially, show not to have high expectations from their children, should avoid domestic and child abuse, and should lead by example and by not engaging in bad behaviors such as irresponsible drinking and violent acts. They should also enhance communication, provide affective cohesion, avoid regular conflicts, and avoid authoritarian parental styles (Lambert & Cashwell, 2003).
After knowing the causes of violence in schools, it is important to find amicable ways of preventing them. The question of managing or preventing violence in the classroom and in the school has been asked but has various possibilities. The three types of preventive programs include school managed based programs, environmental modification, and educational and curriculum-based programs (Dolan, 2013). School managed based programs are restricted in the school and to children. These programs focus on alternative schooling and integrating law enforcement within the schools to ensure that such behaviors are not experienced in schools. The environmental modification program aims at changing the environment of the student. Examples of these programs include using of hiIDen cameras, metal detectors, monitoring after school programs, and decreasing the size of the school to help in curbing such violence practices.
The educational and curriculum based programs are the least drastic programs that attempt to eradicate violence in schools by educating the children and creating awareness through the curriculum and education on life skills (Dolan, 2013). Even though these programs have little empirical research that proves their effectiveness, they are essential and can be incorporated or used in tandem with other different disciplinary measures such as suspension, expulsion, student conduct discipline code, school board policy, and collaboration with other agencies. Other methods are staff development, alternative programs in school, locker searches, mediation training/conflict resolution, mentoring programs, law related education programs, parental skill training, support groups, security personnel’s in schools , drug detecting dogs, volunteer parent patrols, and closed circuit televisions among many others.
It is important to note that these programs and disciplinary measures will work properly in different school settings (Dolan, 2013). They cannot work in all schools and therefore, the use and adoption should be discretionary. Incentive systems can also be of great value in eradicating violent behaviors in schools. Children who behave well and avoid such behaviors should be rewarded, while those that defy the school rules should be punished. In giving discipline, it should be based on good decisions to ensure that they help in promoting positive virtues in the student.
School violence has negative effects. It affects most of the schools as it leads to panic among the children and teachers. Behaviors such as bullying and harming others are bad to the image of the school. It also causes negative effects as it ruins the atmosphere of the school. Children may not find amicable environment to engage in their learning process (Lindstrom, 2009). Most of them, especially those that involve in such acts, will not perform well in their studies and therefore ruin their future. Such students also cause trouble to their classmates and this affects their level of concentration. This affects their future because they cannot get enough time to concentrate with their studies. It also causes tension and stress to most parents. It is the wish of parents to see their children learn and excel in their studies. Such acts affect them psychologically. The school’s image and reputation is usually worsened and it makes the people to disassociate with such schools. This affects the motivation of children and parents, which contributes to poor performance in such schools.
Violence in school is a real problem. There are various reasons that cause this form of violence as explained in the discussions. Most of these causes are related to environmental, family, technology, and community. Theories of child development explain how these behaviors are adopted and what should be factored when aIDressing violence among children in schools. Various strategies can be used to mitigate this behavior in schools. The environment should be made conducive to deter such behaviors, education curriculum should also be tailored to teach and create awareness to help the children to shun away from violent behaviors. The consequences of violence are dire and usually affect the children themselves. They ruin their future, as they cannot concentrate with their studies. They also interfere with other children that have the desire to learn and this affects their performance. It also affects the image of the schools and causes psychological problems to the parents. Violence in schools is therefore a problem that requires support from all the stakeholders including the parents, teachers, the children and the government. The parties should come together and play their roles well to ensure that they solve these problems and safeguard the future of children.

References
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