CHAPTER 5: PEER GROUP AND ITS EFFECTS ON SCHOOL VIOLENCE
2. Association between students’ witness of violent patterns and their involvement in violence
Exposure to violent patterns in this study is measured by the witnessing of violent incidents among peers. It is argued in this study that the more students witness other students resorting to violence to deal with peer conflicts, the more likely they will be to apply violent solutions to handle their own peer conflicts.
2.1.Rate of students who witnessed student violent incidents
The following figure 23 shows the percentages of students who witnessed one or more violent student incidents in their school during the last school year in the three sampled high schools in Hanoi. Generally, the witnessing rate is significantly higher than the victimisation rate presented in Chapter 3. Overall, up to 90 % of survey respondents reported that they witnessed violent conduct on the part of peers in the school year prior to the survey, whereas the overall rate of students who were victims of violence is 46.8%.
Figure 22: Percentage of students reporting their witness of school violence in the school year prior to the survey, by types of violence
85.7%
47.4%
64.3%
33.3%
27.2%
67.3%
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 swearing and humiliating
intentionally destroying others' belongings verbally threatening threatening using a weapon physical fight fight using weapons
Once again, swearing and humiliating appear to be the most common violent behaviours observed among students on the research sites. 85.7% of survey respondents reported they observed such violent verbal confrontation between their peers. Not surprisingly, fighting with weapons is the least observed among all of the violent behaviours. However, a high rate of 27.2% of students did observe fighting where a weapon was used.
It is alarming that up to 33.3% of the respondents reported that they did witness a student or a group of students using weapons to threaten other student(s), even though most of them observed this type of violence at a low frequency (a few times during a semester). However, this rate is significant in showing that the use of weapons seems to be prevalent among high school students in Hanoi.
„Yes, I did [see a fight where a weapon was used]. Last semester a boy in my class pressed a knife into another boy to threaten him. But he just wanted to threaten; he dared not do anything else. I know him; his truculence is just on the surface. He dares not do anything, even if you paid him a lot.‟ (Girl, grade 12, academic performance: average, S102)
I myself also saw students using knives at school some times over the course of my eight-month fieldwork at S3. Once, when I was talking and eating some fruit with a group of school girls before their class, a boy came and asked if we needed a knife to cut our fruit. Before we answered, he stuck an old kitchen knife on our wooden table. The girls laughed and reacted as if it was a petty joke and the presence of the knife was nothing at all: they continued talking and ignored the knife on the table.
Another time, a 10th-grade boy quarrelled with a group of about 5 to 7 boys from another class in the corridor during recess. Suddenly he took out a knife and angrily threatened his opponents. Fortunately, his classmates, both girls and boys, held him back and took the knife away from him so nothing serious happened between the two angry sides. Some 12th-grade boys told me that „many‟ students, especially boys, brought weapons to school, some to protect themselves and some only to show off. It is not sure what „many‟ means, but it is sure that weapons were sometimes brought to the high school where I conducted my fieldwork.
Even though this type of violence is less serious than physical fighting in terms of instant physical consequences, using a weapon to threaten others portends potential very serious consequences to both the one who threatens and the one who is threatened. The former will be immediately expelled from school if his conduct is discovered, while the latter faces the danger of being seriously injured or even killed. That may be the reason why the rate of students who witnessed threats using a weapon is much lower than those who witnessed physical fighting (33.3% and 67.3% respectively).
The rate of students who witnessed physical fighting in the school year prior to the survey is only lower than the rate of students witnessing their peers using foul language and humiliating one another (67.3% and 85.7% respectively). It is remarkable that the frequency of witnessing physical fighting is also quite high.
According to the survey, up to 14.5% of students reported that they witnessed physical fighting several times a month and 42.3% witnessed it several times a semester.
„I have seen [student fighting] a few times [in the last school year], but I don‟t know any of them [those who fought]. Reasons for fighting are varied.
They [the students] may even beat someone up just because s/he looks unfavourable to them. Jealousy is also a popular reason.‟ (Girl, grade 12, academic performance: good)
It is also alarming that the rate of students who observed student fighting where weapons were used in the last school year is quite high (27.2%). Notably, up to 20.9% of respondents reported they saw fighting using weapons at a frequency of
several times a semester. This rate significantly contributes to the notion that school violence in the sampled schools is prevalent and serious.
In summary, it was found in the survey that the rate of students who witnessed student violence in the school year prior to the survey is very high. In other words, the proportion of students who are exposed to violent patterns is very large.
A question then emerges: Does this bear a relationship to the rampant resorting to violence among high school students as presented in Chapter 3?
2.2. Correlation between witnessing violence and involvement in violence
Regarding the association between a student‟s witnessing violence and subsequently getting involved in violence, the results show that the two variables are positively correlated (r= .336, p <.001). The high correlation coefficient (.336) indicates that the association is quite strong, supporting the differential association theory in that a student‟s contact with violent patterns increases his/her possibility of being involved in violence. The results from this study are consistent with results from other studies (Hoffman 2002, Heimer 1997, Matsueda and Heimer 1987), documenting that learning definitions and patterns favourable to delinquency (or violence in this particular study) induces delinquency. A further discussion on the correlation between student exposure to violent patterns and their involvement in violence will be presented in part 1.4.