Case 5: Superintendent handled perpetrator and victim of a fight
2. The role of family and school in restraining violence
2.2. How social control variables relate to student violence
2.2.1 Association between elements of family control and student’s involvement in violence
Overall, all elements of family bonds are found significantly and negatively related to student violence. The findings hence support Hirschi‟s theory in that bonds to conventional society restrain individuals from committing crime. However, it is also found that elements of social bonds have differential restraining strength. In this study, parental attachment and family involvement have modest strength while family commitment and family belief appear weak in predicting student violence. In addition, parental control also has a modest negative association with student violence.
Hereafter, the association between student violence and each element of the social bond according to Hirschi‟s theory and parental control will be presented in detail.
Parental attachment
Parental attachment in this study is an index tapping four aspects of the parent-child affectional relationship. Respondents were asked to check (yes/no) if the following statements accurately described the relationship between them and their parents: (1)
„I often talk to and confide in my parents;‟ (2) „I feel sad when I disappoint my parents;‟ (3) „I feel easy and comfortable when I‟m with my parents;‟ (4) „My parents are a reliable source of support when I am in difficulties.‟
Parental attachment has a modestly negative association with student violence (r= - .171, p<0.001), thus supporting the control theory that affectional ties to conventional society avert delinquent propensity.
It should also be noted that the affectionate relationship between a student and his/her parents revealed in this study appears generally good. 90.9% reported that they felt sad when disappointing their parents, 71.4% felt comfortable when at home with their parents, and 79.6% claimed that their parents are a reliable source of support for them when they are in difficulty. However, most of them do not regularly talk to and confide in their parents (68.8%).
Specifically, the rate of students who lack intimate communication with parents among violence users is higher than among non-violence users (79.4% and 64.9%
respectively).
Table 5: Talking with parents and student’s involvement in school violence
Involvement in school violence
Total
No Yes
Regular talking with parents
No Count 246 139 385
% within school
violence 63.9% 79.4% 68.8%
Yes Count 139 36 175
% within school
violence 36.1% 20.6% 31.3%
This finding is consistent with the finding from fieldwork which reveals that most of the students love their parents but do not confide in them nor seek their help when they meet troubles such as peer conflicts.
Family involvement
This variable measures how regularly and willingly the student is involved in family activities including (1) doing housework, (2) regularly visiting close relatives such as grandparents, (3) taking care of family members when they are sick, and (4) having at least one meal a day with the family. Responses ranged from „Yes, I often take the initiative to do it‟ and „Yes, when I am asked‟ to „Yes, but only once in a while‟ and „I hardly do it.‟
Results shows that family involvement has a modestly negative correlation with student violence (r= -.125, p<.0001). This association shows that the more students spend time with their family, the less peer association they are likely to have and, consequently, peer conflicts.
This finding is consistent with the finding in Warr‟s study (1993) which claimed that the amount of time spent with the family is indeed a factor capable of reducing and even eliminating peer influence. It hence supports Hirschi‟s contention (1969) that by being involved in conventional activities, a youth‟s chance of engaging in delinquency will be reduced.
Family commitment
Family commitment is a variable measuring the extent that a student is committed to family life by asking him/her to assess the importance of four family pillars:
(1) getting married and building one‟s own family; (2) becoming a good husband/wife; (3) being a good parent; (4) taking care of one‟s parents when they get old and weak. Responses covered a four-point scale, from „very important,‟
„somewhat important,‟ „somewhat unimportant,‟ to „completely unimportant.‟
Family belief measures the student‟s assessment of the validity of the core belief underlying Vietnamese families, namely „family members have to take care of and support each other,‟ „children have to do what their parents say,‟ and „junior family members must respect senior members.‟ There are four response options: „strongly agree,‟ „somewhat agree,‟ „somewhat disagree,‟ and „strongly disagree.‟
As for the attachment and involvement components, family commitment and family belief also have a significantly negative effect on student violence, supporting Hirschi‟s theory. However, different from the first two components, the latter two components exert quite a small effect. The correlation coefficient between family commitment and student violence is -.068. The coefficient between family belief and student violence is even lower, at -.046. These results suggest that even though being committed to family life and believing that family values have somewhat of a restraining effect on violence drift, they do not do much to prevent a student from committing violence.
The fact that these family bond components explain very little the variance in student violence may be an effect of Vietnamese culture. Family commitment and family belief are two social bond elements shaped by cultural habits and beliefs, which in Vietnam put a high value on the family (i.e. getting married and having children, taking care of aged parents). Hence, family, to the Vietnamese people in general and to the student in particular, is commonly very important, which results in the small variance of these two family variables and accordingly the small correlation coefficients between them and student violence.
Parental monitoring
For the family bond elements, an increasing level of parental monitoring is also related to a decreasing level of student violence (r = -.164, p<.001), which means that the more control parents have over their child, the less their child may be involved in violent confrontations with peers.
It should be noted that the concept of parental monitoring measured in this study contains not only the methods parents apply to control their children but also parental concern for their child‟s social life. This variable is an index that consists of seven items: (1) My parent(s) know my friends; (2) my parent(s) talk to my close friends whenever possible, (3) my parent(s) know how I conduct myself; (4) when I am not at home, my parent(s) know where I am; (5) my parent(s) know my schedule; (6) my parent(s) do not allow me to associate with juveniles they believe delinquent; and (7) my parent(s) know what I do in my leisure time. This index taps not only what parents do to monitor their children, but also the parent-child rapport, as it asks students to specify how much their parents know about them (e.g. „my parent(s) know about my schedule‟, „my parent(s) know how I conduct myself‟). It should be noted that what parents think they know about their children is sometimes not true. I myself observed this situation several times during my fieldwork. Parents think their children go to school every Thursday afternoon for extracurricular study, while in fact their children go to an internet café to play games online. Therefore, if this index is used to ask parents (e.g. „do you know your child‟s schedule?‟), the answer may not reflect the truth (in fact, it reflects only the parents‟ perception).
However, this index is used to ask students, so the answers truly reflect the state of
parental monitoring; and effective parental monitoring here reflects both close control and a good parent-child rapport.
In sum, the results of this survey support the argument that parental control, when it characterises a good parent-child rapport, helps to reduce the possibility of a student‟s involvement in school violence.