Original articleAre There Detrimental Effects of Witnessing School Violence in Early Adolescence?
Section snippets
Participants
Participants (51.6% boys) were aged 11–15 years (mean = 12.8, SD = .72) when recruited in 2000 at the beginning of seventh grade. In Québec, high schools include students from grade 7–11 (i.e., those 12–17 years old). The participants came from two private (n = 192 and n = 137) and three public French-Speaking schools (n = 296, n = 231, and n = 248; 70.2% of total sample) from the Montreal area (Quebec, Canada). This sample (N = 1104) comprised mainly students of Caucasian background (87.2%, of
Results
Table 1 reports the distribution of the participants according to the frequencies of having been victimized and witnessed school violence. Results underscore that witnessing violence was much more prevalent than victimization. A majority of students were never victims of school violence, but most of them witnessed or had heard about incidents. For the most violent acts, witnessing violence was limited to a few times during the year or during the past months. However other conducts were observed
Discussion
The results of this study show that students need not be direct victims of school violence to suffer from it. Witnessing violence diminishes their well-being. Exposure to violent interactions makes them more likely to conduct themselves aggressively, dislike school, and even avoid it. Such violence is not necessarily extreme or spectacular. The effects of exposure were perceptible in the context of an average school day, where violent acts are less severe yet much more frequent. The remarkable
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