VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS

ABSTRACT


Within the Jamaican educational space, school personnel in secondary schools believe that way to address deviant behaviour of pupils is the traditional physical punishment. They perceive that acts of violence can only be ameliorated by flogging, expulsion, detention and suspension. The panacea for pupils' social deviance is embedded within corporal reprimand. This study explores the mechanism of correctional interventions used by school personnel and their influence on violent behaviours. The zeitgeist in respect to violent behaviour reduction of pupils in secondary school was primarily using the non-traditional mechanisms. The students revealed that most effective medium in address acts of violence in school is counseling and not ?'zero tolerance'. Flogging was found to be a marginal deterrent in alleviating acts of violence at school and equally so was suspension. Expulsion, on the other hand, was highly effective in address issues relating to ?'shooting' whereas counsel was most effective in addressing issue relating to threats, stealing, physical confrontation and ?'stabbing'. This research provides an insightful analysis of corrective mechanisms used by school personnel and students' perspective on their effectiveness in addressing acts of violence.



Chapter One



INTRODUCTION


The desire to conduct this study spawns from the level of concern caused by violence in our schools. Besides causing physical harm there is the psychological distress associated with violence. It is important that the school environment be free from fear and experience the desired level of safety. This is only achievable if the worsening trend of violence were eradicated. Teachers and students alike should be able to perform in a safe setting conducive to learning. The problem is an ongoing one therefore this study will concentrate on an evaluation of the effects and the methods used to prevent violence among grades 10 and 11 students. This will help to shed more light on the matter and will help to create awareness for school administrators and stakeholders of the various strategies, which are workable.

Schools have been portrayed as unsafe places, characterized by rapes, shootings, stabbings and beatings. The occurrence of acts of violence in the form of verbal threats, cursing, name-calling or fights is more frequent (Bastian &Taylor, 1991).

Grumpel and Meadan (2000) stated that although there is widespread violence in schools and it has been receiving much attention there is still a lack of clarity as to what constitutes school-based violence. This, some believe, may influence the reporting of prevalence rates. Batsche and Knoff (1994) stated that school violence is usually defined by acts of assault, theft, and vandalism or acts that may not be intentional but cause fear in either teacher or student. Gumpel and Meadan (2000) further classified aggressive behaviors as either acts that are clearly violent as in the case of those inflicting bodily harm or lower level type consisting of those including teasing, bullying or name-calling.
For the purpose of this research, violence is defined as behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill (Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2002).

Although it is proving difficult to control the violence in schools, there is still the expectation that some form of order be maintained. This is of particular importance as besides being a threat to the personal safety of students and teachers, violence in schools is a challenge to the authority of school officials. When violence occurs on a school compound, it is viewed as an evident loss of authority (Norguera, 1995). The contributors to violence among adolescence have been attributed to several factors. These include conditions in the home such as harsh and ineffective parental discipline, (McEvoy & Walker, 2000) and frustration caused by students' inability to resolve conflict (Johnson, Johnson & Dudly, 1992; Skiba & Peterson, 2000).



By Paul Andrew Bourne