PSYCHO-SOCIAL EFFECT OF SCHOOL VIOLENCE ON ADOLESCENTS IN FEDERAL COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
School violence has become a social problem especially among tertiary institutions students in the contemporary world. The term violence is defined by threats, verbal and physical attacks, vandalism,ostracisation, extortion and other delinquentbehavior perpetrated by students against others in the school community. Exposure of students to violence according to Finekelhor, Ormrod, Turner, Hamby and Kracke (2009) occurs from association with friends, class-mates or an adult. That is, students and adolescents experience violence daily in the homes, schools and communities. Unfortunately, these experiences are likely to facilitate major behavioural and socio-psychological problems evidence in the students interpersonal relationships with others in the school and in most cases carried on to adulthood. Regularly, researches have pointed to the prevalence and existence of violence among students. For instance, the National School Safety Centre (2006) cited that in the Nigeria alone, 28% school violence was recorded in our institutions. According to American Academy of child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2004), nearly half of every child have either witnessed or experienced a violence incident once and upwards of 30% of these children encountering such tormenting behavior on a regular, consistent basis. In addition, an earlier research conducted by Haynie, Nansel, Fitel, Crump, Saylor, Yu& Simons – Morton (2001)affirms the existence andprevence of school violence among students of institutions.
Considering the confirmed prevalence of school violence as reported in researchers, it will not be far-fetch to assume that students who are younger or seen as physically small would be more susceptible to victimization in school. Thus, school violence victims are likely to be higher among transitional students in the higher institution (Graig, 2004). The term transitional students as used in this study refer to young newly admitted students from the secondary school to higher institution.
The need to understood the school violence risks students are exposed to especially at the transitional phase became highly important because most people see threats and physical abuse among earlyadolescents as innocent bullying with no intent to harm or a customary rite of passage that students must unfortunately endure and hopefully overcome (Carney &Merrel 2011;Lipman, 2003; Whitted&DUpper, 2005).
