SCHOOLS AS SAFE PLACES, AND SAFE PLACES WITHIN SCHOOLS

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CHAPTER3 SOCIO•EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM AREAS IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY VVHICH INFLUENCE THE SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR OF CHILDREN

INTRODUCTION

In the past, the relationship between the individual and institutions of socialisation was less complex than today: Children were educated primarily by the mother and family in the home, and as they grew became educated as well by persons associated with local institutions such as school and church. Kidder (2000) refers to this state of affairs as a « three-legged stool … the typical community had an ethics delivery system that rested on the three legs of home, church, and school ». Historically, the home and family, and then peers, school, and work described the educative society of the child in the past. Today, however, the influence of home and church have to a degree decreased; the school remains largely alone in carrying out (or attempting to carry out) much of the educative functions that in the past were shared with parents, home, and church. Kidder describes this quite colourfully: « Modern society, it appears, has kicked away the first two legs », leaving school as the figurative last leg of a one-legged stool. In modern society, schools now serve as the major institution devised by the adult generation for maintaining and perpetuating the culture, providing the necessary tools for survival by transmitting values and knowledge (Ornstein & Levine 2000:277).

LEGACIES OF APARTHEID AND SEGREGATION

In all societies, and especially in industrialized societies, schools have represented the means for upward mobility; that is, for those without inherited wealth or position, schools (because of the careers they open up) have been the main and only pathways poor people had in order to achieve a better life. Historically, this opportunity to achieve a career through education has been blunted for persons living in poverty and/or those of low socio-economic status throughout the world. This situation continues to exist today, and especially acute with regard to Black African and Black African-American youth. African-American and South African authors Janine Bempechat and Solie Abrahams (1999) draw a connection between Black South Africans and African-Americans with regard to their achievement experiences. Other authors have agreed that, due to racism and prejudice, both groups have developed an approach to education that differs from mainstream culture (Ogbu 19940). African-American students, for example, are hindered in school achievement, for they are perceived to be members of a lower caste who experience inordinate ambivalence and affective dissonance toward success in school. They have a burden to act White if they are to be seen as being successful by mainstream society (Fordham & Ogbu 1986). As a result, African-Americans have developed an oppositional frame of reference. Young African-Americans may discourage each other from doing well in school, to avoid the stigma of being viewed as being White, or allowing oneself to be seen as being co-opted or subjugated by the majority White school authorities and culture.
Although they comprise a majority in South Africa, Black South Africans have been largely denied the advantages of better schools, due to a history of a policy of apartheid (state supported racial segregation). Ogbu (1994b) points out that while there are great similarities between the experiences and social contexts of African-Americans and Black South Africans, there are also enormous differences between the two contexts. In America, Blacks are a minority culture, but are officially equal, with institutional barriers to achievement more subtle than those that existed in the recent past in South Africa. In South Africa during the 1980’s,schools were central in the movement against apartheid. While South African schools had been used as instruments of dispossession by the state (Bempechat & Abrahams 1999:842), schools were repossessed by students, which provided a degree of political and psychology empowerment. It is possible that South African students involved in the recent struggle, because of their participation, developed their personal efficacy. Unlike the civil-rights era experiences of African-Americans, where court decisions disrupted stable Black communities, Black churches, and Black schools in an effort to provide a quick legal remedy to segregated American schools, Black South Africans may have been fortified by their recent active participation in turning away apartheid, and may see themselves are more central to the ongoing process of change, as difficult as it may be. However, there is a broader challenge facing not only African-Americans and Black South Africans, but all children throughout the world.
Today, all contemporary children live in societies that are quite different from the societies of their parents and grandparents. Even for those whose societies were not marked by racism, all children live today with social phenomena that either did not exist, or were far less salient, fifty years ago. These phenomena that have changed include the population explosion, and resulting increase in socially disadvantaged children; environmental degradation; child abuse; moral and sexual licentiousness; juvenile delinquency; alcohol and drug abuse; and suicide of children and adolescents (Prinsloo & Du Plessis 1998:xi). These phenomena are not only problem areas in themselves, but they also generate stress in other areas of modern life.

THREE LEVELS OF STRESS

In daily life today, and throughout most world cultures, stress is experienced at different levels. Kruger (1993: 14) has described a stressor model that identifies the effects of stress at three conceptual levels. At the macro level, stress comes from violence in the outside world and threat of violence within the culture. Stress also comes from the presence of poverty, and from economic, political, and social conditions that perpetuate inequity. Stress at the meso level includes stress brought on by experiencing antisocial behaviour and violence in schools, and include stresses that result, for instance, from peer group pressure. At the micro level, the cumulative effects of stress from the macro and meso levels are personally experienced. This type of stress results in physical and emotional illness. Stress at the micro level results in interpersonal conflict, antisocial behaviour, and at times violent behaviour, on the part of the individual. When this antisocial behaviour is turned against others in society, a vicious circle of violence-breeding-violence is formed. When this affects many people in a society, it becomes both a meso and a macro level phenomenon; institutionalised violence, producing a culture of violent behaviour.

STRESS AND THE MASS MEDIA

As mentioned above, children and adolescents have always experienced stress from their family relationships, their peer relationships, from school, and from the events in the natural, physical world. Of late the amount of stress in society has increased. Much of this recent increase is attributed to the mass media. (Mass media include the conveying of written and spoken words, largely through literature, radio, television, and most recently, home computers.) There is little question that mass media have become a much larger presence in the socialisation of the world’s children, and are one of the phenomena that has become more significant in each person’slives. Some have called television and the media the because of the way it influences not only what humans know, but how humans know as well. It defines attitudes toward knowledge and learning, and influences socialisation (Stroman 1991; Taylor 1998). (The researcher observed that television in rural Russia seemed to consist largely of American soap operas and American shows featuring violence, aggressive police, and scheming lawyers. The Russian host family’syoung son asked if it was true that American men carried guns and dressed up for cocktail parties each evening.) As a result of their rapid growth over the past fifty years, these media have become an increasing presence in the lives of children and adolescents. The positive ability of the mass media to inform and entertain is well-established. Yet some aspects of the mass media have been identified as being harmful, in that they transmit stress (from the macro level) into the lives of children and adolescents. For example, prior to the advent of television, children and adults were relatively unaware of environmental degradation, and threats posed by nuclear weapons. Before television, children and adolescents were not able to instantly receive violent, antisocial information, ideas, pictures, and words on demand, instantly, in great detail, and delivered directly to home or school.
Much research has been done over the past fifty years into the effect of television upon children, with respect to children’simitation of antisocial and violent behaviour they have viewed on television. Even as early as 1950, when television was in its infancy, there was concern by American parents and teachers about the effects of television violence on young children (Witty 1950). Over the years, violent and aggressive behaviour by children has been increasingly attributed to television viewing (National Institute of Mental Health 1982; Zuckerman & Zuckerman 1985). In a review of the body of thirty years’worth of research on how children and adolescents are affected by viewing video and televised violence, Murray (1995: 10) identified three main ways. First is the direct effects process, whereby children and adolescents who watch a great deal of violence tend to become more aggressive themselves, and/or develop attitudes that favour or permit aggressive behaviour as a way to settle conflicts. The second effect is desensitisation, where children who watch much televised violence become less sensitive to violence in their daily lives, less empathetic to others, and more likely to tolerate greater levels of violence in society. Desensitised to violence, some would be less likely to intervene when others are victims of antisocial, destructive and/or violent behaviour. The third effect is what Murray called the Mean World Syndrome: Children who view much televised violence come to see the world as a dangerous, mean place, becoming more fearful in general. Certainly, the content of television has become increasingly violent, and many programs viewed by children portray violence in ways that promote imitation by children (National Television Violence Study 1996-1998). Nevertheless, this simple focus on television as a variable may present an incomplete picture, especially when one attempts to see violent behaviour in a larger, global perspective.
~17!n South Africa, Martin Botha (1995) conducted a major longitudinal study into the
\’/ effects of television violence and aggression upon South African children. Subjects consisted of 348 children in grades 2 and 3. The author1s researchers collected data from each child, the child1s peers, parents, and school personnel through structured interviews. They looked at the influence of television, but they also considered the effects of several other variables thought to influence violent and antisocial behaviour, such as poverty, educational quality, poor housing and essential facilities, as well as political issues, and the replacement of the extended family in urban Black communities. Botha found that television did not play a significant role in the lives of the children and their parents; furthermore, the researchers identified violent behaviour in the community to have played a far more significant role in producing violent behaviour than television. They found that violent behaviour by children was strongly influenced by parental aggression, and parents• child rearing practices. There was a clear relationship between the number of actual (not televised) violent incidents the child had observed, and victimisation of the child by the parent. It is probably safe to generalise that children learn violent and aggressive behaviour from others, particularly parents, peers, and teachers, and they learn it even more completely than they learn it from the media. Attitudes toward violence are deeply influenced by personally-experienced violence. Unfortunately, when violence is personally-experienced, victims of violence tend to tolerate it, feel helpless to do anything about it, or even wind up approving of its use. This was borne out in a recent study conducted at the University of Durban involved one thousand South African student teachers. They perceived schools to be violent places, characterised by political, state-linked, or gender violence (Suransky-Dekker 1997: 1 ). To the surprise of the researcher, many of these student teachers approved of corporal punishment; one typical comment was « I was punished and look … I made it to University! » (Suransky-Dekker 1997 :2). Given the amount of violence children experience first-hand in South Africa, the United States, and all other nations of the world, violence depicted on television may be a scapegoat for youth violent and aggressive behaviour that has been quite strongly learned directly from parents, peers, and school.

SOCIO-EDUCATIONAL FACTORS THAT LEAD TO ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

Martin Botha’s(1995) longitudinal television study serves as a fine starting point for discussion of the socio-educational problem areas in contemporary society which influence children. Broadly, these problem areas include poverty, child abuse and neglect, inadequate health and welfare, and family disintegration (Squelch 1998). In terms of their effect on the behaviour of young people, these problem areas contain specific socio-educative factors that lead to the development of inappropriate social behaviour identified by society as juvenile delinquency. Botha (1977:121-126) has identified four socio-educational factors that foster juvenile
delinquency: (family disharmony) and identification (child-parent identification), disturbed social-societal relationships (peer group associations), and disturbed entry into the social environment (school factors). A brief description of each factor will help to show its influence on the social behaviour of children.

Disturbed involvement

It is said that the family is the child’s first school, and with regard to the family’s educative role, that is certainly true. « Although its organisation varies, the family is the major early socialising agent in every society. As such, it is the first medium for transmitting culture to children » (Ornstein & Levine 2000:278). At the core of this is the mother-infant bond. In all infants, the basic sense of trust-versus-mistrust is established soon after birth, hinging on the question of whether or not the infant will be loved, cared for, and protected from harm. In all world cultures, parental rejection has a harmful, malignant effect on child development (Rohner 1975: 166) resulting in hostility and aggressive child behaviour. A child can also be harmed even before birth. The health care a mother-to-be receives (or fails to receive) can affect the developing child in utero. Or the mother-to-be can be a victim of violence during her pregnancy. Once born, the new-born infant may be at serious risk of violence as well. The shaken baby syndrome has been identified where serious brain damage, blindness, and death result from an adult’sshaking an infant. Throughout the world, violent homes often produce violent children. In highly aggressive adolescent boys, for example, patterns of violent behaviour show up relatively early in life. In fact, one of the strongest predictors of whether or not a boy will be imprisoned by the time he is a young adult is whether or not he shows serious antisocial or violent behaviour at an early age; around four or five years of age (Buka & Earls 1993; Zahn-Waxler 1987). The family is also a formidable shaper of children’sself-concept, and for girls, the family may be an especially strong factor in the development of self concept. Two researchers looked at factors affecting the self-concepts of South African students at three South African high schools in the province of the Eastern Cape (Marjoribanks & Mboya 1998). They found that manifest variables for self-concept were based in family social status, most essentially, the number of parents in the family, and the quality of family housing. For girls in the study, self-concept was defined not only by their interest and involvement in school, but also by their interactions with their families. The authors concluded that family macrosocial structure, proximate family settings, and each student’spersonal responsibilities had moderate-to-strong associations with the adolescents’self-concepts.
The role of the family in socialisation is augmented by positive and supportive early efforts from outside the family. These can be extended to help the family toward developing the young child’spotential to be a positive force in society. Atmore (1993, 1994) has described South Africa’s Early Childhood Education and Care (EDUCARE) programs. Atmore tells how the community works with parents, and how the communities, by acting as a united force, assume both the right and the responsibility for participating in the political, educational, cultural, and collective matters that concern them. In the United States, Project Head Start serves a function similar to South Africa’sEDUCARE. Research into the effects of early childhood education through Project Head Start has shown that social skills learned early in childhood are quite durable. Even for those Head Start children whose academic gains eventually faded, social and prosocial skills they acquired through Head Start stayed with them through childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood (Whitmire 1994: 10). In addition to availing themselves and their children of formal programs like Educare and Head Start, there is much that parents, teachers, and caregivers can do personally to prevent violent behaviour: (1) give children consistent love and attention; (2) ensure that children are supervised and guided; (3) model appropriate behaviours; (4) do not hit children; and (5) be consistent with rules and discipline
(Massey 1998:3).

Disturbed role identification

•*Children identify closely with their parents; they identify with the same sex parent, and with the opposite sex parent, in different ways. Educational neglect or outright abuse will damage this identification, while a positive role identity and a constructive relationship between parent and child–and between the child’stwo parents as well– will promote a healthy role identity in the child.
This appears to be a particular problem with respect to boys and antisocial behaviour. Prinsloo, Vorster and Sibaya (1996: 163) describe toughening, where the boy is expected to act like a mature man, not allowed to express feelings. Harvard University researcher William Pollack describes how boys are in a silent crisis, forced to individuate and separate from their parents, particular their mothers (Kantrowitz & Kalb 2000: 161 ), masking their feelings in order to appear tough and masculine. Both boys and girls need positive human role models, but boys also need positive male role models, particularly because they tend to be more impulsive than girls, and they are less capable, in general, of forming close personal relationships by instinct (Gurian 2000: 18). Looking at thirty different cultures around the world, Gurian (2000: 19) said that traditional ways that boys have identified positively with older males is disappearing, especially during adolescence when such guidance is most critical, leaving young men morally neglected, surrounded with violent and sexual messages in media and music.
While schools have not given up on attempting to provide socialisation for boys, there are worrisome indications that schools may be accommodating (if not accepting) this shift toward regarding violence as a normal state of affairs. In a study of 452 African-American and European-American boys in North Carolina, researchers found that the most highly aggressive boys (tough boys) were also among the most popular and socially connected of children in their schools (Rodkin, Farmer, Pearl & Van Acker 2000). Boys who were gentle, or boys who strove for academic success, or boys who were overly sensitive to the needs of others were often referred to as being effeminate or gay. In boys, bullying is connected with poor role identification, thus it is not surprising that bullies project their fears of not being masculine upon other boys by being overly-aggressive and violent. Researcher Dan Olweus (1995) has investigated bullying among school children in Scandinavia, as well as in schools in Great Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada and the United States. He found that male bullies were usually reared by parents who were indifferent, lacked warmth and involvement, were permissive for aggressive behaviour, and used power-assertive disciplinary techniques, such as physical punishment. Olweus also found that 35 to 40% of boys identified as being bullies in grades 6 through 9 had been convicted of at least three crimes by the time they reached age 24, whereas this was true of only 10% of the boys who were not classified as being bullies. There is little question that bullying behaviour comes about through unhealthy role identification. The reverse is seen when boys have a healthy role identification, provided by a loving male adult figure from whom boys learn how to treat others in prosocial and caring ways. This is especially crucial early in the boy’slife. There is much wisdom in the old saying that the best gift a father can give a son is to love and respect the boy’s mother. It is also a fine gift to society.

Disturbed social-societal relationships

Second in importance only to parents, the peer group is highly significant in its influence on child behaviour, and during adolescence, it exceeds the influence of parents on the individual. Peer culture is a major socialisation experience, with most students naming their friends as the best thing about their school (Goodlad 1984:76-77). Each adolescent needs to see himself or herself as being part of a peer group in order to help form his or her adult identity. In a reciprocal fashion, the peer group becomes relatively powerful in the life of the adolescent, because there is an ongoing risk of being ostracised; of being excluded from the group.
In its powerful and influential role, the peer group may provide a mostly-positive, prosocial orientation to the individual, or it may provide more-negative, antisocial direction. Van ‘tWestende (1998:277) identifies several ways in which a peer group may promote or cause juvenile delinquency: First, the peer group provides a channel to greater independence, and if the group is positive, then sound relationships will be cultivated. If, however, the influence is negative, then those misl:i,ehaviours will result, sanctioned by the peer group. The peer group is also a field of experience for social relations, where an adolescent can learn where she or he fits in. Information (accurate or inaccurate) is often obtained through the peer group.
In sum, the peer group provides a chance for the individual to play different roles, try on different identities, and if the group upholds deviant values and attitudes, the child may develop into an adult whose values and behaviour will clash with those in his or her future adult community. In addition to peer group relations, the individual engages in a social-societal relationship through his or her occupation and means of employment. Indeed, unemployment and under-employment are among the most challenging of topics that face South Africa, the United States, Australia, and other industrialised nations, as well nations emerging from Communist government such as Russia and the former republics of the Soviet Union. Journalist David Orr recently interviewed leading experts on South Africa who were most concerned about the economic chasm between White and Black South Africans. It has been estimated that 84 per cent of South Africa’s Black population earn less money than is needed to ensure adequate basic nutrition for themselves and their families. Orr stated that what is needed are more schools, more housing, more extensive health care, and above all, more ;obs (Orr 1994: 12), particularly for the Black population, many of whom are unemployed. In addition to the obvious economic need in this segment of South Africa’spopulation, there is also a socialisation need that can be facilitated by a greater and more equitable number of Black South Africans in the work force, particularly in the upper civil service and in private business.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTORY ORIENTATION
1 .1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 ANALYSIS AND STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
1.3 AIMS OF THE RESEARCH
1.4 DEFINITION AND EXPLANATION OF CONCEPTS
1 .5 METHODS OF RESEARCH
1 .6 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 2: PRE-REQUISITES FOR POSITIVE SOCIALISATION OF CHILDREN: ROLE OF THE HOME, SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 SOCIALISATION
2 .3 SUMMARY
CHAPTER3: SOCIO-EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM AREAS IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY WHICH INFLUENCE THE SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR OF CHILDREN
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 LEGACIES OF APARTHEID AND SEGREGATION
3.3 THREE LEVELS OF STRESS
3.4 STRESS AND THE MASS MEDIA
3.5 SOCIO-EDUCATIONAL FACTORS THAT LEAD TO ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
3.6 SCHOOLS AS OPPRESSIVE ENVIRONMENTS
3.7 SCHOOLS AS SAFE PLACES, AND SAFE PLACES WITHIN SCHOOLS
3.8 SUMMARY
CHAPTER4: MANIFESTATIONSOFVIOLENTBEHAVIOUROFCHILDREN IN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS -A SOCIO-EDUCATIONAL ANALYSIS
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 TWO PERSPECTIVES ON ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
4.3 THE FOCAL POINTS OF ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
4.4 ANTISOCIAL AND VIOLENT BEHAVIOUR IN SCHOOL
4 .5 CONTEXTUAL FACTORS RELATED TO STUDENT ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
4.6 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
4.7 SUMMARY
CHAPTERS: THE EMPIRICAL RESEARCH: DESIGN AND DATA ANALYSIS
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 AIMS OF THE RESEARCH
5.3 RESEARCH DESIGN
5.4 RESEARCH METHODS
5.5 DATA COLLECTION
5.6 DATA ANALYSIS
5.7 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 6: RESUME OF FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 ASSUMPTIONS GUIDING THE RESEARCH
6.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS RESTATED
6.4 RESULTS OF ANALYSIS OF DATA FROM PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION (PHASE II)
6.5 RESULTS OF ANALYSIS OF DATA FROM IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS(PHASE Ill)
6.6 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS AND GUIDELINES FOR THE PREVENTION OF ANTISOCIAL AND VIOLENT BEHAVIOUR IN CHILDREN
7.1 INTRODUCTION
7 .2 CONCLUSIONS
7 .3 PREVENTION OF ANTISOCIAL AND VIOLENT BEHAVIOUR
7.4 LIMITATIONS OF THE PRESENT STUDY
7.5 AREAS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
7.6 SUMMARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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