Aggression in the schools: Toward reducing ethnic conflict and enhancing ethnic understanding.

Abstract

Schools, once a haven to which parents could send their children with confidence regarding their safety and protection, have become an environment in which violence is a frequent visitor. In this chapter, we attempt a brief overview of the nature and scope of the problem, the factors contributing to school violence, and programs that address its reduction. After the overview, we present the essential features of a new project that we are initiating to deal with one aspect of the problem, namely, ethnic bias and ethnic conflict. In this presentation, we address issues bearing on aggression due to prejudice at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. FREQUENCY OF AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLSThe incidence of aggression in schools has become a matter of public concern and media interest. The Los Angeles 'l-imes (1994) featured a major 269

Learning to control ethnic intergroup bias in childhood

“…An alternative account of our findings with children scoring high on the social emotions and ToSM tasks may simply be that these children are more empathic towards the out-group since previous research has shown that enhancing children's empathy is associated with lower explicit intergroup bias (Aboud & Levy, 2000;Feshbach & Feshbach, 1998). Future research could address this point directly by measuring children's empathy (see .…”

Childhood Externalizing Behavior: Theory and Implications

“…In 1,500 pairs of Swedish and British twins, researchers found that aggressive and nonaggressive antisocial behavior have both environmental and hereditary influences (Eley, Lichenstein, & Stevenson, 1999). Research on the causes of aggression includes work on social learning, imitation, family violence, child abuse, neglect, school aggression, TV violence, malnutrition, structural and functional brain abnormalities, hormones (e.g., testosterone), and neurotransmitters (e.g., serotonin) (Campbell, Woods, Chouaf, & Parker, 2000;Feshbach & Feshbach, 1998;Fishbein, 2001;Huesmann, 1997;Liu, Raine, Venables, & Mednick, in press;Little & Kantor, 2002;Lutenbacher, 2000;Preski & Shelton, 2001;Raine, 2002). This research is slowly beginning to emphasize the more dynamic, intricate, and complex roles played by risk factors in shaping the complex construct of aggression and antisocial behavior in a developmental context (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993;Susman, 1993).…”

“…For example, Moise and Huesmann (1996) found an association between violent television viewing in the first year of the study and aggression 2 years later for girls ages 6 to 11 years. Furthermore, research has found that ethnic bias, ethnic conflict, and prejudice contribute to aggression at the elementary, middle, and high school levels (Feshbach & Feshbach, 1998), and that empathy training in school could help bring about more positive social behaviors and a more positive self-evaluation in aggressive children (Feshbach & Feshbach, 1982).…”

Adolescent Violence

“…As noted earlier, the school is the most common setting for adolescent fighting (Simon, Crosby, & Dahlberg, 1999). The school is also a common setting for researchers when looking at adolescents (Feshbach & Feshbach, 1998;Hyman & Snook, 1999;Kingery, Coggeshall, & Alford, 1998;Larson, 1998;Lowry et al, 1999). While the school does expose children to violence, the Departments of Education and Justice (OJJDP) (1998) argue that the risk is minimal compared to the risk that adolescents face outside the school.…”