The Joy of Violence: What about Violence is Fun in Middle-School?

Abstract

Violence prevention programs that aim to ameliorate or eliminate schoolbased violence (student-on-student victimization) often assume that students, like adults, regard school-based violence as aversive, harmful, problematic, and without any redeeming value. Nonetheless, students may experience violence as fun or enjoyable at school, and they may not see a reason to prevent violence if it brings them joy on some level. This study examined qualitative data from 30 face-to-face interviews with students (grades 6-8) in a single middle school. Content analyses clarified the social contexts in which students experience violence as fun, not fun, or a mixture of both. The results suggested that 70% of all sampled students reported enjoyable experiences with school-based violence. Conclusions examined the implications of these findings for prevention programs; future research is needed to correct for the methodological limitations of this study and others.

Prioritizing the School Environment in School Violence Prevention Efforts*

“…It is important to solicit this information from students 21 . Prior qualitative studies have found that common understandings of youth violence, based on adult notions of violence, are not always correct 23,24 . To our knowledge, this study is the first to ask students for their understanding of the school environment's influence on school violence.…”

Violencia escolar: la perspectiva de estudiantes y docentes

“…El hallazgo de la violencia experimentada como una forma de diversión es coherente con estudios previos, que demuestran que el estudiantado consideran la violencia como un mecanismo de reconocimiento social, de satisfacción personal y como una experiencia agradable y divertida (Gómez, 2013;Kerbs y Jolley, 2007). Equiparar juego y violencia es una manera de normalizar esta última y garantizar su omnipresencia.…”

The Sociology of Fun

“…Much of the work about happiness, and what there is about fun, tends to be theoretical. With a couple of exceptions (e.g., Kerbs and Jolley 2007 ; there is not much of a sense in the literature of how people more generally understand or defi ne these concepts. Much of the rest of this book will be given over to the results of a survey conducted in the spring and summer of 2014 where 201 people answered open questions about their experiences of fun in childhood; those that were adults were asked about adulthood and also what fun felt like and also how fun was diff erent from happiness or pleasure.…”