Where there is disrespect, you will find violence: The Demography of Child-on-Child Disrespect in Egyptian

Abstract

PURPOSE: Demographic factors such as gender, residential status, family income, father's job, mother's job, father's education and mother's education play an important role in children's day to day lives, and especially in the disrespecting of children by their peers. The present study identifies the influence of these seven factors for the maltreatment of children through five dimensions: making fun of a child's accent, making fun the child's place of residence, making fun of the child's culture, making fun of the child's friends, and annoying a child because of his/her accent. METHODS: Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis along with path diagrams are used to extract child disrespect from the three factors and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is run to verify the above factor structure and evaluate the influence of predictors for child disrespect by peers. FINDINGS: The significance test of p-values in the regression equation shows that gender, mother's education, and mother's job are the statistical predictors for the disrespecting of children at a 1% level of significance and mediate this effect through four of the five dimensions. CONCLUSION: The education levels of mothers play a major role in ameliorating the victimization of children by peer disrespect. Girls are more likely to be victimized than boys, and a mother's job also significantly ameliorates the peer disrespect shown to her children.