School violence : a case of three government schools in Addis Ababa

Violence appears to be a global problem as society in every nation is in a state of rapid transformation across a range of humans life domains ,such as social, economical, familial , school and political conditions. In this line of thought there is a general agreement that violence prevails in schools for different reasons and with varying degrees of prevalence. In Ethiopia as a result of different catastrophes in the nation such as long-years of civil war, poverty, culture, and political conditions violence in general, and school violence in particular is widely spread and prevalent. some studies show that in Ethiopia there is a big scale violence in schools which are of different natures and magnitude. This study, therefore, is conducted in three second cycle government schools(junior) in order to examine the prevalence, causes, types , manifestation and preventions of violence in schools. To ward this end quantitative approach is dominantly used, however, a qualitative approach was used to some degree to triangulate data, and reinforce the quantitative approach. A survey questionnaire was dominantly used ,and yet focus group discussions and unstructured observation were used to collect data. Major findings in this study show that school violence is rampant, and the causes are wide and many which primarily are sourced from intrapersonal conditions , misconducts, interpersonal relationships , social conditions, and school characteristics. There are different types of violence that are witnessed in schools which mainly comprised of verbal, physical sexual, social and property violence. Manifestations of violence in school is multiple and perpetrated by students and teachers where students are the major perpetrators and receivers of violence in most of their times in school environment. Girls and young children are found the most victimized groups of violence among others. There are wide ranging mechanisms of violence preventions in schools which can be classified as individual, school and community/social levels of prevention. Most students are armed with healthier personal strategies of problem solving skills in violence prevention, but there who use counteroffensive mechanism in preventing themselves from violence. School and society do also use more educative and legal measures toward the prevention of violence. However, negative measures such as punitive approaches are employed by schools and the society. Above all, in this study individual factors of students as causes of violence in schools are over emphasized, and hence future studies and prevention effort should give due attention to these individual(student factors) for better insight of the problem and targeting of interventions in a mission to witness good school climate