Monitoring Peer Violence in Elementary Schools: Gender Differences in the Frequency and Types of Violent Behaviour

In recent years, the need to systematically research the phenomenon of peer violence in Croatian schools and its various manifestations related to socio-demographic characteristics of the perpetrators and victims has been increasingly recognized. The aim of this research was to analyze the frequency of individual forms of peer abuse in two measurement points, in the beginning of the first year and after the first year of the implementation of intervention program. It has been shown that boys are more frequent perpetrators of peer violence in both measurements. In the first measurement, expected gender differences in the pattern of exposure to individual types of violence are present, showing that the girls are more exposed to various forms of social isolation and relationship aggression. It has been determined that, in the second measurement, pupils significantly more frequently declare that they have been violent or that they have been victims of violence once or twice in relation to the first measurement, while the number of those who were neither perpetrators or violence nor the victims is lower. Gender differences were not determined in the second measurement. Also, in the second measurement the pupils less frequently mention some forms of violence, such as threats, taking and destroying things, physical aggression, lying and spreading rumors, and mocking. These differences can be attributed to the increased awareness of different forms of violence that appeared during the intervention program implementation, which leads to the clearer recognition of these forms, but also to their more efficient suppression. Adapted from the source document.