Causes of Violence by High School Students: A Teachers and Principals Perspective

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the causes of violence of students from the teachers andprincipals’ perspective. This study uses a survey method and the sample was consisted of 191subjects, including 141 teachers and 50 principals respectively, who were selected by simplerandom and stratified sampling. In order to collect data, a questionnaire consisting of 40 items,with five-point Likert scale was used. Statistical analysis of the data was done through calculatingfrequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, one-sample t-test, and independent-sample t-test,using SPSS version 20. The results showed that all external factors such as family, media, personalcharacteristics, society, and victimization play an important role in the incidence of violence instudents. The role of family and victimization of students in the incidence of this phenomenon ismore than any other factors. Internal factors such as the characteristics of teachers, schoolmanagement and school structure have an influential role in the incidence of violence of studentsas well. The principal is more effective than other factors in this phenomenon. The results alsoshowed that internal factors of school are more effective than outside factors of the school in theincidence of violence. However, school principals consider external factors to be more effective inthe incidence of violence compared with teachers. In this regard, principals consider the followingitems to be more effective in the incidence of violence: families, victimization, society, personalcharacteristics, and media, respectively. While teachers, consider the following items to be moreeffective in the incidence of violence: victimization, family, personal characteristics, society, andmedia. The findings also showed that women compared to men, considered external factors tohave more effect in the violence, while men believed that internal factors are more effective in theincidence of violence in students. It seems that to prevent and control the violence phenomenon,the spread and revival of the social work services at the society level and within schools isnecessary and vital.