It is an undeniable fact that school violence has been regarded as one of social problems. In response to the situation, there are various alternatives. However, a get tough-policy that concentrates only on school violence offenders is not a panacea. In addition, school violence is likely to happen constantly, if alternatives are concerned with focus on the distinct separation between school violence offender and victims. Thus, it is necessary to study on the lifestyle that leads to a victim in school violence, so as to effectively prevent such a problem.
With such considerations above, this paper was to examine how the lifestyle of juvenile influence school violent victimization, using data from National Youth Policy Institute, “2010 Survey on Safety of Adolescence”. In line with the purpose of this study, the juvenile lifestyle was divided into two types; one is deviant lifestyle and the other is routine lifestyle.
The variable of deviant lifestyle included ‘status delinquency’, ‘drug delinquency’, and ‘physical violence delinquency’, while that of routine lifestyle consisted of ‘exposure’, ‘protection and guardianship’ and ‘attractiveness’.
In order to find reliability and validity of survey, factor analysis was conducted, and then t-test and one way ANOVA were implemented to fine the difference between social demographic characteristics and victim of school violence. After that, correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to know the cause-and-effect relationship between the juvenile lifestyle and victim of school violence. Although a number of individual and structural characteristics predict risk factors of being victim of school violence, the most significant predictor of violent victimization is the juvenile''s own deviant lifestyle, especially ‘violent delinquency’. Those who participate in a deviant lifestyle, such as experience of violent offending and frequent access to adult-limited places, make themselves susceptible to school-violent victimization.
Given these findings, this study suggests alternatives and prevention against victim of school violence as follows;
First, it is necessary to educate students to appropriately judge how danger it comes to themselves. For instance, features of places where are prone to school-violent victimization are specifically informed to students through a certain of education program, in order for themselves to avoid exposure to dangerous situation.
Second, preventing juvenile''s own deviant lifestyle leads to decline in victim of school violence. As the result of this study, those who engage in status delinquency, drug delinquency and violence delinquency are highly likely to become victim of school violence. Therefore, it is not just required to discern delinquent juveniles from wrongdoing to right, but also to recognize them for the probability of victimization due to such delinquency.
Third, “severing the connection of school violence” must be implemented. Among variables of adolescent deviant lifestyle, violence delinquency is the most significant risk factor in predicting victim in school violence. That means violent offending is overlapped with victimization. Thus, it is needed to root out cultural violence in school , in order to decrease school-violent victimization. For achieving the goal, “the whole-school interventions” is considered, which require all related members, such as teachers, parents, police officers and social workers, to suffocate the likelihood of school violence.