School Violence Goes 'Untact'... Increase in Cyber and Group Violence

26.9 out of 1000 students reported 'experiencing school violence'
Most common place of violence outside school: 'cyberspace'
Top reason for perpetration: 'pranks or no special reason'

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] School violence is also changing to 'untact' (contactless). Although the responses indicating having committed, experienced, or witnessed violence have decreased, the proportion of cyber violence and group bullying has increased.

On the 21st, the Ministry of Education announced the results of the '2020 School Violence Survey' conducted by superintendents of education from 17 cities and provinces targeting elementary, middle, and high school students. The school violence survey is usually conducted twice a year, but last year, due to concerns about the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), it was conducted once offline in September.

The survey results showed that the percentage of respondents who reported being victims of school violence was 0.9%. This is a decrease of 0.7 percentage points compared to the first survey of the previous year. Out of 1,000 students, 26.9 reported being victims. The types of victimization were ▲verbal violence (4.9 cases per 1,000) ▲group bullying (3.8 cases) ▲cyber violence (1.8 cases) in order of frequency.

The proportion by type of school violence was ▲verbal violence (33.6%) ▲group bullying (26.0%) ▲cyber violence (12.3%) in order. Notably, compared to the previous survey (April 2019), the share of cyber violence increased by 3.4 percentage points, and group bullying increased by 2.8 percentage points.

School violence is commonly associated with physical violence (7.9%) or extortion (5.4%), but recently, online harassment has been increasing. The most common place for violence outside school was cyberspace (9.2%). Cases of verbal violence or coercion in mobile messenger chat rooms have increased. The percentage of respondents who did not report the victimization was also as high as 17.6%.

Among students who reported having committed school violence, the most common reason was 'as a joke or without any special reason (28.1%)'. Next were ▲because the other party bullied first (17.5%) ▲misunderstandings and conflicts (13.9%) ▲disliking the other party's behavior (12.7%), etc.

Han Hyojeong from the Education Indicator Research Office at the Korea Educational Development Institute said, "Compared to the first survey results of 2019, the response rates for school violence victimization, perpetration, and witnessing all decreased, but considering the increase in the proportion of cyber violence and group bullying, appropriate measures need to be prepared at the government level."

The response rate for having committed school violence was 0.3%, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points from the previous year's survey. It was 0.7% in elementary school, 0.2% in middle school, and 0.05% in high school. The response rate for witnessing violence was 2.3%, a decrease of 1.7 percentage points from the previous survey. By school level, the witnessing response rates were elementary (4.0%), middle (1.6%), and high (0.8%).

The Ministry of Education plans to strengthen education on internet and smartphone use in cooperation with related organizations to respond to cyber violence and actively promote cyber violence prevention education and campaigns. They will develop educational materials to enable classes using the school violence prevention education program (Eoullim) and support teacher training, etc.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.