Moving beyond simply documenting that political violence negatively impacts children, a social ecological hypothesis for relations between political violence and child outcomes was tested. Participants were 700 mother-child (M=12.1years, SD=1.8) dyads from 18 working class, socially deprived areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland, including single- and two-parent families. Sectarian community violence was associated with elevated family conflict and children’s reduced security about multiple aspects of their social environment (i.e., family, parent-child relations, and community), with links to child adjustment problems and reductions in prosocial behavior. By comparison, and consistent with expectations, links with negative family processes, child regulatory problems and child outcomes were less consistent for nonsectarian community violence. Support was found for a social ecological model for relations between political violence and child outcomes among both single and two parent families, with evidence that emotional security and adjustment problems were more negatively affected in single-parent families. The implications for understanding social ecologies of political violence and children’s functioning are discussed.

Links between political violence and children’s adjustment problems are well-documented. However, the mechanisms by which political tension and sectarian violence relate to children’s well-being and development are little understood. This study longitudinally examined children’s emotional security about community violence as a possible regulatory process in relations between community discord and children’s adjustment problems. Families were selected from 18 working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Participants (695 mothers and children, M=12.17, SD=1.82) were interviewed in their homes over three consecutive years. Findings supported the notion that politically-motivated community violence has distinctive effects on children’s externalizing and internalizing problems through the mechanism of increasing children’s emotional insecurity about community. Implications are considered for understanding relations between political violence and child adjustment from a social ecological perspective.

Relations between political violence and child adjustment are matters of international concern. Past research demonstrates the significance of community, family and child psychological processes in child adjustment, supporting study of inter-relations between multiple social ecological factors and child adjustment in contexts of political violence. Testing a social ecological model, 300 mothers and their children (M= 12.28 years, SD = 1.77) from Catholic and Protestant working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland completed measures of community discord, family relations, and children’s regulatory processes (i.e., emotional security) and outcomes. Historical political violence in neighborhoods based on objective records (i.e., politically motivated deaths) were related to family members’ reports of current sectarian and non-sectarian antisocial behavior. Interparental conflict and parental monitoring and children’s emotional security about both the community and family contributed to explanatory pathways for relations between sectarian antisocial behavior in communities and children’s adjustment problems. The discussion evaluates support for social ecological models for relations between political violence and child adjustment and its implications for understanding relations in other parts of the world.

The goal of the current study was to examine the moderating role of in-group social identity on relations between youth exposure to sectarian antisocial behavior in the community and aggressive behaviors. Participants included 770 mother-child dyads living in interfaced neighborhoods of Belfast. Youth answered questions about aggressive and delinquent behaviors as well as the extent to which they targeted their behaviors toward members of the other group. Structural equation modeling results show that youth exposure to sectarian antisocial behavior is linked with increases in both general and sectarian aggression and delinquency over one year. Reflecting the positive and negative effects of social identity, in-group social identity moderated this link, strengthening the relationship between exposure to sectarian antisocial behavior in the community and aggression and delinquency towards the out-group. However, social identity weakened the effect for exposure to sectarian antisocial behavior in the community on general aggressive behaviors. Gender differences also emerged; the relation between exposure to sectarian antisocial behavior and sectarian aggression was stronger for boys. The results have implications for understanding the complex role of social identity in inter-group relations for youth in post-accord societies.

This study explores distinctions in Northern Ireland between inter-community (i.e. sectarian) and intra-community (i.e. nonsectarian) violence and their respective impacts on children, and considers these forms of violence in relation to children’s processes of emotional security about community conflict. Preliminary work was based on focus groups with mothers in Belfast, followed by a quantitative study involving mothers in Derry/Londonderry. Support emerged for a conceptually-based distinction between sectarian and nonsectarian violence and differential prediction of children’s adjustment problems, which was more closely linked with sectarian than nonsectarian community violence. Pertinent to explanatory mechanisms, community violence, especially sectarian, related to mothers’ perceptions of children’s emotional insecurity about community. Findings are discussed in terms of future directions for understanding community violence and child development in cultural context.

The negative impact of political violence on adolescent adjustment is well-established. Less is known about factors that affect adolescents’ positive outcomes in ethnically-divided societies, especially influences on prosocial behaviors toward the outgroup, which may promote constructive relations. For example, understanding how intergroup experiences and attitudes motivate outgroup helping may foster intergroup cooperation and help to consolidate peace. The current study investigated adolescents’ overall and outgroup prosocial behaviors across two time points in Belfast, Northern Ireland (N = 714 dyads; 49% male; Time 1: M = 14.7, SD = 2.0, years old). Controlling for Time 1 prosocial behaviors, age and gender, multivariate structural equation modeling showed that experience with intergroup sectarian threat predicted fewer outgroup prosocial behaviors at Time 2 at the trend level. On the other hand, greater experience of intragroup nonsectarian threat at Time 1 predicted more overall and outgroup prosocial behaviors at Time 2. Moreover, positive outgroup attitudes strengthened the link between intragroup threat and outgroup prosocial behaviors one year later. Finally, experience with intragroup nonsectarian threat and outgroup prosocial behaviors at Time 1 was related to more positive outgroup attitudes at Time 2. The implications for youth development and intergroup relations in post-accord societies are discussed.

Youths’ risk for adjustment problems in contexts of political violence is well-documented. However, outcomes vary widely, with many children functioning well. Accordingly, moving beyond further documenting the risk for many negative outcomes associated with living in contexts of political violence, a second generation of research is moving towards identifying the mechanisms and conditions that contribute to children’s adjustment. Increasing support is emerging for understanding effects on children in terms of changes in the social contexts in which children live, and in the psychological processes engaged by these social ecologies. Selected themes are considered, including (a) the need to study multiple levels of the social ecology, (b) differentiating between the effects of exposure to contexts of political versus non-political violence, and (c) theories about explanatory processes. Selected research pertinent to these directions is reviewed, including findings from a six-wave longitudinal study on political violence and children in Northern Ireland.

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