A Study on Prospective School Counselors' Views on School Violence

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore prospective school counselors' views on school violence and aggression by means of a news story reporting a case of school violence. The sample was comprised of 40 students (31 women and 9 men) studying in the Program in Guidance and Counseling in a Turkish state university, and enrolled in the elective course titled "Prevention of Violence and Aggression in Children and Adolescents" in 2016-2017 academic year. The course is available in the curriculum of the Program in Guidance and Counseling. Within the scope of the course, students have studied a newspaper article brought to the classroom by instructor. Then, based on this news story, prospective counselors were asked "to evaluate the school violence incident as a counselor working in that school" in the first place, and "to mention which intervention and prevention actions they could take as a counselor working in that school" in the second place. Students wrote their opinions on the paper. For descriptive analysis of data, interpretative phenomenological analysis -a qualitative research design -was used. Research findings were then discussed with regard to causes, consequences, and prevention of violence and aggression in children and adolescents with the related literature.

Улога Акционог Истраживања У Превенцији Насиља У Школама – Пример Рефлексивне Праксе

“…Such a situation requires development of different approaches and prevention programs for students (Mayer, 2001) in order to develop a nonviolent environment in the school community. The most recent research (Donat Bacıoğlu & Onat Kocabıyık, 2019) shows that individual factors of students' violent behavior are: conflict management skills, psychological problems, unhealthy communication and personality traits. Other studies emphasize low self-esteem (Miller, 1994), low tolerance in case of disappointment (Weir, 2005), but also environmental factors such as: culture, role models, poor housing conditions, technology, etc.…”

“…It is equally important to take into account that prevention programs, as well as interventional action on the occurrence of violent behavior, apply not only to students, but also to parents, school, local and social community (Smokowski & Holland Kopasz, 2005). Therefore, recent research emphasizes the acquisition of skills needed for planning and implementing prevention programs (Donat Bacıoğlu & Onat Kocabıyık, 2019). If the role of teachers in the prevention of violence is seen through her/his reflective practice, then the importance of her/his competence for the implementation of various programs that contribute to its reduction is noticed.…”