Community Violence and Young South African Children's Involvement in Aggression

Abstract

Five-year-old children from four different communities in South Africa were observed during their everyday patterns of play and social participation. The communities differed in terms of the levels of community violence that researchers encountered during two years of data collection. The results indicated that children from more violent communities were significantly more likely to be involved in aggressive episodes, and that this was particularly so in cases where children had more contact with older boys and men. The predictive model for involvement in aggression, as developed in this study, illustrates the importance of combining demographic variables with variables pertaining to children's actual behaviour. The results are also discussed in terms of their implications for young South African children; although growing up in violent communities is associated with greater involvement in aggressive behaviour, the degree to which this can be considered seriously pathological is called into question by some of the results.