Experiencing school violence and life quality of children in Wielkopolska

Abstract

The article presents the results of a research on the life satisfaction, conducted in 2014, among randomly selected children aged 8, 10 and 12, attending primary schools in Wielkopolskie voivodship. The aim of this research is to compare the subjective assessment of the life quality of children experiencing and not experiencing peer violence. Division of the participants was conducted due to the type of experienced violence — physical (beating) and emotional (rejection). Psychometric scales such as OLS (Overall Life Satisfaction), SLSS (Student Life Satisfaction Scale) and BMSLSS (Brief Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale) were used to evaluate the quality of the examined children life. The mean values of the above-mentioned indicators for children experiencing and not experiencing violence according to age were compared. The Student’s t-test was used to evaluate the significance of differences. Moreover, the state of certain goods possession in both groups of participants was confronted as well as the level of satisfaction with some aspects of life quality was compared. The research has shown that life satisfaction of beaten and discarded children decreases with age faster than other children. One of the factors impacting such results is the worse financial situation of children experiencing violence. Another factor is appearance, but it becomes more important in older age groups.