Schools' Defense of Children in America at War

Abstract

To determine the effects of the Persian Gulf War on American children in schools and to assess how schools were responding to their needs, information was gathered from media observation, focus group sessions with school social work interns, a questionnaire survey of student attitudes, interviews with school staff, and group discussion with Chaldean-American students in a school social work treatment group. Schools were under pressure to defend and protect children during the war and adapted various responses depending on leadership style, organizational readiness, and community need. Children were very worried and confused about the war, but held diverse attitudes toward it, supporting previous research on children and war. School strategies of having crisis response teams ready, maintaining normalcy, and providing students with factual information were effective in the short run, but left many conflicting emotions un-resolved. Activity by' helping professionals to prevent as well as treat the trauma of war and to decrease intergroup conflict and violence in American communities is recommended.