Demographic disparities in school violence perception and its relation with safe school perception among high school students in West Bengal

Safe school provides environment which stimulates social growth, builds confidence, and promotes understanding. Making school safe and violence free is one of the major concerns today. School violence is any activity that creates disturbance in educational system. It ranges from physical violence to psychological violence including bullying and victimization, or more severe forms of violence involving weapons. The objective of the present study was to examine the demographic disparities in perception of school violence among high school students. The data was collected from 395 high school students (boys= 134; girls= 261) from rural (N=215) and urban (N=100) region of West Bengal. 15-item Violence Perception rating scale (α=0.81) and 64-item Safe School Perception Questionnaire (α=0.856) (binary response- Yes/No) measuring eight subscales, namely, school climate (α=0.722), incivility (α= 0.778), personal safety (α=0.620) and delinquency (α=0.688), social discrimination (α=0.422), participation (α=0.483), bullying (α=402) and cleanliness (α=0.541) were administered. Results revealed that perception of school violence was significantly differed by demographic variables (caste, religion, geographical region) except gender. School violence was found to have a significant and negative correlation with positive school climate, non-delinquent behavior, equality and participation and overall safe school perception. The study further suggests some implication, limitation, and scope for future study.