Violence Tendencies of High School Students: An Examination in Terms of Exposure to Violence, Participation in Sports and Socio-Demographic Attributes

The purpose of this study was to determine the violence tendencies of young people studying in high school in terms of their participation in sports, status of exposure to violence and socio-demographic variables. It was also aimed to evaluate whether the identified violence tendency differed significantly by gender, grade, school success, features of the living place, parental education, economic level, doing sports or not, the ones doing sports regularly working being licensed or not, the number of years spent doing sports being licensed, the status of exposure to violence and the type of the violence exposure. To this end, 459 students in total, studying in 8 high schools randomly chosen within the boundaries of the district of Izmit of the province of Kocaeli in the academic year 2013 to 2014 and participating in the research voluntarily, were included in the scope of the study. As well as a survey determining the socio-demographic attributes, the Violence Tendency Scale developed by Haskan and Yildirim (2012) was administered to high school students. Consequently, it was found out that violence tendencies of young people differed significantly by gender, working in a sports branch being licensed, the number of years spent doing sports being licensed, the status of exposure to violence and the type of the violence exposure.