Parental violence, deprivation and migrant background

Abstract

For many children the first violence they experience is physical punishment by their parents. However, societies and social groups within societies are differentially affected by parental violence. Although we can observe a long-term decline of the acceptance of violence as a means of education, in some societies, social groups or families, violence as a means of education is a comparatively persistent phenomenon. Perhaps this is due to self-enforcing processes of its negative consequences, a cycle of violence that propagates into the next generation (for critical reviews of the evidence, see Thornberry, Knight, & Lovegrove, 2012; Widom, Czaja, & DuMont, 2015).