Exploring the factors affecting violence among Iranian male adolescents

Abstract

Increasing violence behaviors among high school adolescents affects different dimensions of the efficiency of educational institutions. The present qualitative research was conducted in 2021 to explain violence behaviors among male adolescents in Karaj, Iran. Twenty senior high school students were selected using purposive sampling with maximum variation. Individual semi-structured interviews conducted based on the participants’ experiences were analyzed in MAXQDA 2020. According to the model proposed by Strauss and Corbin, causal conditions comprised “economic challenges facing the family”, “academic apathy”, “seeking pleasure”, “self-other differentiation” and “family disorganization”, contextual conditions included “school inefficiency”, “environmental conditions” and “cultural diversity” and confounding conditions consisted of “peer pressure” and “puberty”. The strategies of adolescents with violent behaviors such as ignoring school rules and bullying can cause their humiliation, loss of ideal opportunities in life, punishment and rejection. “Violence as the collapse of individual and socio-familial capital” was labeled the core category of the present study. According to the present findings, violence in adolescents is affected by a multilevel mechanism based on social relationships. As a major obstacle to educational objectives, the violence emerging at school as a reliable and safe environment can spread to other social domains in the long run.