Children Behaving Badly? E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Wiley Child Protection & Policy Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 495

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Children Behaving Badly?

Violence between children is a controversial and frequently misunderstood issue, one that has seen media-fuelled moral panic come to dominate public perceptions and debate. Children Behaving Badly? presents a powerful challenge to commonly held beliefs about peer violence and portrays it as an important child welfare concern.

By gathering together the most updated international research and expert commentary on peer violence issues from across the childhood spectrum, this volume directly addresses the complexity of this troubling issue from a range of multidisciplinary disciplines and perspectives. Contributions throughout the text reveal how childhood is not a homogenous experience but fragmented by gender, ethnicity, sexuality and poverty, which are each addressed within specific chapters. Other issues explored include pre-school children and peer violence, bullying, youth gangs, knife crime, teenage partner violence, sibling abuse, homophobia, international media depictions of violent youth, and implications for professionals working with children and young people.

Throughout the text, new and original research insights are presented with the goal of providing the reader with a greater understanding of the safeguarding of children and young people from this form of violence. Children Behaving Badly? is essential reading for policy makers, researchers, students, and practitioners from a wide range of child welfare disciplines about a highly topical and complex social problem.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

THE NSPCC/WILEY SERIES in PROTECTING CHILDREN

Title page

Copyright page

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

1 Introduction

BACKGROUND

OVERVIEW OF OUR WORK ON PEER VIOLENCE

DEFINITIONS AND MEANINGS

VIOLENT CHILDHOODS – PROTECTION TO PUNISHMENT

UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES

CHILD WELFARE POLICY AND PRACTICE – AMBIGUITY AND DISCORD

THEORETICAL STANDPOINT OF THE BOOK

RATIONALE FOR INCLUSION

LAYOUT OF BOOK

Part I: Peer Violence in Different Contexts

2 Understanding Dimensions of ‘Peer Violence’ in Preschool Settings: An Exploration of Key Issues and Questions

INTRODUCTION

CHANGING CHILDHOOD, AND CONTEMPORARY CONCERNS ABOUT VIOLENT CHILDREN

PEER VIOLENCE, YOUNG CHILDREN AND NURSERY SETTINGS

PEER CULTURES AND THE SOCIAL WORLDS OF YOUNG CHILDREN

ENERGETIC PLAY: ROUGH AND TUMBLE PLAY, SUPERHEROES AND WARRIOR DISCOURSES

GIRLS AND BOYS, LIVELY PLAY AND THE PERSPECTIVES OF NURSERY STAFF

‘ZERO TOLERANCE’ AND THE SOCIAL CONTROL OF GUN PLAY IN NURSERY SETTINGS

FINAL COMMENTS

3 Understanding Why Children and Young People Engage in Bullying at School

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS BULLYING?

RELATIONSHIPS IN THE PEER GROUP

WHY ARE SOME CHILDREN BULLIED?

WHY DO SOME CHILDREN BECOME BULLIES?

WHAT CAN SCHOOLS DO?

KEY PRACTICE POINTS

4 Sibling Abuse and Bullying in Childhood and Adolescence: Knowns and Unknowns

AIMS AND CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND

PREVALENCE, CORRELATES, CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENT SIBLING ABUSE

RELEVANCE TO PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

PROPOSALS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

5 Young People, Gangs and Street-based Violence

STREET ORGANISATION

LIFE ‘ON ROAD’ AND ENTRY INTO IT

VIOLENCE ‘ON ROAD’

CONCLUSION

POINTS FOR PRACTICE

6 Peer Violence in Provision for Children in Care

INTRODUCTION

DEFINITIONS OF PEER VIOLENCE IN OUT-OF-HOME PROVISION

THE EXTENT AND NATURE OF PEER VIOLENCE IN OUT-OF-HOME CARE

DEVELOPING PRACTICE TO ADDRESS PEER VIOLENCE

CONCLUSION

Part II: Different Forms of Peer Violence

7 Young Men, Violence and Racism

WHITE LOOKS2

‘WALL OF SILENCE’: SPEAKING AND SHOWING

CONCLUSION

8 A Thoroughly Gendered Affair: Teenage Partner Violence and Exploitation

INTRODUCTION

TERMINOLOGY

BACKGROUND

PROFESSIONAL RESPONSE TO TEENAGE PARTNER VIOLENCE

RESEARCH AIMS

METHODOLOGY

FINDINGS ON TEENAGE RELATIONSHIPS

INCIDENCE RATES FOR EXPERIENCING TEENAGE PARTNER VIOLENCE

NATURE OF VIOLENCE

HELP SEEKING

FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH EXPERIENCING TEENAGE PARTNER VIOLENCE

CONCLUSION

MESSAGES FOR PRACTICE

9 Children and Young People with Harmful Sexual Behaviours

INTRODUCTION

WHAT ARE ‘PROBLEMATIC’, ‘ABUSIVE’ AND ‘HARMFUL’ SEXUAL BEHAVIOURS IN CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE?

WHO ARE PRE-ADOLESCENT CHILDREN WITH SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR PROBLEMS?

WHO ARE YOUNG PEOPLE WITH HARMFUL SEXUAL BEHAVIOURS?

YOUNG WOMEN WITH HARMFUL SEXUAL BEHAVIOURS

YOUNG PEOPLE WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES WITH HARMFUL SEXUAL BEHAVIOURS

RISK FACTORS AND THE LIKELIHOOD THAT ADOLESCENTS WITH HARMFUL SEXUAL BEHAVIOURS WILL REOFFEND

FAMILIES OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE WITH HARMFUL SEXUAL BEHAVIOURS

HOW SHOULD PROFESSIONALS RESPOND?

EFFECTIVE THERAPEUTIC INTERVENTIONS

CONCLUSIONS AND KEY MESSAGES

10 Homophobia and Peer Violence

CHILDREN RAISED BY GAY AND LESBIAN PARENTS OR CARERS

WHY DOES HOMOPHOBIA EXIST IN PEER CULTURE?

ADOLESCENCE, SEXUALITY AND POPULARITY AMONG PEERS

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF HOMOPHOBIA IN ADOLESCENCE

CHALLENGING HOMOPHOBIA: LEGISLATIVE ISSUES AND CURRICULUM GUIDANCE

CONCLUSION

ISSUES FOR PRACTICE

APPENDIX

Part III: Understanding Peer Violence

11 Impact of Child Maltreatment and Domestic Violence

INTRODUCTION

THE PRESENT STUDY

RESULTS

DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

12 Media Representations of Youth Violence

INTRODUCTION

FRAMING IN THE MEDIA

FRAMING AND YOUTH VIOLENCE: HOW ARE EVENTS CONSTRUCTED?

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

CONCLUSION

POINTS FOR PRACTICE

13 Boys, Girls and Performing Normative Violence in Schools: A Gendered Critique of Bully Discourses

INTRODUCTION

THE ROLE OF ‘GENDER’ IN RESEARCH ON SCHOOL BULLYING

BULLYING AS NORMATIVE GENDERED ‘PERFORMANCE’?

BOYS AND NORMATIVE VIOLENCE

BOYS AND THE PERFORMATIVE CYCLE OF NORMATIVE ‘HARD’, VIOLENT MASCULINITY

NORMATIVE FEMININITY: GIRLS AS ‘COVERT BULLIES’

THE PERFORMATIVE CYCLE OF NORMATIVE ‘INDIRECTLY AGGRESSIVE’ FEMININITY

CONCLUSION

POINTS FOR PRACTICE

USEFUL RESOURCES

Part IV: Responding to Peer Violence

14 Bullets, Blades and Mean Streets: Youth Violence and Criminal Justice Failure

INTRODUCTION

DECIVILISING CONTEXTS

FROM BULLETS TO BLADES?

VIOLENT INTENT, HUMAN TRAGEDY AND DANGER

THE WEAPONISATION OF YOUTH VIOLENCE?

CONTEXTS FOR VIOLENCE AND POLICY FAILURE

CONCLUSION

LESSONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE

15 Delivering Preventive Programmes in Schools: Identifying Gender Issues

INTRODUCTION

THE HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS PROGRAMME

THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AWARENESS RAISING PROGRAMME

CONCLUSION

PRACTICE POINTS

16 Conclusion

THE PREVALENCE OF PEER VIOLENCE

CHANGES IN PEER VIOLENCE?

WHO IS INVOLVED IN PEER VIOLENCE?

GOVERNMENT RESPONSES

IMPLICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONALS

FINAL THOUGHTS

Index

THE NSPCC/WILEY SERIES in PROTECTING CHILDREN

The multi-professional approach

Series Editors:Christopher Cloke,NSPCC, 42 Curtain Road,London EC2A 3NXJan Horwath,Department of Sociological Studies,University of Sheffield,Sheffield S10 2TUPeter Sidebotham,Warwick Medical School,University of Warwick,Coventry CV4 7AL

This NSPCC/Wiley series explores current issues relating to the prevention of child abuse and the protection of children. The series aims to publish titles that focus on professional practice and policy, and the practical application of research. The books are leading edge and innovative and reflect a multidisciplinary and inter-agency approach to the prevention of child abuse and the protection of children.

All books have a policy or practice orientation with referenced information from theory and research. The series is essential reading for all professionals and researchers concerned with the prevention of child abuse and the protection of children.

This edition first published 2011

© 2011 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Wiley-Blackwell is an imprint of John Wiley & Sons, formed by the merger of Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Children behaving badly? : peer violence between children and young people / edited by Christine Barter and David Berridge.

p. cm.

 Includes index.

 ISBN 978-0-470-69440-4 (cloth) – ISBN 978-0-470-72705-8 (pbk.) – ISBN 978-1-119-99606-4 (ebk)

 1. Children–Institutional care. 2. Children–Violence against. 3. Peer pressure in children. 4. Children and violence. 5. Violence in children. 6. Bullying. I. Barter, Christine. II. Berridge, David.

 HQ778.5C535 2011

 303.6083'0941–dc22

2010036012

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

List of Contributors

Les Back teaches sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. His recent books include The Art of Listening (Berg, 2007) and Out of Whiteness: Color, Politics and Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2002). He writes regularly for non-academic audiences and is a contributor to Eurozine, openDemocracy, The Times Higher Educational Supplement and The Guardian.

Christine Barter is an NSPCC Senior Research Fellow at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. Previously she was a Senior NSPCC Research Fellow with the University of Bedfordshire. She has published widely on a range of children’s welfare issues including children who run away, protecting young people from racism and racial abuse, boys’ use of advice and counselling services, institutional child abuse, and involving children and young people in social research. Currently her work focuses on the neglected area of young people’s experiences of partner exploitation and violence in their intimate relationships.

Jo Bell is a Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Hull. Her research interests are broadly around health, development and education in young people. She has extensive experience of research on sensitive issues with young people and families, and has researched and published work in the areas of adolescent development, domestic violence, young suicide, young parenthood and sexual health and behaviour in young people.

David Berridge is Professor of Child and Family Welfare and Head of the Centre for Family Policy and Child Welfare at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. He has been a researcher for 25 years and is author/co-author of 12 books and numerous other chapters and articles. With Christine Barter, he has collaborated with the NSPCC for 15 years on projects concerning mainly adolescents and child protection issues. His latest co-authored book is Educating Difficult Adolescents: Effective Education for Children in Care or with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (Jessica Kingsley, 2008). David was awarded the OBE in January 2005 for services to children.

Jane Brown originally trained as an art therapist, specialising in child protection. She started life as a researcher in 1992, observing children giving evidence in courtroom situations. She has a longstanding interest in violent behaviour in childhood and adolescence and has published widely in the field. Her most recent publications include ‘School Violence’ as a Social Problem: Charting the Rise of the Problem and the Emerging Specialist Field (co-authored with P. Munn, Routledge, 2008) and ‘“They are just like caged animals”: surveillance, security and school spaces’ (Surveillance and Society, 2010). She has been based at the Faculty of Education, University of Edinburgh, for the past 8 years and is currently leading a review of violence in mainstream primary and secondary schools in the UK.

Helen Cowie is Research Professor and Director of the UK Observatory for the Promotion of Non-Violence at the University of Surrey in the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. She has published widely in the field of child development, specialising in bullying, violence in schools, mental health and young people, and peer support as an intervention to promote non-violence. Her textbook, Understanding Children’s Development (co-authored with P.K. Smith and M. Blades, and first published by Blackwell in 1988), is now into its 5th edition and has become one of the major undergraduate developmental psychology texts in the UK. Her most recent books (both co-authored with J. Dawn) are Managing Violence in Schools: A Whole-School Approach to Best Practice (Sage, 2007) and New Perspectives on Bullying, Open University Press, 2008). Major European projects include ‘Violence in schools training action (VISTA)’, ‘CyberTraining’ and the creation of an online education centre to address school violence.

Jane Ellis is currently an NSPCC Senior Research Officer. Previously she worked as a consultant on prevention work in schools for WOMANKIND Worldwide, the Scottish Government, Westminster Domestic Violence Forum and Birmingham Women’s Aid. Her PhD, undertaken at the University of Warwick, was a study of school-based work to prevent domestic violence where the role of young people as evaluators was explored. She has a background of working with children and young people in formal and non-formal educational settings, as both a teacher and community education worker. She has been a member of the DCSF Advisory Group on Violence Against Women and Girls.

Carlie Goldsmith is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Kingston. Her main criminological research interests have included community safety, neighbourhood policing and young people. As part of this work for her PhD thesis, she has been particularly interested in utilising ethnographic and qualitative research methods to explore the strategies adopted and developed by young people attempting to stay safe in their communities. Her core concern has been to examine the impact of contemporary criminal justice policies on young people’s experience of community. Articles from this work have already been published – for example, in ASBO Nation (Policy Press, 2008).

Simon Hackett is Professor and Head of the School of Applied Social Sciences at Durham University, UK. He has published widely in relation to sexual abuse and sexual aggression. With Professor Helen Masson, he is involved in a multi-site study of desistance, recidivism and life course trajectories of young people 10 years after the initial identification of their sexually abusive behaviours. Simon’s practice base with children and young people with harmful sexual behaviours extends back to the early 1990s and he was previously a programme director of G-MAP, a leading UK community-based specialist service.

Simon Hallsworth is Professor of Social Research in the Department of Applied Social Science at London Metropolitan University and Director of the University’s Centre for Social and Evaluation Research. He has advised a range of statutory agencies on issues relating to crime and community safety, and has written extensively concerning street-related violence and penal change and development. He is author of Street Crime (Willan, 2005) and co-editor of The New Punitiveness: Trends, Theories, Perspectives (Willan, 2005).

Veronica M. Herrera is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Indiana University. Her research focuses on examining the long-term effects of exposure to family violence on adolescent risk behaviour. Her work examines gender differences in pathways to delinquency, psychopathology stemming from histories of victimisation, predictors of dating violence, and influence of partner effects on young adult offending patterns. She is particularly interested in the ways in which girls’ routes to delinquency differ from boys’. She has published articles in The Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Violence and Victims, Child Abuse and Neglect and The Journal of Family Violence.

Andrew Kendrick gained his PhD in social anthropology from the London School of Economics in 1984. He was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Dundee University before he took up the post of Professor of Residential Child Care with the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care at Strathclyde University. Andrew became Head of Department of the Glasgow School of Social Work in 2006. He has carried out a wide range of research related to child care and welfare, with a particular focus on residential child care. He recently edited the book Residential Child Care: Prospects and Challenges (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007).

Paul B. Naylor is a Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Health Services Effectiveness, Aston Business School, Aston University. Since taking up a research career 12 years ago, he has published, in total, more than 20 book chapters, web articles, and peer-reviewed journal articles. Most of this work has been on bullying among children and anti-bullying peer support systems in school, but also on workplace bullying and interpersonal racism.

Sharon L. Nichols is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is Chair of the Adolescence and Youth Development Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association, and co-author of two books: Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools (with D.C. Berliner, Harvard Education Press, 2007) and America’s Teenagers – Myths and Realities: Media Images, Schooling and the Social Costs of Careless Indifference (with T.L. Good; Erlbaum, 2004). Her current work focuses on the impact of test-based accountability on adolescent motivation and development.

Laurie Petch works as a practitioner–researcher in the area of applied existential child psychology. He is currently practising as an educational/school psychologist in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, where he also has a training role. Simultaneously, he is working to complete his PhD in ScHARR in the University of Sheffield, UK. He is a member of the British Psychological Society, the Canadian Psychological Association, the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, and the International Collaborative of Existential Counsellors and Psychotherapists. His research interests focus on renewing child and educational psychology practice through an approach underpinned by existential philosophy.

Emma Renold is a Reader in Childhood Studies at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. She is the author of Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities: Exploring Children’s Gender and Sexual Relations in the Primary School (RoutledgeFalmer, 2005) and co-editor of the international journal Gender and Education. Working at the intersection of queer and feminist post-structuralist theory she has published widely on the gendering and sexualisation of children and childhood across diverse institutional sites and spaces. Her current research project, ‘Young people and place’ foregrounds locality, bodies and movement in a participative multi-modal ethnography of girls’ and boys’ negotiations of urban and semi-rural public space.

Jessica Ringrose is a Senior Lecturer at the London Institute of Education. Her current research is on young people’s sexual identities and hierarchies on social networking sites, available in New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Identity (Palgrave, 2010). Her research on intersectional femininities and competitive, heterosexualised aggression and bullying appears in Feminism and Psychology, Feminist Theory, Girlhood Studies and The British Journal of Sociology of Education. Her writing on postfeminism, neo-liberalism, class and feminine ‘success’ can be found in Gender and Education and Feminist Media Studies. Jessica is currently writing a book: Postfeminist Education? Girls and the Sexual Politics of Schooling (Routledge).

Ian Rivers is Professor of Education at Brunel University, West London. He is a chartered health psychologist and has held Chairs in Applied and Community Psychology at York St John College and Queen Margaret University. He is the recipient of the British Psychological Society’s 2001 Award for Promoting Equality of Opportunity through his work as a psychologist in the UK, and in 2007 was elected a Fellow of the American Psychological Association for his contribution to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) psychology internationally.

Peter Squires is a Professor of Criminology and Public Policy at the University of Brighton. His work has included the fields of policing, youth crime and anti-social behaviour, and firearm-involved crime. Recent projects on young people, gangs and the use of weapons, in conjunction with the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College, London, have been the basis of his recent work exploring the street life of young people, ‘gangs’ and what has been referred to as the ‘weaponisation’ of youth violence. His book Shooting to Kill?: Policing, Firearms and Armed Response was published by Wiley-Blackwell in early 2010.

Nicky Stanley is Professor of Social Work at the University of Central Lancashire. She researches in the fields of domestic violence, parental mental health and child welfare, young people’s mental health and inter-agency work. Commissioned research includes studies of domestic violence initiatives, social work practices, the mental health of young people, teenage pregnancy and student suicide. Her study of service responses to children and families experiencing domestic violence has been published by NSPCC (2010). She is co-editor of Child Abuse Review and has published books on domestic violence and child protection, mothers’ mental health needs and inquiries in health and social care.

Jeff Stuewig is a Research Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. His research interests include developmental psychopathology, aggression, shame, guilt and risky behaviour over the life course. Recently, he has been involved in a study examining the moral emotions and their relationship to future recidivism and rehabilitation among a sample of jail inmates. He has published articles in Addictive Behaviors, Child Maltreatment, Development and Psychopathology, The Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, and The Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.

Jenna V. Williams is an Assistant Psychologist in the Mineral Hospital’s Neuro-Rehabilitation Service in Bath, UK. She graduated from the University of Bristol in 2006 with a first-class honours degree in experimental psychology. Jenna joined the University of Sheffield in 2007 as a Research Assistant where she worked on projects focusing on the social relationships of adolescents and young adults with Asperger Syndrome (high-functioning autism); interdisciplinary team working in community rehabilitation settings; evaluating the use of telehealth in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; and a European partnership implementing secondary school anti-bullying peer-support systems. Jenna has publications in the evolutionary psychology of relationships and the social psychology of bullying of adolescents with Asperger Syndrome.

Tara Young is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Social and Evaluation Research at London Metropolitan University. Tara obtained a first-class degree in sociology from the University of the West of England, Bristol, and a Master’s degree in criminology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is now working towards a PhD by publication. Tara has worked on a number of research projects focusing on group delinquency and gang membership. Her work on gangs in the UK (with Professor Simon Hallsworth) has influenced policy at local and national levels. She has co-authored several journal articles on street-based youth groups and Girls and Gangs – ‘Shemale’ Gangsters in the UK? Her current projects include understanding multiple perpetrator rape.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, and particularly the project editor Karen Shield, for their support, patience and commitment to this book. We owe a large debt of gratitude to Annabel Lander and Melanie Turner for all their administrative support and hard work over the duration of this project. We would also like to thank the NSPCC, especially Lorraine Radford and Phillip Noyes, for their continuing support and funding for our work in this important area of child welfare. Last but not least, our chapter authors have been a rewarding group to work with and we thank them for their efforts and patience.

1

Introduction

CHRISTINE BARTER AND DAVID BERRIDGE

BACKGROUND

Children behaving badly are a national scandal, a crisis never before seen, where children are out of control and dangerous. The streets are filled with hooded gangs of feral youths, while children routinely intimidate, attack and stab each other. Adults are no longer respected, their authority, values and laws disregarded. The rule of the street, governed by delinquent sub-cultures, has replaced the comfort of family values, with ever younger children being initiated. Or so we are led to believe. This represents, it has been argued, nothing less than a contemporary moral panic (Blackman and Walkerdine, 2001).

It is unclear what facts are submerged in this mist of rhetoric. How great a social problem is violence between children and young people? Has there been an unprecedented escalation in children’s violence, or has such violence always been present but lain unrecognised and hidden, as with child abuse and domestic violence? Who are these child perpetrators and their victims, and what can we do to safeguard all children and young people’s welfare in this area?

This book was conceived as a dispassionate and considered response to these questions, and to challenge some of the erroneous beliefs that surround children’s violence or, as one author describes the problem, ‘toxic childhoods’ (Palmer, 2007). Such ideologies around violent and out-of-control childhoods not only pervade public attitudes and prejudices towards children and young people, but also influence how policy makers and practitioners respond to these problems through, for example, social welfare settings, education and the criminal justice system, including the courts.

Not all forms of peer violence receive equal recognition or concern. Although we acknowledge that professional and public attention, mediated though a moral panic agenda, can be unhelpful and counter-productive, some aspects of peer violence fail to reach public or policy consciousness. Indeed, a common form of violence between young people occurs on the battlefield, where the UK and the US have deployed 18-year-olds in armed conflicts – for example, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps the only form of peer violence to come under sustained public and policy scrutiny, apart from, unsurprisingly, young offenders, has been school-based violence, generally conceptualised as bullying. Why some areas receive unparalleled attention while others remain concealed is open to interpretation.

However, a plausible explanation surrounds wider power inequalities. Children’s violence that directly challenges societal norms or institutions, such as that involving young offenders or some forms of school-based violence, is perceived as necessitating intervention, whereas peer violence that reflects wider power structures, especially inequalities based on gender, sexuality and ‘race’, continue to be tolerated (see Chapters 7, 10 and 13). In reality this has meant that little shared understanding has developed concerning the similarities and differences between different forms of peer violence, including the messages each can bring to best practice. There is an urgent need to inform understanding and professional responses in this complex and contested area of child welfare.

OVERVIEW OF OUR WORK ON PEER VIOLENCE

Both of us have wide experience in the field of child welfare research. Over the past 15 years our joint work, funded by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), a large UK children’s charity, has focused mainly on under-recognised and under-researched areas of peer violence. Initially this interest started with our research on NSPCC investigations into children’s allegations of institutional abuse (Barter, 1998). The analysis revealed that young people’s allegations concerned abuse by peers as well as staff. Yet many of the NSPCC investigators interviewed felt that their recommendations concerning peer abusers were often viewed with less importance by the commissioning authority than those relating to staff.

Our interest in peer violence was further intensified in our subsequent work on young people’s experiences of racism and racial harassment (Barter, 1999). This review showed that peers, rather than adults, were the main instigators of racism. However, from a child protection perspective, the review also found a lack of social work awareness regarding the impact of racial harassment and violence on children and young people, and an absence of practice guidance in the area.

These findings led to our research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under its Violence Research Programme, on peer violence in residential children’s homes (Barter et al., 2004). The research was the first UK study to focus exclusively on peer violence in this context. The level of peer violence we found in children’s homes was a major cause of concern. It is important to acknowledge that settings with very similar resident groups exhibited very different levels of violence, indicating that violence is socially determined and not simply an individual preoccupation. The conceptual framework developed from this research, based on young people’s narratives, is used in this volume by Andrew Kendrick (Chapter 6) to look at peer violence across all out-of-home settings.

While the aim of the research was to explore violence between children’s homes’ residents, it also exposed another form of peer violence: teenage partner violence. Many of the girls interviewed spoke about their boyfriend’s use of violence and control. A subsequent review of this area (Barter, 2006, 2009) showed that, although a body of evidence existed in the US, very little research had been undertaken in the UK. Similarly, policy understanding and professional awareness of this form of intimate violence, as distinct from adult experiences of domestic violence, was also disconcertingly absent. The editors have since undertaken two studies on partner violence in teenage intimate relationships, one of which is reported in Chapter 8 of this volume (Barter et al., 2009; Wood, Barter and Berridge, forthcoming).

We have therefore explained our interests and credentials for embarking on this book. Similar themes were taken up in other related work (e.g. Berridge et al., 2008; Kilpatrick et al., 2008). But undoubtedly a main driving force for undertaking this book was the children and young people who have shared their experiences with us over the past 15 years. Throughout our work on peer violence, the most consistent and powerful findings have been children’s and young people’s own testimonies on how peer relationships, and especially those involving violence, are among the main causes of anxiety and unhappiness in their lives; and that these concerns remain largely unacknowledged by, and unreported to, adults. For example, when we explained our current research on violence in teenage relationships to participants, the response below was common:

Zoe: That’s cool, someone’s fighting our corner.

DEFINITIONS AND MEANINGS

Violence is a disputed concept. In this book we have adopted a wide definition of violence that incorporates physical, sexual, emotional and verbal forms. We use Kelly’s (1988) conceptualisation of a ‘violence continuum’, in which different forms of violence can have a similar impact. Thus we do not impose a pre-determined hierarchy of harm in which, for example, physical violence is given priority above other forms. This reflects children’s and young people’s own evaluations where non-physical forms of violence can be seen as damaging as violence involving physical force, as illustrated below:

Having names called is worse … because it hurts you more … If you have a fight … the pain goes and it heals, but having been called whatever is always at the back of your head.

Fiona, 14, quoted from Barter et al., 2004, p. 29

We have used a definition of childhood that spans birth to 18 years. As much previous writing on peer violence has focused on older children and adolescents, we wanted to ensure that we compensated for this by including work on younger children’s experiences, especially preschool children (see Chapter 2).

The age of 18, in many respects, legally defines the end of childhood in the UK. Some ambiguities to this threshold exist – for example, the state’s responsibility for children ‘looked after’ can extend, at least in theory, into the early 20s. Nevertheless, reaching the age of 18 is generally seen as marking the final transition from childhood to adulthood. Unfortunately, the signifiers of adulthood, in terms of employment, housing and independence, are often severely restricted (Elliot, 1994). Thus, delimitations between childhood dependency and adult autonomy may be more theoretical than practical, especially for disadvantaged groups. While acknowledging this inconsistency, we have attempted to retain the age of 18 as the upper age limit for this book. Violence from young adults, especially men, has attracted considerable attention in research and policy, and we wanted to ensure that our focus remained on children’s experiences.

VIOLENT CHILDHOODS – PROTECTION TO PUNISHMENT

Violence between children is a complex and controversial area and one where media-fuelled trepidation about an epidemic of violent children has come to dominate public perceptions and debate. Often such concern is based on appalling and therefore high-profile, although exceptionally rare, events. Major public concern in the UK can probably be traced back to 1996, when two 10-year-old boys abducted and murdered the two-year-old toddler James Bulger. The coverage of the murder, and the representation of the two 10-year-old boys in the press, by police and the courts as ‘born evil’ and demonic, were a watershed for how childhood deviancy in the UK has come to be perceived (Holland, 2004). The public was especially shocked by the very young age of the murderers. The imagery of a moral collapse prevailed where children, who are supposed to be innocent and protected, turned into killers. This case led to an intense and continuing scrutiny concerning the meaning of childhood, and especially the duality of the innocent/evil child. In this discourse, the innocent and therefore pure, angelic and uncorrupted child, who is in need of our protection, is juxtaposed against the evil, wilful and demonic child, who is in need of constraint for the protection of society (Higonnet, 1998). As Scraton warns:

The conception of ‘evil’ within the aberrant child has long traditions … It resides permanently beneath the surface which presents a veneer of tolerance and understanding in direct contrast to the forces released once a child or young person steps out of line.

Scraton, 1997, p. 167

Children quickly transgress from protection to punishment with little regard for the wider factors that may influence their actions. Once a child transcends one state to another there is little chance of redemption – through their actions they have relinquished the right to their own childhood. Again, this is illustrated in the Bulger case where the children were put on trial as adults, not juveniles. Owing to public outcry against these children, the then Home Secretary attempted to increase the 10-year sentence given by the courts to 15 years (although this was overruled by the Court of Appeal and criticised by the European Court of Human Rights).

Following this, as argued by Brown (2007), a new consensus emerged on the way in which children have come to be viewed by the state, where their own vulnerability and victimisation have been replaced by a more pronounced concern directed at curbing their anti-social and deviant behaviour. This is put succinctly by the following quotation from a young person:

Some kids get left out of being seen as victims. They don’t seem vulnerable, but just because they don’t seem vulnerable doesn’t mean they aren’t. Often the worst behaved are the most vulnerable.

Evans, 2004, p. 15

A comparable media and public outcry occurred more recently in 2009 when two brothers, aged 10 and 11, abducted, tortured and sexually humiliated two boys aged 9 and 11 in South Yorkshire (Doncaster Safeguarding Children Board, 2010). The boys, who were in the care of Doncaster social services at the time of the attack, were convicted in an adult court in January 2010 of causing grievous bodily harm. They were given indeterminate sentences, although they would be eligible for release in five years. Since 2004 the same authority has seen seven children die in suspicious circumstances, leading to a number of serious case reviews (Bennet, 2009), but these deaths failed to receive the same degree of media and public anger and condemnation that was directed at the brothers, who had not killed.

It is important to remember that not all countries view their children in this way. A year after James Bulger was murdered in Liverpool, England, a similar murder occurred in Trondheim, Norway – the Raedergard case. The response could not have been more different. Whereas in the UK the child murderers were represented as evil and in need of punishment, in Norway they were seen as innocent, in need of protection and rehabilitation (Franklin and Larsen, 2000). We should perhaps ask why some countries, including the US (Elliot, 1994), have so readily embraced such malevolent depictions of their young, while others question what their society has done to fail their children so terribly and how this can be amended? In the UK some commentators have argued for a similar approach to be adopted – for example, Johnston (2007) reported Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the then Children’s Commis­sioner for England, as saying:

There is a crisis at the heart of our society and we must not continue to ignore the impact of our attitudes towards children and young people and the effect that this has on their well-being.

The recall to prison of one of James Bulger’s killers in 2010 has re-ignited the debate. Jon Venables, amid huge media publicity, was recalled to prison aged 27 as a result of breaching the licence under which he was released with a new identity in 2001. According to the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, an ‘extremely serious allegation’ had been made against him (Walker, 2010).

Following the recall of Venables, the current Children’s Commissioner, Maggie Atkinson, stated that serious reconsideration should be given to raising the age of criminal responsibility, and that we needed to reconsider how we respond to children who offend (quoted in Thomson and Sylvester, 2010). She continued that James Bulger’s killers should not have been prosecuted because children under 12 do not fully understand the consequences of their actions. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the age of criminal responsibility is 10-years-old, while in Scotland it is soon to be raised to 12 from 8 (Broadbridge, 2009). These represent the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in Europe, where young people are criminally responsible from between 12- and 18-years-old (Broadbridge, 2009).

Atkinson argued that we should look to other European countries’ methods of dealing with young offenders that are ‘more therapeutic, more family- and community-based, more about reparation than simply locking somebody up’ (Thomson and Sylvester, 2010). James Bulger’s mother responded by calling for Atkinson to be sacked for her ‘twisted and insensitive’ remarks. In response Atkinson apologised for any ‘hurtful’ comments while reiterating her belief that a serious discussion about increasing the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old still had to take place (BBC, 2010).

The Commissioner also called for a debate regarding to what extent victims of crime should influence policy and practice in criminal justice and child welfare services (BBC, 2010). This is a concern that both editors agree requires attention. Although the abhorrent and tragic circumstances of individual cases require recognition, and lessons need to be learnt regarding what may have prevented a tragedy occurring, the voices of individual victims should not determine policy and practice. The continuing rights of victims and their relatives, therefore, require further debate. We need as a society to put aside our anger and examine instead, calmly and with compassion, how such children can be helped and rehabilitated. There is a risk that politicians and the media can respond to such tragedies in a way that makes matters worse. Policy in this sensitive area needs to be underpinned by a measured and robust debate, in which children’s rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child are upheld, and the needs of both the victims and their assailants are recognised. This may not occur when individual victims, however devastating their situation, have the ability to stifle debate and determine policy.

UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

The following articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the corresponding obligations of governments to safeguard these rights, are of particular importance in relation to peer violence:

Article 3

1. In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.

2. States Parties undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being, taking into account the rights and duties of his or her parents, legal guardians, or other individuals legally responsible for him or her, and, to this end, shall take all appropriate legislative and administrative measures.

Article 19

1. States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.

2. Such protective measures should, as appropriate, include effective procedures for the establishment of social programmes to provide necessary support for the child and for those who have the care of the child, as well as for other forms of prevention and for identification, reporting, referral, investigation, treatment and follow-up of instances of child maltreatment described heretofore, and, as appropriate, for judicial involvement.

As argued by Yiasouma (2007) with regard to children’s rights, a potential conflict of interest occurs when the aggressor is also a child; however, under the United Nations Convention a duty of care exists both for the victim and the child or young person who has harmed. The first priority must be to protect the former from further harm, and to seek appropriate services and support. But it is equally imperative that the child or young person who has caused the harm is provided with appropriate help and support to meet his or her needs. Applying a children’s rights perspective does not entail letting violent children simply get away with it. It does, however, require a commitment to providing the services that will enable these children to reflect on their actions, understand the hurt they have caused, learn from their experiences and work towards building a positive future (Yiasouma, 2007; Garside, 2010). This will inevitably be a difficult process, and one that will not be helped by invoking the adult criminal justice system, or a society that views such children and young people as inherently evil and unredeemable. Violence between children is clearly a highly charged topic. We need to remind ourselves that more children are victims of violent crimes than they are perpetrators (Elliot, 1994; Commission on Children and Violence, 1995).

CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES

A study by UNICEF (2007), the United Nations children’s organisation, looked at the position of children and young people in 21 industrialised countries. The researchers used 40 indicators to analyse the quality of childhoods in each country. The UK was ranked bottom of these developed countries in its ability to bring up children successfully. In relation specifically to children’s family and peer relationships, the UK again came last of all 21 countries.

The research also showed that the proportion of children who report that their peers are ‘kind and helpful’ varied considerably across countries, from 80 per cent in Switzerland and Portugal to only just over 40 per cent in the UK. The World Health Organisation report (Currie et al., 2004) stated that being liked and accepted by peers was a crucial factor in the health and development of children and young people, and that those who were not socially integrated were far more likely to exhibit difficulties with their physical and emotional health. The above findings are particularly worrying when we look at young people’s exposure to violence from their peers. This is illustrated in Cawson et al.’s (2000) large, representative survey of nearly 3,000 young adults on the prevalence of all forms of childhood maltreatment. This study showed, as have others, that the most common source of distress to the sample during their childhood had been bullying and discrimination by other young people. Another recent school-based survey of 1,353 young people showed that approaching 1 in 6 of the total sample, equally for boys and girls, reported that their friends used aggression towards peers (Barter et al., 2009). Elliot (1994) argues that the strongest cause of peer violence is being attached to a delinquent peer group where violence is encouraged and reinforced. The UNICEF (2007) study also positioned the UK bottom for young people’s risky behaviours, such as smoking, drinking and under-age sex.

Thus, it is not surprising that research by Margo and Dixon (2006) argues that Britain’s youths are the worst-behaved in Europe. However, work by Barter et al. (2009) provides evidence regarding the prevalence and possible influence of violence from adults on young people’s lives. Disconcertingly, 13 per cent of girls and 9 per cent of boys reported that they had experienced violence from an adult family member, and 20 per cent of girls and 10 per cent of boys witnessed domestic violence. For these, violence could seem a normal part of everyday life.

The 2007 UNICEF report also highlighted that young people’s subjective sense of personal well-being was rated second to bottom. Rankin (2006) showed that around 1 in 10 UK children aged 5–16 had a mental health problem, one of the highest incidence rates in Europe. Worryingly, longitudinal research shows that young people’s mental health in the UK has been in decline over the past 30 years. This deterioration has not occurred to the same degree in many other developed countries including the US (Collishaw et al., 2004), nor with any other age group (Rutter and Smith, 1995).

Layard (2005) states that it is important to recognise that mental health problems and poverty are intrinsically linked. This may help to explain the high relative level of mental health problems for UK children. The 2007 UNICEF report showed the UK to have one of the highest levels of relative child poverty and deprivation of all 21 countries. No consistent relationship between a country’s wealth and the well-being of its children was found. However, it did reveal that children who grew up in areas of deprivation were more vulnerable and significantly more likely to be exposed to multiple hardships. Given these findings, we may conclude that UK childhoods are not something to be envied; and there seems to be something seriously amiss in the UK in what we are doing to children’s lives.

CHILD WELFARE POLICY AND PRACTICE – AMBIGUITY AND DISCORD

Perhaps the single most recognised form of peer violence, at least in educational policy and practice, is bullying. In the 1970s bullying began to emerge as an area for study and policy attention. Since then, awareness and policy developments have become widespread and now every UK school is inspected by the national inspection agency OFSTED on their response to bullying. Anti-bullying policies have become an integral part of the official school agenda, although commentators have argued that in the past only certain forms of bullying have received official recognition (see Chapters 10 and 13). A wide range of policy and practice initiatives, aimed at stopping or reducing school bullying, have been developed in the UK and internationally.

Over the last decade the government has issued a range of new guidance for schools under its Safe to Learn initiative (Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2007a). This covers different aspects of bullying including homophobic bullying (ibid., 2007b), cyber bullying (ibid., 2007c), bullying involving pupils with special educational needs and disability (ibid., 2008), bullying in the community (ibid., 2009a), bullying in children’s homes (ibid., 2009b), and also sexist, sexual and transphobic bullying (ibid., 2009c). This is in addition to the existing guidance on tackling bullying related to race, religion and culture (Department for Education and Skills, 2006). The Safe to Learn initiative (Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2007a) defines bullying as ‘behaviour by an individual or group usually over time, which intentionally hurts another individual or group either physically or emotionally’ (p. 11).

It is still too early to determine the impact of these new guidelines on levels of school bullying, although evaluations concerning the effectiveness of other strategies and initiatives have been mixed (see Chapter 3).

Although school-based bullying has become an established area for policy development, other forms of peer violence have not benefited from this heightened recognition. Indeed, child welfare policy has often failed to acknowledge the significance of peer violence on the lives and well-being of children and young people. Much child welfare research and practice focuses exclusively on adult–child interactions, be they neglectful/abusive or in a professional context (Barter, 2009). Only recently has social work attention moved to incorporate other aspects of peer violence – for example, in relation to sexually harmful behaviours. Regrettably, other areas of peer violence and abuse still remain largely neglected in social work research, despite the fact that young people themselves have repeatedly identified peer relationships, and especially those involving violence, to be one of their main concerns (Utting, 1997; Barter et al., 2004).

Consequently, professional practice may not be reflecting young people’s own concerns and wishes regarding the impact of peer violence. A number of obstacles have been presented to explain this omission, including viewing peer violence as experimental; fear of stigmatisation; a mistaken view that peer abuse is less harmful than abuse by adults; lack of awareness of adole­scent abuse generally; and low reporting levels (Hird, 2000; Barter, 2009). The omission to respond to peer violence in current safeguarding responses may reflect a limitation of the system itself:

In many respects the UK child protection system, its tools and current practices, are poorly equipped to protect a young person whose problems do not necessarily revolve around the quality of parenting at home, but may be created or exacerbated by their own behaviours.

Children’s Society response to the Paying the Price consultation,1 November 2004, quoted in Evans [2004], p. 16.

Reforms through the government’s ‘Every Child Matters’ (2003) agenda were designed to improve life for all children and young people, which should include peer relationships. Five outcomes were presented, which all children should achieve:

be safe;be healthy;enjoy and achieve;achieve social and economic well-being;make a positive contribution.

The reforms included new duties to cooperate with, and to consider, safeguarding and the promotion of welfare for all children. It was argued that the outcomes would be achieved through meeting the needs of the most vulnerable through high-quality, inclusive, universal services. It may be asked, for example, if it is possible for children and young people to ‘make a positive contribution’ to their community or society given the very negative and stigmatising ideologies around aspects of childhood that currently prevail.

Alongside these reforms the previous government instituted a programme to decrease the level of anti-social activity, including violence, through its ‘Respect’ agenda. Although this agenda incorporated both prevention and enforcement, in practice the main emphasis was on enforcement to the detriment of prevention. Thus support for parents, youth activities and Individual Support Orders, configured into the Respect agenda, received far less emphasis than did enforcement measures, such as Anti-Social Behavioural Orders (ASBOs), which have been widely perceived as a central mechanism to combat youth delinquency (see Chapter 14).

This is a complex area and there is a need for greater clarity. While on the one hand government has been committed to meeting the needs of all children and young people through its Every Child Matters programme and its endorsement of children’s rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, on the other hand it has demonised children and young people through its support of harsh, punitive measures, such as the high recent use of youth custody and ASBOs. In addition, and for too long, both social work practice and research have disregarded violence and abuse perpetrated between children and young people. This inconsistency leaves children and young people unprotected.

THEORETICAL STANDPOINT OF THE BOOK

This is the first UK publication, as far as we are aware, to directly address the complexity of peer violence from a range of perspectives and disciplines, including sociology, psychology, criminology, education, social work and child welfare. Any reliance on a single theoretical standpoint is likely to be inadequate in explaining the complexity of our social world, and especially in understanding violence. Empirical work needs to understand the ways in which complementary theoretical standpoints can help unravel multifaceted social problems (Layder, 1998). By adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, this book sets out to provide useful insights into theoretical understandings of the issues, and to highlight their implications for policy and practice developments.

Although diverse disciplines and perspectives are represented, the importance of understanding and responding to children’s and young people’s own views and experiences is a common theme of the book. Many of the contributors, either overtly or covertly, use conceptualisations associated with the sociology of childhood. This sociological framework has, over the past two decades, become a well-acknowledged theoretical standpoint that juxtaposes children’s own experiences of being a child and the institutional form that childhood takes (e.g. James, Jenks and Proud, 1998; Mayall, 2002, 2004). Within this literature, children are seen as being actively involved in the construction of their own social lives, the lives of those around them and the societies in which they live. This enables children to be viewed as significant actors in, and interpreters of, a complex social world (Brannen and O’Brien, 1996):

The nature of children’s childhood is not simply the outcome of the particular structural conditions in which children happen to find themselves … Neither is it solely the outcome of sets of discourses produced by adults … Nor is it yet simply a function of the cultural determinates associated with, for example class or kin relations. It is also a product of the everyday actions of children themselves.

James and James, 2004, p. 23

To avoid the danger of simplistic accounts of a homogeneous childhood, the plurality of children’s experiences must be acknowledged, according to gender, class, disability, ethnicity and age (James et al., 1998). Much work, for example, has been undertaken on the gendered nature of childhood and the ways in which constructs of masculinity and femininity shape young people’s realities (McRobbie, 1990; Holland et al., 1998; McCarry, 2003; Sieg, 2007), including their experiences of peer violence (Chung, 2005; Barter et al., 2009).

RATIONALE FOR INCLUSION

All the following chapters are based on up-to-date research evidence; some present previously unpublished findings. Our contributors are experts in their field and we are grateful for their participation. A strength of the book, in our view, is that for the first time it brings together international research and commentary on a wide range of peer violence areas, which provide new insights and messages for child welfare understanding and practice. The collection spans the childhood spectrum developing a unique comprehension of peer violence from early childhood through to late adolescence. Contributors were invited so as to provide a diversity of perspectives and a combination of well-recognised and researched areas, such as school bullying, and less known areas, as with UK teenage partner violence and peer violence in out-of-home care. The collection directly addresses issues of diversity through consideration of wider power inequalities based on gender, ‘race’ and homophobia.

As editors, we wanted to report not only empirical and theoretical understanding but also to identify possible implications for practice. We therefore asked authors to conclude their chapter with a list of points or issues for practice. It is important to recognise that the diversity of authors contributing to this collection means that some contributors work in a more directly applied manner, in relation to policy and practice, than others. Nonetheless we feel that the differences between chapters are part of the appeal of an edited volume.

LAYOUT OF BOOK

The 16 chapters of the book are divided into four sections. Part 1 includes five chapters, which address peer violence in very different contexts. In Chapter 2, Jane Brown focuses on peer violence among preschool children. Initially she revisits the contentious debates about the definition of violence and asks to what extent this term can be applied to very young children. The influence of attitudinal factors, including ideas of childhood innocence, is elaborated upon. She concludes by examining the challenges associated with interpretation of childhood aggression, including how physically aggressive and ‘superhero’ play in preschool settings is mediated by expectations about gender and social class. Chapter 3 by Helen Cowie explores the underlying causes of school bullying, its impact and the associated outcomes for the quality of peer relationships. She considers the ways in which professionals can work with young people to counteract bullying and understand more about the nature of their relationships with others. In the next chapter (4), Paul Naylor, Laurie Petch and Jenna Williams outline research on violence between siblings. They begin by clarifying what constitutes sibling violence and abuse. Findings from a recent systematic review are used to explore the prevalence, correlates and causes of sibling violence. The authors explore the effects of such violence on children and discuss what future research is required.

Chapter 5 looks at the controversial area of violent crimes by young people, including an analysis of ‘gangs’. Using testimonies derived from research on violent street crime, Tara Young and Simon Hallsworth document the processes by which young men become immersed in violent street worlds. They explore the factors that lead young men to engage in ‘a life on road’, examining the violence they conduct and the street collectives in which they are immersed. Through this, the populist image of the ‘gang’ is challenged. Lastly in this section, Andrew Kendrick (Chapter 6) addresses the issue of peer violence in out-of-home settings. He adopts Barter et al.’s (2004) framework of peer violence from children’s residential care and applies it across a broader range of out-of-home settings, including foster family care, secure accommodation and young offender institutions. He outlines the ways in which carers are responding to issues of peer violence in out-of-home settings, and identifies ‘good practice’ messages.

Part II of the book introduces the reader to different forms of peer violence. In Chapter 7, Les Back recounts the murder of Stephen Lawrence to provide a detailed exploration of the links between youth crime and the legacy of violent UK racism. He provides a powerful and moving account of how the brutal stabbing provided a tragic watershed in the history of racism in Britain. The chapter draws on the struggle of the Lawrence family and their supporters to bring the murderers to justice, a struggle which, according to the author, lays bare the institutional failure and injustices of the British criminal justice system. Following this, Christine Barter (Chapter 8) focuses on one of the least recognised forms of peer violence in the UK: teenage partner violence. This chapter, based on an original UK research project, documents the incidence rates for physical, sexual and emotional forms of teenage partner violence, and addresses the associated factors that may increase a young person’s susceptibility, either as recipient or assailant. The dynamics of teenage partner violence, including frequency, development over time and help-seeking, are explored. Young people’s own testimonies are presented throughout. The findings of this research led directly to the government’s launching of a £2 million media awareness campaign on teenage relationship abuse.

Simon Hackett, in Chapter 9, is concerned with the problematic, abusive and harmful sexual behaviours perpetrated by children and young people. Official statistics, probably an underestimate, show that children and young people account for a significant proportion of reported sexual abuse. The chapter provides a concise analysis of the existing research in this sensitive area and looks at who these children and young people are, their family context and the risk of recidivism. The final chapter of Part II is by Ian Rivers and looks at homophobia and peer violence. The author argues that among adolescents, homophobic violence has a number of significant characteristics that distinguish it from other forms of peer aggression, particularly in schools. He reminds us that not all victims of homophobic violence are lesbian, gay or bi-sexual, because children and young people who are deemed to be somehow ‘different’ may also experience homophobic violence. He questions why young people use sexuality above any other mark of individuality to determine who is a target and who is unaffected.

Part III seeks to develop a more in-depth and critical understanding of certain aspects of peer violence. In Chapter 11, Veronica Herrera and Jeffrey Stuewig consider how child maltreatment and domestic violence have an impact on peer violence. Using longitudinal data, they examine the impact of three forms of child maltreatment – marital violence, child physical abuse and child sexual abuse – on children and young people’s aggression, bullying and peer victimisation. Previous research in this area has largely failed to incorporate gender as a mediating factor. In response, the authors position this as a central component in their analysis and discussion. Following this, Sharon Nichols (Chapter 12) reviews the current theoretical and empirical literature on the media portrayal of youth violence. She explores, through various theoretical lenses, how instigators and victims of violence are depicted, and the ways in which race, gender and age intersect with media portrayal. She addresses how US and European media compare, especially around how youth violence is depicted and contextualised. Furthermore, she explores how prevalence rates of youth violence contrast to media representations. Chapter 13 then returns to the issue of bullying as Jane Ringrose and Emma Renold provide a challenge to how bullying is currently perceived and responded to in anti-bullying policies. Using a feminist post-structural framework, and drawing on recent ethnographic and qualitative data, they explore how the concept of ‘bullying’ works to simplify and individualise highly complex power relations embedded in girls’ and young women’s school-based peer group cultures. They contend that policy continues to ignore gendered and sexualised violence in schools. It will be interesting to see, given the authors’ arguments, how the new guidance for schools on preventing sexist, sexual and transphobic bullying (Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2009c) has an impact on this form of gendered peer violence.