VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS: GLOBAL PREVALENCE, IMPACTS ON STUDENTS, AND PROMISING INTERVENTIONS

Abstract

Violence is a ubiquitous problem in many schools throughout the world, directly affecting students and teachers, and indirectly having an impact on the wider community. It has multiple, lasting negative impacts on students, including on trust. It also undermines the ability of communities and governments to create schools that are safe harbors where children and adolescents can develop their abilities and skills while also embracing the values of cooperation, mutual respect, peaceful problem solving, inclusion, and gender equality. This paper provides data on the prevalence of violence in schools as well as some of its impacts, including on the trust that students have in their schools and teachers. The paper considers next promising interventions to end violence in schools and provides a summary of cost-benefit analyses of those interventions, suggesting that they tend to have high benefit to cost ratios.