Chapter -07(unit-3)

Youth and Violence

Youth Violence Essay: Youth Violence is escalating quickly and is becoming one of the major
concerns all over the world nowadays. At home, outside, schoolyard, and everywhere in the
community, frequent youth violence can be found.

Youth is something that should have no association with the term violence. Yet, in this era, youth
violence is becoming very ordinary. The third leading cause of deaths in teens and children is
youth violence.

Moreover, those individuals who have faced youth violence often face resulting in sensitive
struggles. If a child or teen have faced violence before, or have bad grades or if they are under
the influence of alcohol or drugs, they might have a risk of showing violence. „Violence‟ is
mostly seen as physical harm rather than the harm caused by words.

Bullying via social media platforms, spreading rumours or simply being a bystander and
indirectly helping youth violence is also counted as youth violence. Either physically or
emotionally hurting a teen by another teen is considered as youth violence.

Many of the schools have yet to take any actions against the growing epidemic of violence in
youths. Due to negative home lives, negativity in school and also due to violent video games teen
bullying in school is increasing day by day and as a result teen suicide is also increasing. The
strongest or meanest youth in the school is the most influential according to the youths due to
which they are afraid to cross path with that particular student.

If preventive measures against these sorts of violence are not established in schools as soon as
possible youths learn that acting negatively will give them positive outcomes and more cases of
youth violence will start to take place. Nowadays, youth are constantly surrounded by acts of
violence in movies and series, which generates two common effects in them, which are imitation
and fear.

Another major problem due to which youth violence arises is gangs as many youths are parts
gangs which comes with bad influences. The teens want others to see them as someone to be
feared due to which they join a gang. To join a cool gang, they either have fought and are always
prepared to do things which are very dangerous for them without even thinking about the results.
Some teens seek comfort, thinking they are alone in this world except for the gang members.

Many risk factors for youth violence are linked to experiencing toxic stress, or stress that is
prolonged and repeated. Toxic stress can negatively change the brain development of children
and youth. Toxic stress can result from issues like living in impoverished neighborhoods,
experiencing food insecurity, experiencing racism, limited access to support and medical
services, and living in homes with violence, mental health problems, substance abuse, and other
instability.

Causes of youth violence:

 History of violent victimization

 Attention deficits, hyperactivity, or learning disorders
 History of early aggressive behavior
 Involvement with drugs, alcohol, or tobacco
 Low IQ
 Poor behavioral control
 Deficits in social cognitive or information-processing abilities
 High emotional distress
 History of treatment for emotional problems
 Antisocial beliefs and attitudes
 Exposure to violence and conflict in the family

FAMILY RISK FACTORS

 Authoritarian childrearing attitudes

 Harsh, lax, or inconsistent disciplinary practices
 Low parental involvement
 Low emotional attachment to parents or caregivers
 Low parental education and income
 Parental substance abuse or criminality
 Poor family functioning
 Poor monitoring and supervision of children

PEER AND SOCIAL RISK FACTORS

 Association with delinquent peers

 Involvement in gangs
 Social rejection by peers
 Lack of involvement in conventional activities
 Poor academic performance
 Low commitment to school and school failure

Youth and protest:

Youth movements are the organized, conscious attempts by young people to bring about or resist
societal change. A prominent feature of modern societies, youth movements emerge out of
generational tensions and relations and are rooted in specific sociohistorical conditions.

Youth movements have taken a variety of forms, including student rebellions, cultural
innovations (literary, artistic, music), scientific revolutions, religious reforms, ethnic revolts,
nationalist and political generations, and environmental, peace and antiwar movements. Attempts
to study the origins and patterns of modern youth movements have focused on two types of
generational conflict:

(a) Intergenerational conflict (involving young people's dissatisfaction with the status quo and
the authorization of their contemporaries to work for social and political change), and

(b) Intergenerational conflict among competing generation units or mobilized youth groups
(revolutionary, progressive, moderate, conservative, and reactionary). Historically, most youth
movements have formed over issues of citizenship, social discontinuities, and cultural
expressiveness.

The major types of social movements are reform movements, revolutionary movements,
reactionary movements, self-help movements, and religious movements.

For social movements to succeed, they generally must attract large numbers of participants.
Recruitment by people in the social networks of social movement sympathizers plays a key role
in transforming them into social movement activists.

Four major stages in the life cycle of a social movement include emergence, coalescence,
institutionalization or bureaucratization, and decline.

Social movements may have political, cultural, and biographical consequences. Political
consequences seem most likely to occur when a movement engages in disruptive protest rather
than conventional politics and when it has a single-issue focus. Involvement in movements is
thought to influence participants‟ later beliefs and career choices.

Youth and political protest

Youth activism is the participation in community organizing for social change by persons
between the ages of 15–24. Youth activism has led to a shift in political participation and
activism. A notable shift within youth activism is the rise of “Alter-Activism” resulting in an
emphasis on lived experiences and connectivity amongst young activists. The young activists
have taken lead roles in public protest and advocacy around many issues like climate change,
abortion rights and gun violence.
Some political movements have aimed to change government policy, such as the anti-war
movement, the ecology movement, and the anti-globalization movement. With globalization,
global citizens movements may have also emerged.

Many political movements have aimed to establish or broaden the rights of subordinate
groups, such as abolitionism, the women's suffrage movement, the civil rights movement,
feminism, gay rights movement, the disability rights movement, the animal rights
movement, or the inclusive human rights movement. Some have represented class interests,
such as the labour movement, socialism, and communism, while others have expressed national
aspirations, such as anticolonialist movements, Rātana, Zionism, and Sinn Féin. Political
movements can also involve struggles to decentralize or centralize state control, as in anarchism,
fascism, and Nazism.

Famous recent social movements can be classified as political movements as they have
influenced policy changes at all levels of government. Political movements that have recently
emerged within the US are the Black Lives Matter Movement, and the Me Too Movement.
While political movements that have happened in recent years within the Middle East is the Arab
Spring. While in some cases these political movements remained movements, in others they
escalated into revolutions and changed the state of government.

Causes for youth protest:

 Issues of citizenship
 Social discontinuities
 Cultural expressiveness
 Less scope for dignity and security of life
 Deprivation
 discontent
 frustration
 Better economic or political position of movement constituents
 Growth (including origins) of social movement popular support
 Acceptance as a normal part of the political process