An analysis of how family relationships and psycho-social characteristics influence student aggression and self-esteem

This study examines the psychosocial and family factors that may cause aggression, in order to identify the nature of aggressive behaviors and trend, to examine the nature of the family related factors that might lead to aggression and to examine the relationships between aggressive and non-aggressive student’s level of self-esteem. A sample survey design was used for this study. 100 boy students aged between 11-14 years (50 identified as aggressive and 50 identified as non-aggressive) were included, from ten selected schools in Colombo. A self-developed Likert scale and semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. The Culture Free Self-Esteem Inventories–Third Edition (CFSEI-3) was used to measure student self-esteem. The study findings indicated that student aggression manifests in different ways; the most common indications of aggressive behavior exhibited by the students being talking, shouting and laughing loudly while the teacher presented the day’s lessons, truancy, intentionally disturbing bystanders by being boisterous in the school playground, insulting, intimidating and taunting teachers, fighting in groups, resisting learning and deliberately disrupting the teaching-learning process. Aggressive students also displayed delinquent behavior and failed to complete homework and classwork, in contrast to other students. The aggressive students were found to have significant issues of conflict in their family relationships and very low scores in self-esteem, compared to the other students. Thus, it seems vital for teachers to develop better empathy in dealing with aggressive students. In order to manage and mitigate the problem of student aggression in schools, it is also important to provide integrated counseling services and opportunities for students to have more extracurricular and disciplinary activities as compared to exam-oriented education, from elementary school level onwards. It could also be useful to look into the possibility of offering practical education in life-skills to students, from an early age.