Adolescents who experience violence in school bring violence home to family, study finds
Published: 25 Dec. 2025, 14:34
![Members of anti-school violence civic organization, The Blue Tree Foundation, stage an anti-violence rally outside their office in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Sept. 12, 2023. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/12/25/4ff3fdca-b92a-4070-b0cc-d3b17f9a628c.jpg)
Members of anti-school violence civic organization, The Blue Tree Foundation, stage an anti-violence rally outside their office in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Sept. 12, 2023. [YONHAP]
Three out of 10 adolescents who experienced school violence have committed violence against their parents, raising calls for support measures that focus on families rather than only individual students because violence experienced at school can spill over into the home.
The finding was included in a study titled “The impact of school violence experiences on adolescent violence against parents” by researchers Shin Na-eun, Kang Hyun-ji and Kim Yo-han of Yonsei University’s Graduate School of Social Welfare.
The survey covered 1,552 adolescents aged 13 to 18, of which 495 respondents, or 31.9 percent, said they had experienced school violence, accounting for nearly one-third of the total. Those who said they were victims only numbered 151, or 9.7 percent, those who said they were perpetrators only numbered 79, or 5.1 percent, and those who said they had been both victims and perpetrators numbered 265, or 17.1 percent.
Among adolescents with experience of school violence, 30.1 percent said they had assaulted their parents, far higher than the 9.4 percent reported among those with no such experience. In particular, 38.9 percent of respondents who had experience as both perpetrator and victim reported inflicting violence against their parents, which is four times the rate of the group with no school violence experience. The rate stood at 21.9 percent among the victim-only group and 16.5 percent among the perpetrator-only group.
Among the 1,552 parents surveyed — one parent per adolescent participant — 248 respondents, or 16 percent, said they had experienced violence from their child. By type, the most common was severe verbal abuse such as swearing at 11.9 percent, followed by breaking or kicking objects at 6.1 percent. Physical violence was also significant, including forcefully pushing parents at 5.7 percent, throwing objects at parents at 4.8 percent, and kicking or punching parents at 3.7 percent.
“Adolescents who have overlapping experiences as both victims and perpetrators of school violence are likely to displace the wounds and frustration they received from others onto close and safe targets such as parents because they fail to properly resolve those emotions,” the researchers said.
“Because school violence experiences can spread into domestic violence, support should be expanded beyond adolescents as individuals to include family-based assistance that involves parents.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KIM MIN-SANG [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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