INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE ACADEMY

OVERSEAS STUDY PREPARATION PROGRAMME

SCHOOL VIOLENCE IN HO CHI MINH

CITY

TUTOR’S NAME : GLEN SUTTON

STUDENT’S NAME : LE QUOC CUONG
COURSE : INTERMEDIATE
HO CHI MINH CITY, APRIL 17, 2009

Report: SCHOOL VIOLENCE Page 1

INTRODUCTION

The recent and rapid economic development in Viet Nam has improved living
conditions for many people, especially people in Ho Chi Minh City. It is also resulting
in very big changes to traditional society and family life. Teenagers are living through
these changes which sharply affect teenager’s behavior. Moreover, Teenagers are
experiencing a higher level of violence which results from negative benefits of these
changes such as violence in Hollywood movies as well as computer games.

Eventually, the aim of this report is to find out the reasons for the increasing
occurrence of violence in school and to find some reasonable solutions may be
discovered to deal with this alarming problem.

I hope this survey will be helpful to schools, parents, and society to pay more
attention on this problem in reducing occurrence violence in school. The report will be
used by schools and parents to determine what exactly influence to their students as
well as their children and thereby to raise right solutions contributed to decrease the
problems.

I anticipate the most the people who reply the survey will not have any clear
solutions. I also expect many of them to realize that there are more problems of
violence in schools.

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METHODOLOGY

During the first two weeks of March 2009 at ILA ( the International Language
Academy),we conducted a survey among seven foreign teachers, nine students, and
four administration staff, who are between 18 and 55 years old. One third is married
and has at least one child.

The purpose of my study was to discover the views of a variety of people about
teenagers’ lives and what teenagers are experiencing nowadays.

At the start of my questionnaire is a “personal information” section, followed by

seven multi choice questions. The first three questions concerned teenager’s behavior.
The next three questions were related to the problem of violence in school; one
question looked at the responsibility of schools and parents for the problem. The final
question referred to finding reasonable solutions

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STATISTIC

Chart 1: Favourite teenagers' activities

50 41.9
40 32.3
Percentage

30
20 12.9
10 6.5 6.5

0
Play gamesPlay sport Watch Read books Meet
movies friends
The chart illustrates what activities teenagers usually do in their free time. As
can be seen from the results, the majority of respondents thought teenagers preferred
playing computer/video games. Next meeting friends were the second teenager’s
favorite’s activity with 32% followed by 13% watching movies and least popular their
interest’s activities are 16% either read books or play sports.

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 Chart 2: Influence to teenagers's attitude
28.6
30
25 19
Percentage

20 14.3 14.3
11.9
15
7.1
10
2.38 2.38
5
0

Family Internet
TV Films
Classmates Community
News/magazines Video/Computer Games

The graph shows the percentage of influence to teenager’s attitude. According

to the chart, nearly a third of participant think internet is the most impactful to
teenager’s character. Classmates were the second affect with 19%. Percentage of
people who concern most about family was similar to films, with 14.3% followed by
7.1% TV. The lowest was community and News/Magazines, at 2.38%

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 Chart 3: Reasons for school violence
11% 15% Lack of Education

Weak Disciplline
11%
26% Psychological
Problems
Aggressive Attitudes

No reason
37%

The pie chart gives information about the different reason for violence in
school.

We can clearly see from the results, psychological problems were the main
reason with 37%. Next was an aggressive attitude with 26%. Lack of education was
the next reason with 15%. The smallest about of respondents chose No reason and
weak discipline with 11%.

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 Chart 4: Reasonable solutions for decreasingviolence in
school
7%

41%
35%

17%

More cooperation between parents and schools

More mental health education
More attention fromparents, schools and society
Strict discipline

The pie chart illustrates the capable solutions to reduce violence in school.
Accoring to the graph, the most feasible solution is to should more cooperation
between parents and schools, at 41%. More attention from parents, school and society
is the next solution with 35%, followed 17% more mental health education. The last
reasonable solution is need strict discipline with 7%.

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DISCUSSION

I expected that most people agreed that teenagers would be influenced by

benefits of the recent economic development and the change in traditional family
living. One of the reasons is teenagers are experiencing with a large of infiltration of
foreign cultures, especially western cultures and they are not able to realize which
positive things they should receive and which negative thing they shouldn’t. For
example, it’s normal nowadays to have a computer with available internet connection
so teenagers can easily approach huge information which will be very dangerous if
there isn’t a direct from their parents. Moreover, there are more Hollywood films
coming to Viet Nam. Most of them contain large of violent scenes which can badly
influence to teen personalities.

I also expected that people would not be aware how serious school violence
school was. One of the possible reasons is the parents are busy at their business and
are not concern so much about their children’s life except the their studying.
Obviously, according to the results, major teenagers’ behaves are sharply affected by
internet and classmates than traditional family life. Besides, schools also take their
responsibility for the issue because they don’t pay much attention on their student’s
life. For example, they should open many beneficial playgrounds such as academic
clubs as well as sporty clubs where students can spent their free time outside the
studying.

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 Eventually, as a result of negative effects from the current life, teenagers recent
have got many troubles in forming their proper personalities. Therefore, this is the
main cause for the social problem – school violence at 63% of opinions (26%
aggressive attitude and 37% psychological problems). This number is definitely a state
of alarm which makes educators and parents and society as well recognize how critical
the problem is and take care much more on teen’s life especially their behave.

In my survey, besides finding out what are the main factors in the increase
school’s violence, I also have raised some reasonable remedies. The majority of
respondents in my survey thought we should had more mental health education and
more attention from parents and school as well as society which are the most feasible
solutions that I really expected through the results are mention above.

With my research, I hope educators, society and especially parents pay more
attention more on what exactly their student, their children are actually going through
to help them form the proper character. Besides, from my statistics, they will find out
feasible solutions to cure this social problem.

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CONCLUSION

In summary, there is a lot of useful information for us to consider. In spite of

youth nowadays are active, clever and independent, they are experiencing a big
change in tradition, culture and family life. However, parents don’t clearly understand
their children because of different ideas about life. On the other hand, teenagers also
take some part of responsibility on forming their proper manner, behavior. Besides,
educator must realize schools are not only a place which gives students knowledge,
but also contribute to build students’ characteristic.

If I did the survey again, I would include the question what was pressure teens
were facing? What should government do to not only reduce violence in school, but
also prevent the recent criminal problems in youth (murder, rape, sexual battery,
robbery)?

I hope that the statistics which were gained from my report will help parent
understand their children deeply and school managers will improve the education
system to train either proficient or well-behavior students. Additionally, I also hope
the report will be useful document for psychological scientist’ researches

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Questionnaire: School Violence
I am doing some research to find out about the increasing occurrence of fighting
in schools in Ho Chi Minh among teenagers so that the reasonable solutions may be
found.
Personal Information
• Occupation:....................................................
• Sex: Male Female
• Age: 12-18 19-24 25-35 36-50 over50
• Are you married : Yes No
• Do you have any children: Yes No
How old are they? Under 12 13-18
19-25 over 25
1. What do you think about teenagers nowadays?
Active Clever
Independent Naughty
Lazy
2. What do teenagers usually do in their leisure?
Play games Read books
Take part in sports Meet friends
Watch movies
3. What effects teenagers attitudes most?
Family Classmates
Internet Community
TV News/magazines
Films Video/computer games
4. What do teenagers do if they are in a competition / argument?
Fight Tell the teacher
Discuss the problems Nothing happens
5. Why do they choose violent ways instead of discussion?
Lack of education Aggressive attitudes
Weak discipline No reason
Psychological problems
6. Who will take responsibility for violence in school?
School Parents
Society teenagers
7. What are the best solutions for decreasing violence in schools?
More cooperation between parents and school
More mental health education
More attention from parents and school as well as society
Strict discipline
Thank you!

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