Classmates are the main culprits behind school violence in South Korea, a survey showed Thursday.
According to the report by the Education Ministry, 72.1 percent of the perpetrators were classmates, indicating that most school violence was inflicted by those who are closest. Nearly half ― 45 percent ― of the incidents happened within the classroom and 74.8 percent occurred on school grounds.
The ministry’s second biannual survey on school violence was conducted from Sept. 15 to Oct. 24 on 4.3 million students across the country, and it showed the proportion of students falling victim to school violence went from 1.4 percent in the first half of this year to 1.2 percent.
School violence was more common among younger students. The ratios for elementary, middle and high school students were 1.8 percent, 1.1 percent, and 0.6 percent, respectively.
Verbal abuse was the most frequent form of school violence, at 35.4 percent, followed by ostracism, physical violence and stalking, at 16.8 percent, 11.8 percent and 10.1 percent.
More male students were victimized than their female counterparts, with bulling rates of 1.4 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively. Boys were most likely to suffer from beatings, while ostracism by classmates was the most frequent form of abuse among girls.
Asked why bullies harassed their victims, the most common answer was “as a joke,” with 31.3 percent.
But the report indicated that supposed unintentional bullying may be more common among boys. About 38.4 percent of male bullies said their actions were intended “as a joke,” while 34.9 percent of females said they actually “did not like the person who was bullied.”
One in 5 perpetrators of school violence had been on the receiving end of bullying, the report showed.
The reported percentage of students who were bullied has fallen drastically from 12.3 percent in 2012. The number of reported bystanders who witnessed school violence also dropped considerably to 141,000 from 325,000 in the first 2014 survey.
By Yoon Min-sik (
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)
