Children Behaving Badly?: Peer Violence Between Children and Young People

Children Behaving Badly? violence between children is a controversial and frequently misunderstood issue, one that has seen media-fuelled moral panic come to dominate public perceptions and debate. The book presents a powerful challenge to commonly held beliefs about peer violence and portrays it as an important child welfare concern. It gathers together the most updated international research and expert commentary on peer violence issues from across the childhood spectrum. Contributions reveal how childhood is not a homogenous experience but fragmented by gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and poverty, which are each addressed within specific chapters. Other issues explored include pre-school children and peer violence, bullying, youth gangs, knife crime, teenage partner violence, sibling abuse, homophobia, international media depictions of violent youth, and implications for professionals working with children and young people. Throughout the text, new and original research insights are presented with the goal of providing the reader with a greater understanding of safeguarding children from this form of violence. This volume is essential reading for policymakers, researchers, students, and practitioners from various child welfare disciplines regarding this highly topical social problem.