Connection between classroom abuse and manifest aggressiveness, anxiety and altruism.

The objective of this paper is to find out if the students exposed to abuse differ in their level of anxiety, aggressiveness, and altruism from other students, and to test if the pattern of these differences differs depending on whether the abuse they suffer is emotional or physical. The research was carried out on a sample of 127 senior elementary school students. The data was gathered at the end of the 2003/04 school year, and obtained through the respondents' self-statements in questionnaires about childhood abuse and by the scales of manifest aggressiveness, anxiety and altruism. The frequency analysis has shown that various forms of emotional abuse are more common in schools than physical abuse, and that they are reaching disturbing proportions. For example, more than half of the participants in the study reported facing intimidation and threats in school, and over a third of them have been yelled at. Although less commonplace, physical abuse in school can by no means be ignored. Those students who suffer from frequent physical abuse are more dissatisfied with school (r=0.174, p<0.05), display more aggressiveness (r=0.441, p<0.001), and are more often boys (r=0.324, p<0.01). Those students who are frequently emotionally abused are more anxious (r=0.281, p<0.01), dissatisfied with school (r=0.237, p<0.01), and display more manifest aggressiveness (r=398, p<0.01). The discriminant analysis has shown that the bullied students can be differentiated from their non-abused schoolmates as they are manifestly more anxious and aggressive, regardless of whether they suffer physical or emotional abuse. Instances of different forms of emotional and physical classroom abuse have increased alarmingly. Such traumatic experiences affect children's health and functioning in school, as well as in their private lives. The interdisciplinary studies of this phenomenon and the education of all those who work with young people emerge as the top priority in the prevention of this kind of abuse.