Abstract

This study was conducted to examine the effects of school violence on psychological adjustment in Korean adolescents. Participants were 1,226 middle school students and 1,339 high school students from Seoul. Cluster analysis was performed to identify four subgroups of adolescents who showed distinct patterns of school violence. These clusters were then compared on various measures of psychological adjustment. Analyses revealed that students in the victim group showed higher schores in stress(academic, teacher-related, and peer-related), depression, loneliness and lower scores in self-esteem, life satisfaction, and academic achievement. On the other hand, students in the bully group were not significantly differentiated from normal students, except that they showed the highest score in delinquency. These results confirm that adolescents show various patterns of psychological adjustment depending on their experiences of school violence and suggest that these different patterns of psychological adjustment should be reflected in designing intervention programs to prevent school violence.