To what extent are children of multicultural families experiencing school violence in Korea?

<Question> I am a marriage immigrant with an F-6 visa. My child is going to enter elementary school next year. My question is about school violence in Korea.  If I watch TV news, I often see incidents of school violence and discrimination. So as a parent, I feel insecure. I heard a lot of similar stories from mothers of multicultural families around me. I want to know what the facts are and how to deal with them.

<Answer> According to the ‘First Survey of School Violence in 2021’ announced by the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, the damage response rate for school violence was 0.9%. The national damage response rate is 1.1%. The damage response rate by school level is 2.3% for elementary school, 0.4% for middle school, and 0.2% for high school. The type of damage was verbal abuse (41.9%), group bullying (14.3%), physical violence (11.8%), cyberbullying (11.1%), and stalking (6.5%).

The survey was conducted by 942,000 students from 4th grade of elementary to 3rd grade of high school in Gyeonggi-do.

The problem is that children from multicultural families have more experiences of school violence. According to the announcement by the Korea Educational Development Institute, the victimization rate of school violence among students from multicultural families was 8.2% as of 2018, which is much higher than that of 1.3% of the total students in the same year (Ministry of Education, 2019).

The main types of damage were ‘verbal violence’ (61.9%), ‘group bullying’ (33.4%), and ‘swearing and slander through internet chatting, e-mail, and cell phone’ 11.4%.

This survey alone shows that the questioner's concerns are well-founded. However, the Korean government and school sites respond quickly to school violence.

As you can see from the research survey involving over 1 million children from all over the country every year, the Korean government is taking this issue very seriously. There is also a well-established system to support students who have experienced bullying at school.

All schools have a ‘School Violence Measures Committee’, which strives to have an apology and prevention of recurrence of school violence perpetrators at school sites, as well as to provide disciplinary measures and victims damage recovery.

Therefore, awareness of school violence among children is increasing day by day.

According to a survey by the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, the positive behavior of children who witnessed school violence was 69.3%, comforting and helping a friend who was victimized (33.6%), stopping a friend who beats or bullying them (18.6%), notifying or reporting to people around such as guardians, teachers, and police officers. (17.1%), etc. 

When school violence happens to your child, it is possible to prevent further damage by making sure that the child notify the mother or teacher and parents respond proactively in the early stages.

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