Weapon-carrying at Swiss schools? A gender-specific typology in context of victim and offender related violence

Abstract

After reviewing prevalence rates, this work tries to identify gender specific groups in which weapon-carrying occurs in the context of victim and offender related violent behaviours. k-Means cluster and logistic regression analyses were calculated, based on a cross-sectional survey of a national representative sample of 1549 15-year-olds as part of the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) international collaborative study. The victims and offenders of violence concern mainly female bullies and physically violent boys. In the male victim-offender group, 17% had already taken a weapon to school. Another male group emerged in which 95% had already taken a weapon to school. Members of this group revealed an elevated level of acting violently but a low level of being the victim. Among the minority girls who were offenders and victims of physical violence, everyone has already taken a weapon to school. Based on these results, homogenous risk groups can be targeted for violence prevention.