Schoolyard corner society: relating membership to reactive and proactive aggressiveness

Abstract

This study investigated whether secondary schools in Norway had deviant subcultures, which could be labelled ‘schoolyard corner society’, and how gender and age were related to membership. We also studied levels of reactive and proactive aggressiveness in students, and the relationship between these types of aggressiveness and participation in schoolyard corner societies. Self-reported data were collected from a large, nationally representative sample of Norwegian eighth, ninth and tenth graders (n = 3342, 1147 boys and 1256 girls). Findings showed that participation in schoolyard corner societies was significantly associated with age, indicating an increasing tendency over time. Reactive aggressiveness as well as power-related and affiliation-related proactive aggressiveness predicted participation to a substantial degree. We also found an interaction between age and affiliation-related proactive aggressiveness in their effects on participation in schoolyard corner societies, which indicates a slight decrease in the effect of proactive aggression over time.

Keywords:

• deviant subcultures
• schools
• aggressiveness