Bawa, Umesh2016-07-152016-07-152016-07-15http://hdl.handle.net/10539/20608A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts, Clinical Psychology. Johannesburg 1991.The study focused on the perceptions and' experiences of youtlidn relation to patticip~fion in political violence. ;It examined the .relatierrship between exposure to state violence, expo§ure to domestic violence,. ideological support for violence and participation in poMticaLviolence;and explored the extcat to .which 'g~nder, age and socio-econemic status inf1u~nced,paiticip~at1o~ in political violence.' , \\ II The traditiL\nal an~ contextual theories of violence th~tTorward explanations for participa~()n in political. violence lwere reviewed and their merit relative to viqfence participation. critically examined. o , U .!,} _ " . . " Ojl,.i \ \r)' '~;;" , /.) ,. " } A structured self questionnaire was developed after an initial pool of item J pertaining to violence were generated, their psychometric properties.ofmtemal consistency ass(jssedand these clustered into the. various violence; scales. The revised questionnaire was adnlinistered to first entry undergraduate students (n= 1902, N:.:2677) at the Universityofthe Western Cape. The datawas analysed using quantitative methods, such as chi-square analyses, t-tests and cortelation ryatdces. Data that showed a high degree' of self-reported~ untruthfulness was discarded frorii further analysis. The level of statistical Significance was set at p< Oj0001. (I The results reveal that the majority of respondents were victims of state violence. Participation' in political violence is significantly related to exposure to state violence, an '~deological support of violence, as well as to being male and older. Gender and age differences were noted for participation in political violence with older males being politically violent. 1~lere wag, no significant difference for socio-economic status and participation ill political violence. The variable that showed the strongest relationship to participation in political violence was exposure to state violence (r=0,77), followed by ideological supportof violence (r=O,;2). The relationship of participation in political violence to exposure to domestic violence though significant was poor.(r=Oj08). Thus the study found that participation in political violence is mainly a function of exposure to state violence and is context specific. The youth had not learnt to be politically violent by being involved in domestic violence. Contextual theories seemed to offer a better explanation for participation in political violence for youth in South Africa. Future research should focus on the interrelationships between 1~6litica1 violence and interpersonal violence.enPolitical violence -- South Africa -- Psychological aspects.Thesis