Original scientific paper
Role of family, peers and school in externalised adolescent risk behaviour
Goran Livazović
orcid.org/0000-0002-0277-5534
; Department of Pedagogy, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek, Croatia
Abstract
The aim of this paper was to examine the role of family, school and peer relations as protective factors in adolescent risk behaviour. The goal of the empirical research was to examine the frequency of risk behaviour with a focus on the significance of sociodemographic traits and relations with family, peer and school as important factors. A multidimensional survey was conducted in 2016 with 133 adolescents, 69 male (51.9%) and 64 female (48.1%). The highest reported individual risk behaviours among adolescents were "Alcohol consumption" (M=2.69), "Socialising with problematic peers" (M=2.25) and "Smoking cigarettes" (M=2.15), while "Theft" (M=1.05) and "Deliberate property destruction" (M=1.15) were least reported. The mother’s and father’s educational level, the father’s work status, school success and family configuration were not significant factors in relation to adolescent general risk behaviour, quality of peer relations, quality of family relations or school attainment. Age was significant for general risk behaviour (p<.01), with older adolescents receiving higher scores. Girls reported significantly higher satisfaction with the quality of peer relationships (p<.05). Participants with employed mothers reported higher quality of peer relations (p<.01). Participants from vocational schools reported significantly more risk behaviour (p=.007) tha students from gymnasiums and art schools. Art school students reported most school satisfaction (p=.001), and gymnasium students reported highest peer satisfaction (p=.043). General risk behaviour negatively correlated with quality of family relations (p<.05) and school attainment (p<.001). Quality of family relations positively correlated with quality of peer relations (p<.01) and school attainment (p<.001). The correlation matrix on individual adolescent risk behaviour showed high positive comorbidity. Socialising with problematic peers correlated positively with all but one risk behaviour, theft. Gambling positively correlated with all risk behaviours except smoking. Smoking positively correlated with consumption of alcohol (p<.001) and psychoactive drugs (p<.001), while deliberate property destruction strongly correlated with theft (p<.001).
Keywords
adolescents; risk behaviour; family relations; peer relations; school attainment; sociodemographic traits
Hrčak ID:
193753
URI
Publication date:
16.2.2018.
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