Background to the Research

• The impact of political violence on children's wellbeing has been neglected in research. The author explores the nature of stress and coping in children faced by political violence; considers the direct and indirect impact of this violence on the daily lives of children; and explores the nature of children's involvement in political violence.
  

Research Approach

• The author draws on a body of systematic quantitative studies, containing some of his own work, in order to make the reader aware of what has been learned so far in relation to children and political violence and to raise awareness of the methodological problems faced by researchers in this area.
  

Main Findings

• Researchers tend to use a universal model of childhood that lacks cultural or social context.
• Most researchers assume that the context of conflict is universal; that the conditions of political violence are similar regardless of the country or region in which it takes place.
• The literature on children and political violence is dominated by research into stress and coping. This tends to focus on children's relatively short-term needs.
• Recent literature has the tendency to apply the criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and this has been a useful development
• Research suggests that suffering as a result of political violence is not inevitable; children exposed to the same event may or may not experience adverse psychological effects.
• The resilience of some children in the face of political violence has led to a search for those factors which differentiate children who escape the more severe forms of stress and those who do not; as yet no clear conclusions can be drawn.
• Whilst social support is seen to be important in mediating the effects of political violence, empirical evidence is weakened by the tendency to assess the child's health through the use of the mother as the source of information.
• The biggest impact of political violence may not be in the arena of its psychological effects but in damage to the social infrastructure.
• The impact of political violence on family life, on the role of schools, and on play has had little research attention.
• Research demonstrates that the presence of political violence does not alter the pre-existing disadvantages associated with lower socio-economic status. Indeed there may be a cumulative effect with political violence adding to, or interacting with, economic and social disadvantage.
• Evidence regarding levels of aggression in children living with political violence is inconclusive, as research in one region is rarely replicated in another. There is urgent need for cross-national replication of research in this area.
• There is much anecdotal, but weak empirical, evidence that children's moral attitudes and values may be modified by exposure to political violence. It is clear, at least in developed societies, that juvenile crime increases with increasing political violence.