Child-to-Parent Violence: Attitude towards Authority, Social Reputation and School Climate

Abstract

Research into child-to-parent violence (CPV) has focused mainly on the description of individual and family variables of adolescents. It is observed that the school context has received little attention despite being a context of development of great importance. In order to deepen the understanding in this field, the objective of this study was to analyze the relationships between child-to-parent violence (CPV) and the attitude towards authority, social reputation and school climate. A total of 2101 Spanish adolescents (50.1% males and 49.9% females) from 13 to 18 years participated. A multivariate factorial design (MANOVA, 3 × 3) was carried out using as independent variables CPV level and age. It was found that adolescents with high CPV presented lower values of positive attitude towards institutional authority (PATIA) and school climate (involvement, friendships and teacher’s help), and higher values of positive attitude towards the transgression of social norms (PATTSN) and of perceived and ideal non-conformist social reputation (PNCSR and INCSR, respectively). Younger participants obtained the highest PATIA scores and lowest of PNCSR and the 15–16 years age group obtained the highest scores in PATTSN and INCSR. Adolescents aged 17–18 years show the highest scores in involvement and teacher’s help. Also, three interaction effects were found and indicated that there is an improvement in attitudinal and school adjustment indicators according to the age, except in ideal non-conformist social reputation, which has important practical implications.