Research: UK girls among most violent
(The Guardian)
Updated: 2006-01-25 06:08

LONDON: British girls are among the most violent in the world, with nearly one in three Scottish and English adolescents admitting to having been involved in a fight in the past year, according to research.

In a survey of youngsters in 35 countries, child health experts found that Scottish and English girls ranked fifth and sixth in violence, just behind Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania and Belgium.

Researchers also found high levels of fighting and violence among boys, particularly in Scotland, where nearly two-thirds admitted to having been involved in at least one punch-up in the last year.

Candace Currie, the director of Edinburgh University's child and adolescent health research unit and one of the authors of the study, said that although she did not like to use the term "ladette" it was likely that high levels of violence among adolescent girls were linked to the so-called binge drinking culture.

"In the last 10 years alcohol consumption among British girls has been going up to the point where there is now virtually no gender difference in drinking between boys and girls," said Dr Currie. "That's not true in the rest of Europe. What we have to ask is whether fighting is part of this behaviour of drunkenness or whether there are other factors involved."

The findings come in a World Health Organization survey of 161,000 students between the ages of 11 and 15 published by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The WHO conducts the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey every four years but this is only the second time that questions on fighting and weapons have been included.

Researchers found that the average rate of girls' violence across all the countries was 23 per cent. Hungary scored worst with 32 per cent, just ahead of Scotland and England on 29.2 per cent and 29.1 per cent respectively. The lowest level was seen in Finland, with 13 per cent.

Scottish boys, with a rate of 60.2 per cent, came in 10th place behind countries such as Lithuania, Hungary, Latvia and Israel. English boys were 13th with a score of 59.2 per cent while Welsh boys came 26th, with 53.3 per cent.

The Czech Republic had the highest level of violence, with 69 per cent of adolescent males admitting to having been involved in at least one fight in the past year, while Finland had the lowest level, with 37 per cent.

Dr Currie pointed out that while the levels of violence among Scottish girls and boys were worrying, other studies had shown a decrease in bullying, a reflection, she suggested, of the success of recent anti-bullying campaigns in schools.

"It may be that more attention should be paid to fighting and sources of interpersonal conflicts," she said. " What is going on in Finland that it has such low rates of violence? At the moment, we cannot say."

(China Daily 01/25/2006 page6)