The manifestation of adolescents' intentions to react in provoking situations at school

Abstract

During the course of history, the social development in Lithuania mainly depended on the common human and national values as fostered and preserved in the rural areas. Rapid changes taking place in the society as we know it today, however, were influenced by the processes of globalization and require an especially careful evaluation and improvement of the value-oriented education system of Lithuania, particularly, when facing issues of rural youth development, the latter making a significant impact on the prospects of further sustainable development in rural regions. It is worth mentioning that perhaps due to the imperfect education system and its long-running reform as well as the deteriorating educational situation in the country area, the young people experience limited opportunities regarding their professional knowledge and expression of human values and behaviour. Moreover, the problem of aggressive behaviour in schools has not been sufficiently analysed up to now. Although recent violence prevalence among Lithuanian students and factors which influence it have been studied extensively, the research on the reasons of aggressive behaviour in schools is still not complete. The aim of the study presented in the article is to investigate adolescent intentions to behave aggressively during disputes at school. Theoretical alternatives of adolescent intentions to react in provoking situations are presented in the article; methodological instruments of social research made as an outcome of this study are discussed. The data and conclusions of research analysis may be valuable when proceeding with the Reform on the Lithuanian education system, where the key issue is youth education in rural areas; also, when working on projects and programmes aimed at prevention of aggressive behaviour and bullying at school.