The primary goal for this study is to identify middle school students' attitude toward the offensive words and the extent to which they are used. In addition, the study aims to explore the effects of their use on peer approval needs, self-acceptance a...
The primary goal for this study is to identify middle school students' attitude toward the offensive words and the extent to which they are used. In addition, the study aims to explore the effects of their use on peer approval needs, self-acceptance and school adjustment.
Analysis was done with 142 copies which had been selected from a survey conducted of 195 second-year male and female students at a junior high school at North Chungcheong Province. The questionnaire is made up of 88 questions in relation to the examination made of peer approval needs, self-acceptance, school life adjustment. and so on.
Two analytic methods were used. First, an analysis of frequency and a crosstab analysis, both of which were conducted of the data of measurement acquired by employing the SPSS Program (version 18.0), were carried out so as to make sense of gender distinction.
Second, an analysis of variance was made for the purpose of figuring out the degree of using names, peer approval needs, self-acceptance and the difference of school life adaptation. Scheff? post hoc test was conducted to make out the specific difference between groups.
This research has four research questions: firstly, what is a real state of swearwords done by middle class students?; secondly, what is the relationship between the use of them and the desire for peer recognition?; thirdly, what kind of relationship exists between the swearing and the self-acceptance. finally, what is the relationship between the use of abusive language and the school life accommodation.
The major findings of the study are as follows.
Firstly, the students who use the offensive words are much more than those who do not in the middle school. The middle school students have had very little experience of hearing abusive words from either parents or teachers. There has been no school education as to the use of the abusive language. Most students came to know foul words via friends. While playing with friends, in particular, they have used them most frequently. The core reason for swearing arises mostly from their habits. The majority of students normally received no response from the counterparts whom they called names. and they also felt indifferent to names that others called them.
Secondly, the relationship between the use of foul language and peer approval adjustment differs depending upon the level of environment in which swearing takes place, which is looked upon as a subordinate cause of it. In case that students have plenty of experience of hearing the abusive language either in the school or at home; they do not receive a proper education of it; and they are much exposed to such mass media as TV and Internet, their desire for peer recognition gets stronger. In particular, male students showed a meaningful difference from female students in the sense that the former had a stronger desire for being recognized negatively among peers than the latter.
Thirdly, it is shown that the relationship between the use of swearwords and self-acceptance differed in accordance with gender differentiation. Those male students who used the abusive language in a medium degree displayed a more self-acceptance than others who did it less.
Finally, the relationship between the use of profane language and school adjustment varied with respect to the extent of swearing which was seen as a subordinate cause of the former and school rules and correlations between students and teachers, which were considered as a subordinate cause of the latter. The above relationship diverged, inter alia, among female students according to school regulations. A group of students using a high level of swearing underwent maladjustment with the relations with teachers and the school rules. In case of female students, those students having a low degree of swearing obeyed school regulations better than the opposite students.
Therefore, it can be asserted that this research makes a meaningful contribution to illuminating the influence of peer recognition needs and self-acceptance upon the use of offensive words, and its significant effect upon school life adaptation.