Abstract

JUDEEL, Lelanie  and  RAMHURRY, Cindy. Perceptions regarding the role of social support in academic achievement of adolescents exposed to violence. IJTL [online]. 2018, vol.13, n.1, pp.97-114. ISSN 2519-5670.

This qualitative study explored how adolescents who have been exposed to violence, perceive the role of social support in their academic achievements. Coupled with a collaging process, individual, semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with eight adolescents (two male, six female) in Grade 9, who had the defining characteristics of exposure to violence in their community and an achievement of at least 70% in all school subjects over a period of one year prior to this research study. Drawing on the ideas proposed by Elsaesser, Gorman-Smith and Schoeny (2017) to codify and identify exposure to violence, we specifically included students who knew someone who had been the victim of violence, and/ or witnessed a violent incident, and/or was directly victimised (Elsaesser, et al., 2017). The study found that, despite adolescents' exposure to violence, the encouragement to achieve, the provision of care and support to deal with problems in a proactive manner and the formation of enabling relationships with significant others, facilitated academic achievement. Our study concludes that positive social support can buffer the negative effects that exposure to violence has on the academic achievement of adolescent learners. We argue against a one-size-fits-all approach to social support and suggest that the support which comes from the immediate social systems of adolescents (parents, teachers and peers) takes on a more sharpened character in the sense that individual differences, cultural differences and gender differences are seriously taken into account.

Keywords : social support; academic achievement; early adolescence; violence exposure in South Africa.

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