Читать книгу The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development - Группа авторов - Страница 42

Although ethnic and political violence likely has harmed children for centuries, the scope, prominence, and severity of contemporary hostilities (e.g., racially motivated genocide, refugee crises, Intifada, repression‐driven internal displacements, World Trade Center bombing) brought this issue to the fore. From the mid‐1980s to the mid‐1990s, it was estimated that approximately 10 million children have been traumatized by war, 1.5 million children have died in armed conflicts, and an additional 4 million have been disabled, maimed, blinded, or suffered brain damage (Benjamin, 1994). Today, it is estimated that approximately 250 million children reside in politically volatile, conflict‐ridden locales (Dubow et al., 2019).

The scientists who studied ethnic and political violence found that the consequences of growing up amid violence, chaos, and deprivation were frequently harmful and often severe. Evidence gathered in many of the world’s trouble spots (e.g., Bosnia, Iraq, Lebanon Palestine, Rwanda; Dubow et al., 2009; Ladd & Cairns, 1996), consistently showed that children exposed to violence exhibited dysfunctions (e.g., PTSD) and often developed enduring adjustment problems (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems; Dubow et al., 2009, 2019). Given the current level of political tensions, ethnic strife, and terrorist activity throughout the world, this issue will undoubtedly remain a pressing sociocultural concern for the foreseeable future.