Interpersonal Violence Exposure and Classroom Aggression Among Urban Secondary Students in Rivers State

This study examines the relationship between interpersonal violence exposure in community settings and classroom aggression among secondary school students in urban Rivers State, South South Nigeria. Port Harcourt, as Nigeria's oil industry hub, presents a complex social ecology marked by both economic dynamism and significant community violence, creating conditions that may amplify adolescent exposure to violent experiences and their subsequent manifestation within school environments. The study employs a cross-sectional survey design, recruiting 320 SS1 and SS2 students from ten public secondary schools in Port Harcourt Municipal and Eleme Local Government Areas. The Children's Exposure to Violence Questionnaire, the Reactive and Proactive Aggression Questionnaire, and the Social Information Processing Scale were used as instruments. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling, with social information processing tested as a mediating variable. Results indicate that community violence exposure significantly predicts classroom aggression, both directly and indirectly through hostile attribution biases in social information processing. Proactive aggression showed a stronger mediational pathway than reactive aggression, suggesting that chronically violent environments shape deliberate aggressive schemas in adolescents. Protective factors including positive teacher relationships and school belonging attenuated the violence-to-aggression pathway. These findings advance understanding of the school-community interface in generating classroom behaviour problems in urban Nigerian settings. School counsellors in Rivers State are advised to implement social information processing retraining programmes for students with high community violence exposure. Keywords: interpersonal violence, classroom aggression, social information processing, secondary school, Rivers State.