Violence between children is a controversial and frequently misunderstood issue, one that has seen media-fuelled moral panic come to dominate public perceptions and debate. Children Behaving Badly? presents a powerful challenge to commonly held beliefs about peer violence and portrays it as an important child welfare concern.

By gathering together the most updated international research and expert commentary on peer violence issues from across the childhood spectrum, this volume directly addresses the complexity of this troubling issue from a range of multidisciplinary disciplines and perspectives. Contributions throughout the text reveal how childhood is not a homogenous experience but fragmented by gender, ethnicity, sexuality and poverty, which are each addressed within specific chapters. Other issues explored include pre-school children and peer violence, bullying, youth gangs, knife crime, teenage partner violence, sibling abuse, homophobia, international media depictions of violent youth, and implications for professionals working with children and young people.

Throughout the text, new and original research insights are presented with the goal of providing the reader with a greater understanding of the safeguarding of children and young people from this form of violence. Children Behaving Badly? is essential reading for policy makers, researchers, students, and practitioners from a wide range of child welfare disciplines about a highly topical and complex social problem.