Abstract:
Globally, at least one in four people have been reported to have witnessed or experienced
exposed to violence. In Ethiopia,one can easily speculate that every person living today has
experienced orwill experience, directly or indirectly, some type of exposure to violence. The
purpose of this study was to investigate the youths' attitudes to the exposure of violence with
respect to gender and educational levels in Haramaya district. The study employed a descriptive
survey research design approach. The study included ten sample kebeles selected from 35
kebeles by both purposive sampling techniques. A tool, the attitude to the exposures of violence
Scale, was developed and the data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, percentage,
independent sample t test, and one-way ANOVA through SPSS version 20. The analysis was
conducted to investigate the effect that gender and level of education have on their attitudes to
exposure of violence. The results indicated that majority of youths strongly disagree with sub
scale of attitude to the exposures of gangs and the result of the independent sample t test showed
that there is a statistically significant difference (t (382) = 2.05,p=0.04) in attitude to the
exposure of gangs violence between male and females. However, there is no statistically
significant difference (t (382) = -1.155, p =0.249) in overall attitudes to the exposure of violence
between males and females. The results of one-way ANOVA test indicated that attitudes to the
exposure of violence differ at a significant level depending on levels of education. The education
level of the youth had a positive effect on some aspects of their attitude to the exposure of
violence. Thus, educational institutions, families, and society as a whole must take responsibility
for instilling a fear of exposed of violence in future citizens.
