The perpetration of on- and offline hate speech among secondary school students (Frontiers in Human Dynamics)

The current study investigates the relationship between the propagation of hate speech and the violence that adolescents encounter and inflict, both offline and online. Results demonstrate that exposure to hate speech raises the likelihood of engaging in hate speech, which is consistent with Wright’s (2017) hypothesis of transference of aggression. Replication of violence is associated with witnessing or experiencing hate speech, particularly in educational environments. The most startling finding is that exposure to hate speech online predicts hate speech actions in both online and offline settings in the future. Additionally, the study highlights the ways in which digital surroundings impact student interactions and intensify hostility. The time-bound context and middling sample size are limitations that impact generalizability. The sample size should be increased in future studies to improve the results’ applicability.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-dynamics/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2025.1632091/full