Qualitative methods of data collection such as participant observation, interviews, and group discussions were used for data collection. Sixteen children and three adults in turn kept diaries and wrote reports during the research period of 3 1/2 years (June 1992-December 1995). All of the seventh grade students (n=76) of the local school completed a self-concept questionnaire and wrote two essays about themselves and their lives, respectively. The ideology and structures of apartheid created a context of impoverishment and structural violence to which children were exposed. The school was one of the social institutions where children were subjected to structural, psychological, and physical violence on a daily basis. Violent behavior or discipline was justified as being just and an effective teaching practice by authoritarian parents and teachers. The manifestations of poverty included emotional erosion, a negative self-concept, and reactive violence. School- related violence was structurally interwoven with the very fabric of the social hierarchy of the school set-up and was sanctioned as an effective strategy to gain social control and discipline children. Poverty in itself provided the breeding-ground for violence at home and in the school. Children were caught up in a vicious circle of proactive and reactive violence and were socialized to accept violence as an instrument of empowerment. Recommendations for possible intervention and further research are offered. 1 table and 19 references