NCJ Number
76541
Journal
CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION Volume: 52 Issue: 1 Dated: (Fall 1980) Pages: complete issue
Editor(s)
M D Baughman
Date Published
1980
Length
62 pages
Annotation
Published as a special issue on crime and violence in public schools, this collection of seven papers presents several viewpoints regarding the causes of school violence, the development of security sysems, discipline policies, and prevention programs.
Abstract
An historical overview of schools and their discipline problems concludes that violence and the resultant educational chaos have been recurrent themes in schools for centuries. It also predicts that violence will continue as long as society confines adolescents in a system that is unrewarding and frustrating for many. Another paper discusses the development of school security systems from the 1950's to the present and proposes that future security programs promote attitudinal changes in young people to increase their respect for others' rights, peace, and order. Research on fear of crime in secondary schools is examined, with particular attention to an analysis of the National Institute of Education's Safe School Study and a survey of students in St. Louis schools. School discipline in the 1980's is addressed from two perspectives, beginning with an evaluation of the limited options available to the educator faced with serious student misconduct. This paper proposes that violence could be reduced by revising employment policies to reward innovative teachers, reducing the size of urban schools, and changing society's opportunity structures so that working class and nonwhite youths could actually advance through hard work and education. Based on observations of Chicago schools between 1972 and 1979, the next article notes a return to stricter discipline policies and considers problems caused by legal intervention in the school system. The impact of research on legislation is analyzed through a personal account of a researcher's involvement in drafting California legislation concerning school crime prevention programs. In the final presentation, a member of a research team which surveyed Illinois youths during the 1970's makes an impassioned plea that adults try to comprehend what teenagers are telling them about society's values and its failure to transmit them to the younger generation. Most articles contain footnotes or references.