Measuring Victimization and the Explanation of School Disruption

• NCJ Number: 91376
• Author(s): G D Gottfredson; R D Joffe; D C Gottfredson
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 109 pages
• Grant Number(s): NIE-G-80-0113
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare
• Corporate Author: Johns Hopkins University
• Sale Source: Eric Document Reproduction Service
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Report number 306

Annotation

Reports by students and teachers of their experiences of personal victimization are used to examine the meaning and distribution of rates or victimization in a national sample of 642 public junior and senior high schools.

Abstract

This research integrates data from questionnaire responses by the schools' principals, teachers, and students: student interviews: and information about the community in which the school is located derived from the 1970 census. Data characterizing schools are used to examine correlates of various kinds of victimization in schools. Results imply that victimization is best regarded as multidimensional, and that different dimensions have different sources. Victimization reports by black and white teachers and students, and male and female students, appear to measure different phenomena which are linked to different school and community characteristics. Affluence and the schools' academic orientation are positively related to teachers' reports of victimization, but negatively related to students' reports. The soundness of a school's administration is negatively related to teacher and black student victimization rates. This research accords with earlier research, implying that school administrative practices contribute to the levels of disruption schools experience, despite individual and community influences on school disruption. (Author/GK) (Resources in Education (ERIC) abstract)