NCJ Number
227329
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 26 Issue: 2 Dated: June 2009 Pages: 183-210
Date Published
June 2009
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This study investigated the interplay of school and community contexts in terms of how youth violence unfolds across time and space and between schools and neighborhoods.
Abstract
Results reveal that youths' exposure to violence is ecologically patterned, occurring disproportionately in public schools located in urban disadvantaged communities; just over a third of serious violent incidents occurred at or on the way to and from school. Nearly 20 percent of such violence occurred during week days of the school year, between the hours of 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Despite these patterns, only a small number of scholars have examined the situational dynamics of such violence, including features of the physical and social environments of schools that contribute to conflicts and the reciprocal nature of neighborhood and school settings. Findings suggest that a complex array of factors contribute to these patterns of violence and school disorder. While community characteristics and school structural characteristics account for the largest portion of predictable between-school variance in disorder, more malleable features of school organization are also significant. Schools in disadvantaged urban communities which have fewer resources, difficulties in staff recruitment and retention, and limited community support are less likely to include a system of shared values, a clear mission, high expectations, meaningful social interactions, collegial relations among adults and extended teacher roles, and are more likely to be inconsistent in enforcing rules and communicating expectations for student behavior. Data were collected from 38 Black urban high school students residing in St. Louis, MO who had experiences with interpersonal violence. Table, references, and appendix