Violent Incidents Among Selected Public School Students in Two Large Cities of the South and the Southern Midwest, 1995: [United States] (ICPSR 2027)

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Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

Adolescent violence is partly attributable to escalating sequences of events in incidents that culminate in outcomes unintended by the participants. Although the young people who engage in violence often do not intend the outcome, they nevertheless suffer the consequences -- either the harm that comes from the victimization or from the punishment that comes from being the aggressor. The problem is increasing because, while the rates of some types of violent crimes are declining, the risk of being a victim of this type of crime has risen since the mid-1980s among juveniles aged 12 to 17. Little research has been conducted on the nature of violent interactions among middle- and high-school students, especially qualitative ethnographic studies conducted from a "social interactionist" perspective, which explains behavior though the analysis of interaction among people. Therefore, this study of violent incidents among middle- and high-school students focused not only on the types and frequency of these incidents, but also on their dynamics -- the locations, the "opening moves," the relationship between disputants, the goals and justifications of the aggressor, the role of third parties, and other factors. For this study, violence was defined as an act carried out with the intention, or perceived intention, of physically injuring another person, and the "opening move" was defined as the action of a respondent, antagonist, or third party that was viewed as beginning the violent incident. The violent incidents were analyzed to create general models of the sequence or pattern of events in the interactions among disputants. Information about the typical steps that culminate in violent incidents, the most common locations where the incidents take place, and how the disputants and others are related can be used in designing and improving violence prevention programs. The patterns of events identified can also indicate areas for intervention, with a focus on the opening moves.

Study Design View help for Study Design

Data were obtained from interviews with 70 boys and 40 girls who attended public schools with populations that had high rates of violence. The interviews were open-ended, with the students encouraged to speak at length about any violent incidents in school, at home, or in the neighborhood in which they had been involved. These tape-recorded conversations explored incident dynamics from the young person's perspective and were concerned with behaviors, emotions, values, and attitudes at different steps of the violent encounter. The 110 interviews (Parts 3 and 4) yielded 250 incidents, almost all of which occurred within 12 months of the interview and half within 6 months. Using formal methods of content analysis, the interview transcriptions were reduced to a quantitative database with the incident as the unit of analysis (Part 1). Incidents were diagrammed, and events in each sequence were coded and grouped to show the typical patterns and sub-patterns in the interactions. Also examined were the explanations students offered for the violent-incident behavior. Explanations were categorized as "justifications," in which the young people accepted responsibility for their violent actions but denied that the actions were wrong, and "excuses," in which the young people admitted the act was wrong but denied responsibility. Every case in the incident database had at least one physical indicator of force or violence such as throwing something at the other, pushing, grabbing, shoving, slapping, kicking, hitting with a fist, hitting with an object, threatening with a gun or knife, or using a gun or knife. The respondent-level file (Part 2) was created from the incident-level file using the AGGREGATE procedure in SPSS.

Sample View help for Sample

Fifty-eight respondents were selected at random from a student body of about 750 at the middle school. Another 52 students from the alternative high school volunteered. Only students who received permission from their parents to participate were included in the study.

Universe View help for Universe

Students in the selected public middle school and alternative high school.

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Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables

Variables in Part 1 include the sex, grade, and age of the respondent, the sex and estimated age of the antagonist, the relationship between respondent and antagonist, the nature and location of the opening move, the respondent's response to the opening move, persons present during the incident, respondent's emotions during the incident, the person who ended the fight, punishments imposed due to the incident, whether the respondent was arrested, and the duration of the incident. Additional items covered the number of times during the incident that something was thrown, the respondent was pushed, slapped, or spanked, was kicked, bit, or hit with a fist or with something else, was beaten up, cut, or bruised, was threatened with a knife or gun, or a knife or gun was used on the respondent. Variables in Part 2 include the respondent's age, gender, race, and grade at time of the interview, the number of incidents per respondent, if the respondent was an armed robber or a victim of an armed robbery, and whether the respondent had something thrown at him/her, was pushed, slapped, or spanked, was kicked, bit, or hit with a fist, or with something else, was beaten up, was threatened with a knife or gun, or had a knife or gun used on him/her.

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Not applicable.

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None

Original Release Date View help for Original Release Date

1998-12-10

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