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5th in series
Reducing and Preventing Youth Violence :
An Analysis of Causes and an Assessment of Successful Programs

Youth Perceptions of Violence

by Pedro Noguera
Berkeley, California

Dr. Pedro Noguera is a professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also past president of the Berkeley School Board. His in depth analysis of the causes of and assessment of succesful programs for reducing and preventing youth violence is published here by In Motion Magazine as a series of hyper-linked articles which can be downloaded in segments. All sections can be reached from the intro page, or readers can follow from one section to another.


Youth Perceptions of Violence

As an example of the way this approach could be applied in research, I will describe a project that I developed at four local middle schools in the San Francisco Bay Area for studying youth attitudes toward violence. I undertook this project because despite my own experience of growing up in Brooklyn, New York where I was exposed to a considerable amount of violence, I felt that I did not know enough about how young people today perceive and interpret the meaning of violence in their environment.

To gain a better understanding, I conducted research with young people at four middle schools, two of which primarily served middle-class suburban students and two of which served low-income urban students. All of the schools were racially integrated, though there were no white students present in the classes at the urban schools where the research was conducted. Part of the research involved the development of an anonymous questionnaire (see below), which I administered to students and then followed with group discussions. The questions focused on how students experience violence in their everyday lives and how they might respond when presented with situations that involved violence.

In my analysis of students' responses to the questions, one important finding stood out: for nearly all of the students in the low-income urban school, even those who had never been in a fight before, violence was seen as an unavoidable part of their social reality. That is, when confronted with situations in which violence was a strong possibility, these students were less likely to consider calling upon an adult for protection or help in resolving the dispute. Instead, they were more likely to consider calling on friends or family for backup, with some indicating that they would even consider arming themselves for protection. When I asked these students why they felt fighting was unavoidable, I was told repeatedly that an adult can provide only temporary protection. These students felt that, eventually, they must confront a challenger and that reporting the individual to school authorities might only worsen the consequences.

In contrast, nearly all of the middle-class students at both suburban schools felt that they could rely upon an adult to intervene and prevent a violent confrontation. They expressed concern about bullies and gangs who at times preyed upon other students, but most felt that violence was avoidable, and like the kids at the urban schools, these students described being entertained by fights among their peers. In sum, the vast majority of these students lived in an environment where personal security and safety were to a large extent assured, while the urban students felt vulnerable and endangered, and viewed the threat of violence as an unavoidable feature of their social environment with which they had to contend.

What these students' experiences with violence tell us is that at least part of the effort to reduce the incidence of youth violence must include an attempt to challenge and counter the ways in which violence is normalized and becomes seen as a legitimate, and even appropriate, way to respond to certain situations. Such a challenge must address violent behavior in context; conflict resolution and anger-control techniques are generally not effective in situations where others are operating by a different set of rules and expectations. Just as rates of violence vary across populations and communities, the norms and values that frame its occurrence vary as well. Hence, the approaches devised to address this problem must:

1) be open to innovation and creative application
2) be tailored to the particular needs of communities and schools

3) involve the participation of the target populations in planning and implementation.




 

Questionnaire


Answer the following questions either true or false.

1.
In the last year, someone that I know was a victim of violence, and was either hurt or killed.

2. I sometimes carry a weapon for protection.

3. I have been in a fight in the last month.

4. I have been in a fight in the last two months.

5. I hardly ever fight if I can avoid it.

6. Using violence to get what you want is never the right thing to do.

7. I enjoy watching violent movies.

8. I often worry about being hurt by someone when I am at school.

9. I often worry about being hurt by someone when I am at home or in my neighborhood.

10. I respect and look up to people who know how to fight well.


Answer the following questions by placing a check next to the sentence that best describes what you think or feel, or by writing in your own response.

If you know that someone wants to fight with you, the best thing to do is:

___a. Tell an adult.
___b. Tell your friends or family so that you have some back-up.
___c. Carry a weapon with you just in case you get jumped.
___d. Try to talk to the person to resolve the conflict peacefully.

If you knew that another student brought a weapon to school you would:

___a. Tell a teacher or the principal.
___b. Mind your own business and not tell anyone.
___c. Talk to the person to find out what was going on.
___d. Talk to your friends about it.

If you know that two people are going to fight after school the best thing to do is:

___a. Watch the fight.
___b. Help the person that is loosing.
___c. Tell an adult.
___d. Go home and mind your own business.


Which if any of the following would you consider a legitimate reason for fighting:

_____a. Someone looks at you the wrong way or says something bad about you.
_____b. Someone threatens you, a family member or friend.
_____c. Someone hits you, a family member or friend.
_____d. Someone says something bad about your mother.
_____e. Other

Do you enjoy watching violent movies? Why or why not?




Are there any occasions when you feel violence may be appropriate or necessary?




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