Exposure to Urban Violence: Contamination of the School Environment (From Violence in American Schools: A New Perspective, P 293-311, 1998, Delbert S. Elliott, Beatrix A. Hamburg, et al., eds. -- See NCJ-185565)

• NCJ Number: 185575
• Author(s): Raymond P. Lorion
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 19 pages
• Sale Source: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Literature Review
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This paper examines research conducted by the author and others on how exposure to urban violence in neighborhoods, on the way to and from school, in the school’s neighborhood, or within the school threatens the physical health, mental health, and educational effectiveness of students, teachers, and other school staff.

Abstract

Schools are communities in their own right, but they also exist within a larger community. Student and teachers bring to the school their experiences with violence in the neighborhoods in which they live. Exposure that is inescapable and uncontrolled may corrode the positive effects of the human resources within the school setting, as well as the opportunities for learning in classrooms, the library, on athletic fields, and in other settings. However, much violence occurs in neighborhoods rather than in schools themselves. Thus interventions need to allow students, teachers, and staff to experience the school setting as a no-fire zone that is free both of violence and of exaggerated attention to its occurrence. Schools need to join with their surrounding communities in violence prevention efforts, serve as children’s safe havens during nonschool hours, design programs to detect and serve traumatized students, and understand the reality of exposure and its negative effects. Table, notes, and 47 references