NCJ Number
219150
Journal
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Dated: July 2007 Pages: 235-253
Date Published
July 2007
Length
19 pages
Annotation
Using friendship network data from Add Health, this study examined the effect of friends' gender and exposure to peer violence on girls' and boys' serious violent behavior.
Abstract
The study found that among adolescent girls, exposure to a greater proportion of friends who were boys increased the chance that the girls would engage in serious violent behavior; whereas, for boys, a greater proportion of female friends were associated with reduced odds of engaging in violence. The study also found that exposure to peer violence was linked to increased odds of engaging in serious violence for both girls and boys; however, there was no evidence that the strength of this association was stronger among boys compared to girls. Another finding was that among girls, the odds of engaging in violence were greatest when the girls were involved in a highly violent friendship network composed of a greater proportion of boys. Among boys, exposure to peer violence and to friends who were girls had additive effects on their violent behavior. Apparently, girls' participation in serious violence requires greater provocation and situational inducements to overcome the normal constraints that influence female involvement in this sort of risky behavior. The Add-Health data came from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents 11 to 19 years old (n=14,044) during the first wave of data collection (September 1994 through April 1995). The dependent variable was serious violent behavior defined as using a knife or other weapon in a robbery, pulling a knife or gun on someone, or having shot or stabbed someone in the past 12 months. Measures of the key characteristics of adolescents' peer networks were based on respondents' and their friends' responses to survey items in the initial in-school survey. 2 tables, 6 notes, and 54 references