NCJ Number
101452
Date Published
1986
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This chapter examines the literature on school violence and vandalism and control/prevention approaches in terms of person and environmental factors and the goals, levels, modes, and ideological orientations of interventions.
Abstract
Person factors that have been associated with youth violence include restricted opportunity, subcultural differences, prolonged adolescent dependence, personality disorder, and labeling and stereotyping. Programs designed to counter school violence have used a wide variety of interventions, including school security systems, counseling programs, and curriculum and instructional options (e.g., skills training, law education). Attempts to understand the problem of school violence and its solution can be viewed within a multidimensional matrix that considers the goals of intervention (preventive, remedial, or compensatory), the level of intervention (the community, school, teachers, or student), its mode (psychological, educational, administrative, legal, or physical), and the ideology or causal assumptions involved (individual deviance, system malfunction, system deviance). An understanding of the complex, multidimensional, and interacting nature of school violence and responses to it can provide a framework for research and for future attempts at intervention. Tables, figures, and 60 references.