Jackson Toby

Abstract: Violence in school is not new. Especially on the college level, deaths and injuries from hazing have long occurred sporadically, as have student riots. But widespread violence in public and secondary schools seems to have developed only in the past generation, especially in the United States but increasingly in other urban-industrial societies. Two kinds of violence should be distinguished. One is violence perpetrated by predatory adolescent male trespassers who enter school buildings to steal or rob; assaults may occur to disable victims. Intruder violence is most common in the largest cities. The other type of violence is committed by enrolled students against members of the school community: teachers, fellow students, staff members. Their violent acts include robbery, especially extortion of money and valuables from fellow students, but their main motivation appears to be anger, expressed in assaults against both students and staff members. Both these types of school violence can be understood in terms of the weakening of social control over adolescents and young adults in modern societies. Lack of family and neighborhood controls frees those youngsters not committed to the school and its values to express their predatory or aggressive impulses. This is, of course, not the whole explanation of school violence. Individual personality development explains why some persons take advantage of these opportunities for violence that are offered by a fluid society. If modern societies are to reverse course and reduce violence in public secondary schools, they probably will have to gain greater control over adolescents. One approach to this end is to increase the voluntariness of student enrollment, thus giving students in public secondary schools a greater stake in behavioral conformity. Such an approach requires a reexamination of an established tradition of modern societies: compulsory school attendance.

Abstract: Bullying is repeated oppression, psychological or physical, of a less powerful person by a more powerful one. The prevalence of bullying by and of school children is quite high; in some studies, about half of children were bullies, and over half were victims. Boys bully more than girls, but boys and girls are victimized about equally. Generally, bullies are aggressive, tough, strong, confident, and impulsive. Victims are unpopular, lonely, rejected, anxious, depressed, unwilling to retaliate, and lacking in self-esteem. Bullying occurs especially at places and times when adult supervision and surveillance is minimal. There is some continuity over time between bullying and violent crime. Prevention methods aim to improve the social and friendship skills of the victim and the empathy of the bully and to improve adult supervision and "whole-school" environments. In Norway, a nationwide campaign against bullying seemed to be successful.

Abstract: Explanations of school disorder have suffered from at least two deficits: (1) institutional explanations of disorder (that is, school climate) have been largely ignored, and (2) insufficient attention to appropriate measures of disorder has guided research and policy. Like people, schools have their own characteristic personalities, or climates. Using survey responses from students in middle schools in Philadelphia, the author discusses the effects of school climate (such as clarity and fairness of rules) and individual student characteristics (such as age, sex, race, and dimensions of bonding) on different measures of school disorder, including victimization, avoidance, perceptions of safety, misconduct, and offending. The schools varied significantly on all measures of disorder, and school climate provided significant explanatory power for each. Results varied for different measures, though. For example, school climate predicted less serious misconduct more strongly than it predicted serious offending. ...

Abstract: Social control theory hypothesizes that ties to conventional institutions control or inhibit most people most of the time from acting on deviant motives. Our research examines the relationship between juvenile delinquency and ties to conventional institutions, defined by recent researchers as attachment to parents and school. Assuming a recursive causal structure, extant research regresses delinquency on social attachment. The findings, showing a negative effect of attachment on delinquency, have been used to support social control theory. We question the recursiveness assumption. It seems reasonable to assume that delinquency is as likely to affect attachment as attachment is to affect it. Our research estimates a nonrecursive model using OLS crosslag and simultaneous equation methods. The findings suggest that the effects are reciprocal and contingent on social status and, thus, raise serious questions about the validity of extant research as a test of social control theory. (abstract Adapted from Source: American Sociological Review, 1985. Copyright © 1985 by the American Sociological Association) Social Control Theory Delinquency Causes Juvenile Delinquency Juvenile Offender Social Attachment 07-02

Abstract: The victimization of students at school is currently a matter of grave public concern. This study attempts to identify factors that single out junior and senior high school students as victims of campus theft and violent crime. Previous research indicates that victimization risk can flow from a variety of situational and individual variables, although this research has not focused on victimization in the school setting. To test which factors are most salient at school, we employed the 1993 National Household and Education Survey, School Safety and Discipline component (NHES-SSD). We found that although community variables exert some effect on schoolyard victimization risk, risk levels are associated with the presence of likely offenders at school as well as individual students who have delinquent characteristics and criminal associates. The attempts of schools to protect students through target-hardening strategies (e.g., metal detectors and security guards) were consistently unsuccessful.