VIOLENCE AT SCHOOL - RECENT-EVIDENCE FROM 4 NATIONAL SURVEYS

Anonymous surveys of youth in school provide the most accurate source of data about violent incidents that occur in schools. Four surveys (t he Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the Monitoring the Future Survey, the N ational Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and the National Crim e Victimization Survey School Crime Supplement) using nationally repre sentative samples that include questions about violence are administer ed among school-aged youth; all four were given in 1995. The data from those four databases are reviewed in this article to assess risk fact ors for weapon carrying tone of the most potentially dangerous behavio rs facing schools today) and the level of the school violence problem. In this review, fighting, threats, theft, weapon carrying, and fearfu lness at school are examined by grade by gender and found to be at hig h levels despite a probable underestimation bias in three of the four surveys. The percentage of youths in grades 9-12 who were involved in a single fight in a given year declined in recent years while the prev alence of more frequent fighting has not. The most important risk fact ors identified for carrying weapons at school dealt with the student's involvement with violence in the broader community context both as pe rpetrator and victim. Selling drugs, having high disposable income, fe eling distant from people in their school, and feeling that people in their neighborhood don't look out for each other were moderately impor tant. Efforts to prevent this trajectory toward violence and crime sho uld begin early before patterns are established and before school fail ure is likely. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.