CSPV
School Violence Fact Sheets
Social
Contexts and Adolescent Violence
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In the inner city, there are four types of violence
common during childhood and adolescence: childhood aggression,
gang violence, robbery, and dating violence. Each of
these types of violence function to meet the adolescents'
needs.
Childhood Aggression
- For younger children, the value of aggression, or
"rough and tumble" play, is threefold: (1)
development of affiliations and selection of friends,
(2) development of fighting skills, and (3) the establishment
of one's position in a dominance hierarchy.
- When rough and tumble play persists in pursuit of
domination, it becomes bullying. Bullying is a precursor
to antisocial or aggressive behavior.
- With age, playful behavior becomes more intense,
purposeful and consequential. As adolescents become
exposed to increased social diversity and competition
for status, the meaning, seriousness and social value
of rough play changes.
- Rough and tumble play is likely to continue beyond
childhood when there are few alternative means of
establishing social position (e.g., success in school).
Gang Violence
- The functions of gang violence vary according to
situation including struggles for power, territorial
battles, initiation and detachment rituals, attaining
high status, material gain, expression of grievances,
retribution, and self (or gang) defense.
- The status of young males based on toughness and
fighting skills is part of gang life.
- Gangs are social groups that value styles of exaggerated
display of masculinity, risk taking, and autonomy.
- Violence is often part of the collective identity
of a gang and its members.
- The gang is ripe for violence since there is frequent
and repeated interaction among individuals, bystanders
are readily present, status is valued and restricted,
there is low external social control, and violence
can help individuals deal with issues of masculinity
and status.
- It is normal for personal disputes to become violent
among gang members who live in socially isolated neighborhoods.
Robbery
- Robbery offending is concentrated in late adolescence
with increasing rates starting at age 14 and peaking
at age 19. Rates for 17-19-year-olds exceed rates
for any other age category.
- For inner-city youth, robbery provides a way of
acquiring status.
- The material gains from robbery contribute to status,
and the rewards and dominance provide comfort, self-respect,
and confidence.
- During adolescence, abstract reasoning about the
consequences of gun use and the capacity to read social
cues are incomplete.
Dating Violence
- Dating violence includes the following motives:
control, coercion and maintenance of power, and displays
of domination or mastery.
- Dating violence varies among different groups, reflecting
the values regarding dating and gender relations within
different social networks.
Functions of Violence
- Five goals important to adolescents that may result
in violence include: (1) achieving and maintaining
high status; (2) materialism, status, and social identity;
(3) power; (4) rough justice, social control, and
self help; and (5) defiance of authority.
- Risk taking can also be a function of violence for
adolescence by serving as part of the process of establishing
a social identity.
- The functions of violence for girls appear to reflect
a rejection of the violence of men toward women and
the need for self-protection from men as well as other
violent girls.
- Mediators of violence such as alcohol, guns and
bystanders, can influence an individual's perception
of the risks and rewards of violence, as well as effect
the motivation and thought processes.
- Personal disputes that can result in violence contain
their own process that affects the outcome, including
violence as scripted behavior, street codes, and the
influence of popular culture.
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