The purpose of this paper is to examine the literature on factors that predict school violence, and formulate three hypotheses about these predictors for testing using a developed questionnaire and interview methods with a relevant target population. The proposed research will consist of two groups: (1) high school students identifying themselves as angry and likely to commit violent acts; and (2) high school students identifying themselves as not angry or fearful about committing violent acts. It should be noted that this operationalization of violent and non-violet students has been used in other studies (e.g., Silver, Field, Sanders & Diego, 2000). All students at a large metropolitan school will be given the questionnaire and, based on their responses, certain students will be selected out for interviews in which they will be asked more in depth questions about their responses.
It should be noted that the topic of school violence is very relevant to social work practice. This is because of the serious consequences associated with school violence for not only students but their families and others in the community. In this regard, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs' Bureau of Justice Statistics (2005) reports that in 2003 alone, students between the ages of 12-18 years were victims of 88,000 serious and violent crimes. Given these figures, it seems reasonable to state that understanding the factors that increase (or decrease) students' risk for violence cannot be over-estimated. Social workers need to understand what places at risk so that they can, as part of their practice, take those actions that are necessary to lower students' risk.
Review of the Research and Hypotheses
Reviewed Research and Research Hypothesis 1
Family structure has been one factor that has been much examined in the literature on youth violence in general and high school violence in particular. In this regard, Hawkins a...