Gender and ethnicity issues in school violence

Abstract

As I write this chapter the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has announced the twelve most violent schools in New York City. He said that these schools would be provided with additional security officers. He also announced a "no violence tolerance" policy. Any act of violence would result in the immediate dismissal of the student. The majority of these schools are in Black and Latino communities. Male students perpetrate a majority of the types of violence that result in the school being placed on this list. However, the incidents that have placed school violence in the headlines across the country were acts committed almost entirely by white males (e.g., Columbine). By the year 2050 over half the population of the United States will be comprised of people of color. The population of the state of California is already over 50% people of color. Other states that are nearing this percentage are Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and New York (White, 2003). As a result of this shift in demographics, we will not be able to ignore issues of ethnic and cultural diversity in schools, and we must also take a look at how these demographics impact violence in schools. These changes in the demographics of the country make it imperative that we understand issues of diversity. Hall (1997) indicated that psychology would become obsolete if the field did not respond to the changes in the demographics of the country. She pointed out that it is essential that there be wide scale changes in research, training, teaching, and practice. If this did not happen then the field would not be able to provide appropriate services to the majority of the population and would become useless. Similarly, psychological theories and research must be broadened to reflect the diversity of the population. The same is true for how we view problems in the schools, including school violence. Exposure to school violence is not the same for all groups. Some research suggests that black and minority youth, compared to white youth, are more likely to be victims of violence in elementary and junior high school settings (Hill, 1998, as cited in Stevenson, Herrero-Taylor, Cameron, & Davis, 2002). Therefore, it behooves us to examine how gender and ethnicity relate to school violence. In this chapter we will first look at definitions of school violence and how taking gender and ethnicity into account would impact these definitions. We then look in more detail at gender and violence. Particular attention will be paid to how school violence manifests itself with girls. Next, we look at ethnicity and school violence. Finally, we will briefly consider two interventions designed to decrease school violence that take gender and ethnicity into account. © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.