@article{ref1,
title="Adolescents' knowledge and attitudes about and experience with violence",
journal="Journal of Adolescent Health",
year="1994",
author="Hausman, Alice J. and Spivak, H. and Prothrow-Stith, Deborah Boutin",
volume="15",
number="5",
pages="400-406",
abstract="PURPOSE: Educational interventions directed to the prevention of youth inter-personal violence make assumptions about the educational needs of adolescents for violence-prevention despite little available data. This paper provides new information on background levels of adolescents' knowledge of, attitudes about and experience with violence. METHODS: Over 400 teens across Boston's neighborhoods were surveyed by rando-digit dialed telephone techniques. RESULTS: Results show that while boys are more often involved in violence, almost one quarter of girls report fighting. Black teens witness more violence and are threatened more often than whites, but they do not fight more. Knowledge scores indicate a need for improvement in adolescents' understanding of risk factors. Attitude scores indicate that adolescents believe fighting can and should be avoided, but they lack knowledge of behavioral options. Regression analyses show a positive relationship between violence experience and knowledge and attitudes. CONCLUSION: These data suggest that preventive interventions should be directed to both improving adolescents' knowledge and understanding of personal risk and increasing their repertoire of conflict-resolution skills.  VioLit summary:   OBJECTIVE: The goal of this paper by Hausman et al. was to examine adolescents' attitudes about, knowledge of, and experience with violence.  METHODOLOGY: A quasi-experimental design was employed. The authors used secondary data from a telephone survey conducted in Boston to evaluate a community-based youth violence prevention project. The survey, with a total sample size of 1,200, was conducted twice one year apart. The data presented in this paper are from the first survey conducted in the fall of 1987. Teenagers between the ages of 13-19 and residents in an unspecified number of neighborhoods were contacted through the use of random digit dialing. Target neighborhoods were over sampled for the purpose of evaluating the projects impact. The total number of teenagers interviewed each year was about 400, the remaining 200 were adults. This paper is based on 404 cases which consists of only the teenagers of the first survey conducted in the fall of 1987. Quotas were employed to generate a proportional sample for the non-target Boston sample area (the type of quotas were not specified). The instrument used included three content areas knowledge, attitudes and experience. Knowledge about the characteristics of acquaintance violence and related risk factors such as weapon carrying and alcohol use was measured using a sixteen true or false scale with a Cronbachs alpha of .57. Findings on the knowledge of violence were based on a scale where there was total possible score of 1 and a passing score of .67. Attitudes about violence as &quot;sanctioned behavior and its preventability&quot; (p.401) were measured using a scale with a reliability score of alpha .67. The same rating scale was used with a total possible score of 1 and a passing score of .67. Experience of violence within the past year was measured as: having ever witnessed a fight or violent behavior, having been threatened with or without a weapon, and having been in a fight. Fight was defined as a physical fight involving hitting or pushing. A reliability score was not included for experience of violence questions. Analysis of the data included a chi-square analysis of the dichotomized experience variables and the demographic subgroups. Difference in mean knowledge and attitude scores were assessed by the Student's t-tests. Regression analysis was employed to illustrate the relationship between demographics and experience, and knowledge and attitudes.  FINDINGS/DISCUSSION: The authors found that the experience of violence is high among all adolescents. Sixty-nine percent of all adolescents reported witnessing violence. Threats were experienced by 37% of the youth. Boys experience threats significantly more than girls (p=.004). Blacks were threatened significantly more than whites (p<.0001). Twenty-nine percent of the youth reported experiencing fights, 12% reported once and 17% reported more than once. Although 23% of the girls reported fighting, boys still reported fighting significantly more than girls (p=.008). There was no significant difference on the frequency of fighting between the races. The findings suggested that there were no gender differences overall but that blacks scored higher on the knowledge scales than whites with black girls scoring the highest and white girls the lowest. When specific aspects of violence were asked 68% of the youth knew that homicides were most often the result of arguments; 70% knew that the killer and the victim usually knew each other and 52% knew that victims often had alcohol present. A majority of the youth knew of adolescent homicide risks (61%) and were aware that carrying guns placed one at risk of death or injury (55%). A lesser 44% knew that homicide was the leading cause of death for young black men. Black teens compared to whites were more aware of the risks of carrying a gun and yet they carried weapons three times as much as whites, 15% compared to 5%. Attitudinal findings were similar to the knowledge findings. Girls scored higher than boys and blacks scored higher than whites. A higher score indicates that the student was in agreement to appropriate views about the causes of violence, supportive of violence prevention, and supportive of devaluing the legitimacy of violence. Teens were generally in agreement about what causes violence and that violence could be prevented. Further, there was a general consensus about what was not appropriate grounds for fighting (e.g., fighting over someone flirting with a student's boyfriend/girlfriend). However, 60% felt that it was acceptable to hit back if hit first. Significant effects were found when three demographic variables and four experience variables were tested for their effects on knowledge and attitudes about violence. Both race and having been previously threatened had a significant effect on the amount of knowledge a teen had on violence. For attitudes about violence, those who had never fought in the past year had significantly better attitudes about violence. The authors also found it interesting that having residence in one of the poor target neighborhoods as opposed to any other Boston neighborhood did not have a significant affect on knowledge or attitudes about violence. The authors stated their limitations. They noted that they may not have reached the most at-risk teens because their response rate was 10 to 15 percentage points lower than a typical telephone survey. The authors also realized that their self-reports of violence may have yielded biased results due to the undesirability of the questions and the tendency to want to forget the experience.  AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS: The authors made prevention suggestions based on their findings. They suggested that since fighting seems to be a serious problem for both sexes, increased attention should be given to prevent violence among females. They also suggested that conflict resolution skills should be increased since there was a general consensus among teens that fights could be avoided.  (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)  Massachusetts Juvenile Offender Juvenile Violence Juvenile Perceptions Juvenile Attitudes Juvenile Male Juvenile Female Female Perceptions Male Perceptions Violence Perceptions Male Offender Male Victim Male Violence Female Victim Female Offender Female Violence Gender Differences Racial Differences Caucasian Offender Caucasian Female Caucasian Male Caucasian Juvenile Caucasian Victim Caucasian Perceptions African American Victim African American Offender African American Violence African American Female African American Male African American Perceptions African American Juvenile Black-White Comparison Caucasian Witness African American Witness Juvenile Witness Female Witness Male Witness Exposure to Violence Witnessing Violence Self Report Studies Telephone Survey <p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1054-139X",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}