That campuses suffer unacceptable levels of violence is undisputable; they are part of a larger American society in which family, community, and institutional violence far exceed levels found in comparable Western nations. And yet, amid the finger-pointing and scapegoating of students as violent, we note a critical lack of evidence-based analysis,…

In recent years, there has been a growing social, educational, and public policy focus on investigating the correlates associated with youth carrying weapons in their communities and schools. Victimization and other correlates such as drug use and violent risk behaviors among youth have been linked to deviant behavior including weapon carrying.…

Parochial schools are assumed to provide better social and academic experiences; however, few studies account for selection bias when comparing with public schools. This study contrasted public versus parochial schools using propensity score matching across a range of outcomes (e.g., perceptions of school, emotional symptoms, substance use,…

A joint effort by the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, this annual report presents the most recent data available on school crime and student safety. The indicators in this report are based on information drawn from a variety of data sources, including national and international surveys of students,…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS) has a long history of providing representative data on the nation's high school students. These assessments are crucial to CDC's mission of identifying health behaviors and experiences; understanding the determinants and co-occurrence of risks;…

There is little data on whether school discipline or juvenile justice sanctions are directed disproportionately toward sexual minority youth (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning; LGBQ) compared with heterosexual youth and even less on factors that may relate to such disparities. We tested for sexual orientation-based disparities in school…

Waves I and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) were used to test the contributions of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, LSD, PCP, and other illicit drugs to violence in early adulthood (e.g., took part in a gang fight, pulled a knife or gun, used a weapon in a fight, used a weapon to get something). The…

Background: Overweight adolescents engage in risk behaviors at different rates than healthy-weight peers. Most extant research has focused on white or regional samples. Purpose: This article examined associations between weight and risk behaviors and determined whether associations differ by race/ethnicity. Methods: Youth Risk Behavior Survey data…

Recent media attention has increased interest in behavioral, mental health, and academic correlates of involvement in bullying. Yet, there has not been much interest in investigating the co-occurrence of other health-risk behaviors, such as gang membership, weapon carrying, and substance use. The potential influence of contextual factors, such as…

Effects on delinquency made by grade level, school type (based on grade levels accommodated), and prosocial school climate were assessed, controlling for individual-level risk and protective factors. Data were obtained from the Substance Abuse Services Division of Alabama's state mental health agency and analyzed via hierarchical linear modeling,…

The present study, based upon the national 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of U.S. high school students, provides the most current and representative data on physical dating violence among adolescent males (N = 6,528) The dependent variable was physical dating violence. The independent variables included four dimensions: violence, suicide,…

This 1994 Kids Count report focuses on risk-taking behaviors among Colorado adolescents and discusses how prevention and early intervention strategies can impact the lives of the state's children. Statistics and descriptions are given for: (1) alcohol, tobacco, and drug use; (2) teen sexuality, including sexual activity and teen pregnancy and…