Associations Between Youth Violence and Exposure to Gun Violence
The issue of violence in school has drawn increasing attention in recent years. Thus, the study by Forster (et al., 2015) entitled “Associations Between Gun Violence Exposure, Gang Associations, and Youth Aggression: Implications for Prevention and Intervention Programs,” appears to be a timely one, regarding the association of exposure to gun violence to aggressive actions. According to the authors, there is abundant literature showing a significant association between being victims and perpetrators of violence and gang affiliation for members of socio-economically disadvantaged youths from historically discriminated-against ethnicities. But the reasons for this remain difficult to pinpoint. There is a constellation of factors, according to the authors that give rise to this tendency.
One rational for the association is offered by by social modeling theory, arguing that by emulating family members, peers, and also the family provided by gangs, negative and aggressive behaviors are fostered. On a biological level, chronic stress may give rise to a likelihood of demonstrating greater aggression. There is also an interesting trend noting that girls have shown an increasingly greater likelihood of demonstrating aggressive behavior than they have in the past, although boys are still, statistically...
Reference
Forster, M., Grigsby, T. J., Unger, J. B., & Sussman, S. (2015). Associations between gun violence exposure, gang associations, and youth aggression: Implications for prevention and intervention programs. Journal of Criminology. Retrieved from: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcrim/2015/963750/
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