CRIME IN THE IVORY TOWER: THE LEVEL AND SOURCES OF STUDENT VICTIMIZATION*

Contrary to the image of college campuses as “ivory towers,” the victimization of college students recently has been portrayed as a serious problem deserving policy intervention. Based on interviews designed after the National Crime Victimization Survey, which were conducted with 3,472 randomly selected students across 12 institutions, we examined both the level and sources of students'victimization. More than one-third of the sample reported being victims during the 1993–94 academic year. Informed by the lifestyle-routine activities approach, the analysis revealed that the risk of property victimization was increased by proximity to crime, target attractiveness, exposure, and lack of guardianship. The main predictor of violent victimization was a lifestyle that included high levels of partying on campus at night and the recreational use of drugs.     

GIRLS,BOYS, AND SCHOOLS: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SCHOOL‐RELATED FACTORS AND STUDENT DEVIANCE*

Research has identified several student and school characteristics that might be altered to reduce student deviance. Most of this research, however, fails to address whether gender moderates these relationships; that is, most studies do not distinguish between the effect of school‐related factors on boys' and girls' delinquency and drug use. In the current study, data from a nationally representative sample of 13,450 students in 253 public, nonalternative, secondary schools are used to examine hierarchical linear models of the relationships between student bonding, communal school organization, and male and female delinquency and drug use. Gender differences in the overall model of relationships are found as are differences in the relationships between student bonding elements and delinquency. Gender differences are not found in the relationships between student bonding elements and drug use, nor in the relationships between communal school organization elements and delinquency and drug use. Implications for theory and prevention are discussed.     

UNRAVELING THE CONTEXTUAL EFFECTS ON STUDENT SUSPENSION AND JUVENILE ARREST: THE INDEPENDENT AND INTERDEPENDENT INFLUENCES OF SCHOOL,NEIGHBORHOOD, AND FAMILY SOCIAL CONTROLS*

Scholars of human development argue that a variety of social contexts affect youth development and that the interdependency of these contexts bears on the shape of human lives. However, few studies of contextual effects have attempted to model the effects of school, neighborhood, and family context at the same time, or to explore the relative and interdependent impact of these contexts on youth outcomes. This study provides an examination of the independent and interdependent influences of school, neighborhood, and familial contexts through an analysis of student suspension and juvenile arrest. Findings reveal that school‐based and family‐based informal social controls additively combine to reduce the likelihood of suspension and arrest. Moreover, for suspension, results support the hypothesis that an interdependent compensatory relation is present between the extent of collective efficacy in schools and in the surrounding neighborhood; school collective efficacy has a controlling influence on the likelihood of suspension that becomes even stronger in the absence of neighborhood collective efficacy. However, for arrest, an accentuating effect of school‐based social controls exists rather than a compensatory effect. A lack of neighborhood collective efficacy and a lack of school‐based social controls combine to exert a substantial increase in the likelihood of arrest.     

SCHOOLS AS COMMUNITIES: THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG COMMUNAL SCHOOL ORGANIZATION,STUDENT BONDING,AND SCHOOL DISORDER*

Research has indicated that school factors such as communal school organization and student bonding are predictive of school disorder, with greater communal organization and greater student bonding leading to less delinquency and victimization. Data from a nationally representative sample of 254 public, nonalternative, secondary schools were used to examine structural equation models representing hypothesized relationships among communal school organization, student bonding, and school disorder. The hypothesis that communally organized schools would have less disorder held true for teacher victimization and student delinquency, but not for student victimization. In addition, the hypothesis that the relationship between communal school organization and school disorder would be mediated by student bonding was supported for student delinquency, but not for teacher victimization.     

THE EFFECT ON EXAMINATION PERFORMANCE OF REQUIRING STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN A LEGAL STUDIES CLASS

The activities of teaching, learning and examining in higher education have received reinarkably little attention from experimentalists. The suggestion that belief, however hallowed, stands in need of empirical support is often met with incredulous opposition, and men whose academic work is based upon a rigorous testing of accepted ideas, tend to think it somehow indecent to apply the same standard of inquiry to their own teaching and examining practices. Few university teachers are even aware that many of their instructional problems have already heen investisated experimentally, and only a tiny minority take the trouble to acquaint Irhemselves with the results