Generations of Poets

School Disorder: The Influence of Individual, Institutional, and Community Factors*

“…25 Despite resource constraints and other problems facing public schools approaching the 21st century, it is possible to implement positive change. Student misconduct can be shaped by conscious efforts by school administrators, teachers, parents, students, and others involved in the task of facilitating the healthy development of children (e.g., Gottfredson, 1989;Owens, 1987, Welsh et al, in press). School-based violence prevention efforts that attempt to raise children's school effort, encourage positive associations, and demonstrate that obeying the rules will result in valued rewards, may also provide critical foundations for reducing student misconduct (Gottfredson, 1986).…”

“…Student misconduct can be shaped by conscious efforts by school administrators, teachers, parents, students, and others involved in the task of facilitating the healthy development of children (e.g., Gottfredson, 1989;Owens, 1987, Welsh et al, in press). School-based violence prevention efforts that attempt to raise children's school effort, encourage positive associations, and demonstrate that obeying the rules will result in valued rewards, may also provide critical foundations for reducing student misconduct (Gottfredson, 1986). A host of school-based interventions addressing such needs are in various stages of implementation and evaluation, but further tests of their effectiveness are still needed (see Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Howell, 1995).…”

“…Standardized self-report measures of delinquency occurring in school are rare, although a few measures of student misconduct have been attempted (e.g., Gottfredson et al, 1993;Jenkins, 1997). Peer ratings and teacher ratings of student misconduct have been used sparingly (for examples, see D. Gottfredson, 1986;G. Gottfredson, 1987; D. Gottfredson et al, 1993) due to the additional research resources required, teacher resistance, and subjectivity bias.…”

“…Relationships between bonding and delinquency have been generally supported by research, although the magnitude and direction of relationships vary across studies (for reviews, see Akers, 1997;Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990;Vold et al, 1997). While relationships between school bonding and delinquency have been demonstrated (e.g., Cernkovich and Giordano, 1992;Gibbons, 1981;Hagan and Simpson, 1978;Hindelang, 1973;Krohn and Massey, 1980;Liska and Reed, 1985;Thornberry et al, 1991), studies of relationships between school bonding and school misbehavior are rare (Gottfredson, 1986;Jenkins, 1997). The latter provide the appropriate context for applying control theory to examine school disorder.…”

“…In other words, a multilevel assessment would have to consider variables in their original unit of measurement (individual, school, and community). predictors included poor teacher-administrator cooperation and inactive administrations (Gottfredson, 1989). School structural characteristics predictive of disorder included size (large school), staffing (high student/ teacher ratio), and resources (low operating budgets for learning materials) (Duke, 1989;Gottfredson and Gottfredson, 1985).…”