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Exposure to Violence in the Community Predicts Friendships with Academically Disengaged Peers During Middle Adolescence

  • Empirical Research
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Abstract

Adolescents who have been exposed to violence in the community often experience subsequent difficulties with academic achievement. Because competence in the classroom is a salient developmental task during the adolescent years, outcomes in this critical context can then have broader implications for social and psychological functioning. In the current study, we tested a hypothesized progression in which the association between violence exposure and deficient achievement is presumed to potentiate friendships with academically disengaged peers. We followed 415 urban adolescents (53 % girls; average age of 14.6 years) for a one-year period, with two annual assessment of psychosocial functioning. Exposure to violence in the community and academic engagement were assessed with a self-report inventory; reciprocated friendships were assessed with a peer interview; and achievement was indexed based on a review of school records. Consistent with our hypotheses, neighborhood violence was associated with deficient classroom achievement. Poor achievement, in turn, mediated associations between community violence exposure and low academic engagement among friends. Our findings highlight pathways though which exposure to community violence potentially predicts later dysfunction.

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Author contributions

D S. participated in the design and conceptualization of the study, data analyses, interpretation of findings, and drafting of the manuscript; B.M.K. participated in the design and conceptualization of the study, data analyses, interpretation of findings, and drafting of the manuscript; L.V.M. participated in the data analyses, interpretation of findings, and drafting of the manuscript; M.T.D. participated in the design and conceptualization of the study, data analyses, interpretation of findings, and drafting of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    David Schwartz & Luiza V. Mali

  2. IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Canada

    Brynn M. Kelly

  3. University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, USA

    Mylien T. Duong

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  1. David Schwartz
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  2. Brynn M. Kelly
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  3. Luiza V. Mali
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  4. Mylien T. Duong
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Correspondence to David Schwartz.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Schwartz, D., Kelly, B.M., Mali, L.V. et al. Exposure to Violence in the Community Predicts Friendships with Academically Disengaged Peers During Middle Adolescence. J Youth Adolescence 45, 1786–1799 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0485-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0485-3

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