ANN ARBOR—
While American middle and high school students feel relatively safe from violence in the classroom, they feel less safe in their schools’ public areas, such as hallways, cafeterias, bathrooms, locker rooms and school grounds, say researchers at the University of Michigan and The College of New Jersey (TCNJ).
What’s more, they say, many teachers in middle and high schools are reluctant to intervene in violent situations between students in these public areas because they don’t believe it’s their responsibility. And they fear getting hurt, perceive a lack of support from school administrators, and believe their school’s policy is unclear about intervention procedures.
In three separate studies, U-M researchers Ron Avi Astor, Heather A. Meyer and Ronald O. Pitner and TCNJ researcher William J. Behre used a school “hot spot” mapping procedure and face-to-face interviews to better understand student perceptions of where violence most likely occurs in elementary, middle and high schools. The studies explored both students’ and teachers’ reasoning about their roles in preventing school violence in those “hot spot” locations.
“Our findings suggest that specific areas within schools that are violence-prone are also undefined and unowned by members of the school community,” says Astor, U-M assistant professor of social work and education. “Even though most individuals in the school community are aware of these locations, neither the students nor teachers feel that monitoring those particular areas is their personal or professional responsibility.”
The first of the three studies, published in the spring issue of the American Educational Research Journal, found that of 166 reported acts of violence (mostly fist fights) at five Midwestern high schools, all occurred in locations where few or no adults were present.
About 40 percent of the incidents took place in hallways between class periods, while another 20 percent occurred in cafeterias during lunch time. Other dangerous areas include gymnasiums, auditoriums and parking lots.
While the teachers in the study indicate a sense of ownership and responsibility for the space within their classrooms, many are reluctant to extend ownership to areas of undefined public space for organizational and professional reasons, the researchers say. However, this is not the fault of teachers, they add. Instead, their findings suggest that it’s a symptom of how secondary schools are organized, high student-teacher ratios, the way universities educate secondary teachers, and a narrow focus on subject specialty rather than on getting to know students.
“Teachers are really caught in the middle,” Astor says. “Procedures and policies prescribed by district level and school administrators have not always been clear or effective at the teacher level. Teachers need to be given encouragement and support to develop safe and effective ways to deal with violent incidents—especially in areas that are not perceived to be their primary work space.”
In the other two studies, recently presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, comparisons were made between elementary and middle school teachers’ reasoning about intervening in school violence and between elementary and middle school students’ perceptions of safety.
Like their high school counterparts (and largely for the same reasons), many middle school teachers at the seven urban schools in the study were reluctant to respond to violent situations in undefined public locations. Nearly 58 percent of middle school teachers in the study said that they would likely react differently to an act of violence in a hallway than in their classroom, and 46 percent said that the location of a violent event determines who should intervene.
While middle school teachers define their primary responsibility as within the classroom and may perceive their role as teachers to be closely tied to their subject specialty, elementary school teachers are more likely to feel a professional and personal responsibility for the whole building and all students, the researchers say.
Elementary teachers tend to monitor school spaces more frequently, responding to violence in other areas of their school the same way they would if it happened inside their classroom (more than 80 percent said that they would react no differently to violence in a hallway than in their classroom and that the location of the violence does not affect who should respond). This is possible, in part, because elementary schools tend to be smaller and teachers tend to know their students better.
“The results indicate that the differences between elementary and middle school teachers in reasoning patterns are associated with differing notions of professional responsibility and differing perceptions of potential danger that are associated with specific locations,” says Behre, TCNJ assistant professor of special education. “Redefining responsibility and defining roles in those specific locations may reduce the number of unowned places and also reduce the number of overall violent events occurring in the school setting.”
Like their teachers, elementary and middle school students hold different views regarding the perceptions of dangerous areas within their schools, the research shows.
In a mapping study of nearly 400 students in grades 2, 4, 6 and 8 in seven urban schools in the Midwest, middle school students identified many more dangerous public areas (“hot spots”) than elementary students—violence-prone areas that tend to lack supervision, are overcrowded and are prone to psychological bullying.
The age and grade of a student, the researchers say, may not explain how they perceive dangerous areas in their school. For example, the study examined how sixth-graders in both elementary and middle schools view specific violence-prone areas within their schools—with those in middle schools identifying more areas as dangerous.
“The results suggest that the sixth-graders’ perceptions of danger are closely tied to the social organization of the setting and teachers’ perceptions of roles in middle versus elementary schools,” Astor says.
Astor and his colleagues believe that schools can identify and reclaim these dangerous “hot spot” locations by mapping the school with students and teachers. Discussions based on the maps can focus on ways to secure these areas and target dangerous locations and time-frames rather than individuals or groups, the researchers say.
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William J. Behreeducationhttp://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/