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STUDENT WILLINGNESS TO REPORT
VIOLENCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
by
William Bennett Lupejkis
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements of the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
August 2010
Copyright 2010 William Bennett Lupejkis
Object Description
| Title | Student willingness to report violence in secondary schools |
| Author | Lupejkis, William Bennett |
| Author email | lupejkis@usc.edu; benlupejkis@ca.rr.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Education |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Education (Leadership) |
| School | Rossier School of Education |
| Date defended/completed | 2010-06-23 |
| Date submitted | 2010 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2010-08-02 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Seli, Helena |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Sundt, Melora Love, Laurie |
| Abstract | This study examined personal and environmental influences that previous research suggested affect violence and violence reporting for secondary students. This study assessed student attitudes, expectations, and factual knowledge toward reporting violence, as well as factors that promoted or inhibited reporting. The findings are intended to broaden understanding of bystander behavior and examine the relations among varying community levels of violence, school climate, age, gender, ethnicity of students, and the influence of these factors on student willingness to report violence.; The study used as its theoretical framework the ecological systems theory of Urie Bronfenbrenner (1979), wherein a person is both affected by and acts upon the environmental spheres of influence. In this instance, the environmental spheres were the neighborhood and family, school climate, and peer affiliation. Additionally, bystander behavior theory of intervention postulated and researched by Latané and Darley (1970) was used to frame a student’s willingness to transition through the postulated four stages of bystander intervention: 1) recognizing the event, 2) interpreting the event as an emergency, 3) establishing personal responsibility to intervene, and 4) determining a course of action in violence reporting.; The method of the study was quantitative utilizing a 52-question survey composed of questions developed by the researcher coupled with a small number of questions from previously administered surveys (CREP, 1989; Search Institute, 2009; Tschannen-Moran, 2004). The survey was composed of continuous response and dichotomous questions assessing student attitudes about community violence, factors of school climate, relationship to victim/perpetrator, knowledge of resources, consequences of reporting, and violence reporting. The study also used neighborhood crime statistics gleaned from a national database (SpotCrime.com, 2010) to correlate levels of community violence and student willingness to report. The study population was 360 14-18 year-old students from two neighboring southern California high schools.; Findings of this study suggested that certain factors significantly impacted a secondary student who witnessed violence or violent acts make decisions to report. Personal variables included demographic indicators of age, gender, ethnicity, and school of attendance. Environmental variables included level of violence in the neighborhood of the school, school climate, principal visibility, peer affiliation, in-group/out-group membership, witness relationship to victim/perpetrator, and knowledge about avenues of reporting. The study found that most variables were statistically significant predictors to reporting behavior. Higher levels of neighborhood violence negatively predicted reporting, whereas factors of school climate (knowledge of whom and where to report, clarity of rules, and a supportive principal) positively predicted reporting. The quality of the witness’s relationship to the victim/perpetrator significantly predicted reporting. Females were more likely to report than males, and age difference between witness and victim/perpetrator significantly predicted reporting. The findings also suggested that students felt that some victims deserve their fate. Overall, students reported a lack of willingness to report violence.; These findings present many implications and suggest possible recommendations for school sites such as clearer avenues in school for reporting with designated responsible adults and training and use in classroom cooperative learning models across the curriculum to broaden positive peer interaction. |
| Keyword | bystander behavior; school climate; school safety; violence reporting; trusted adults; supportive principal; in-group/out-group membership; peer group affiliation; social categorization; social capital |
| Geographic subject (state) | California |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m3249 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Lupejkis, William Bennett |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | http://www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/services/ask_a_librarian/email/ |
| Filename | etd-Lupejkis-3914 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume23/etd-Lupejkis-3914.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Full text | STUDENT WILLINGNESS TO REPORT VIOLENCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS by William Bennett Lupejkis A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree DOCTOR OF EDUCATION August 2010 Copyright 2010 William Bennett Lupejkis |
