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Teens Sound Off on School Safety

by Linda Lyons

Parents of school-age children worry twice as much as teens do about the physical safety of kids at school, by a margin of 31%* to 16%**. This difference should come as no surprise to anyone who has raised children. However, it may surprise some to learn that black teens (22%) and Hispanic teens (23%) worry almost twice as much about their own safety at school as do white teens (13%).

Last month in Tuesday Briefing, we explored parents' attitudes about their children's safety at school (see "Parents Concerned About School Safety" in Related Items). To take a comparative look at the concerns of teens themselves, we combined Gallup Youth Survey responses from 2000 and 2001 to the question, "When you are in school, do you ever fear for your physical safety?"

Location, Location, Location

Whites are significantly less likely to worry about school safety than are nonwhites in both the adult and teen populations. Such differences can also be clearly viewed according to income levels, which are related to school location. The lower average income in black and Hispanic households than in white households (the 2000 Census reports the average household income for whites is $51,224 compared to $31,778 for blacks and $31,663 for Hispanics) contributes to the higher likelihood that black and Hispanic teens will attend schools in lower income neighborhoods. Such schools are more likely to be perceived as unsafe, helping explain the racial difference in views about school safety.

James, a black high school sophomore from suburban New Jersey, was surprised to even be questioned about his safety concerns at school. His remarks may be typical of kids schooled in middle-class suburbs: "No, I don't worry about it. Why would I? There's nothing to worry about." In the inner cities, however, kids do express more anxiety. Unlike adults, who are equally likely to say they worry about the physical safety of their children at school regardless of whether they live in an urban area or a suburb (31% of parents in each location say they do), city teens themselves are more likely to worry than their suburban counterparts -- 21% compared to 12%.

"Yes, sometimes I do fear for my physical safety at school," admits Sasha, a Hispanic sophomore at a high school in Trenton, N.J. "… Kids are crazy. They want to solve their problems by violence. Our school has security, but they don't always show up on time." A fellow student has a different attitude -- he's not less concerned, but he has confidence in the staff to protect his identity from the other students. "I feel if I ever had a problem, I know that I could always tell the administration and I would remain anonymous," volunteers Marqui, a black senior at the same high school.

Key Points

Although they don't worry to the extent that their parents do about school safety, 16% of all teens are sometimes anxious about their physical well-being at school. Particularly concerned are nonwhite high school teens whose parents' educational background and income may place them in neighborhoods that are less safe than others, and in larger classes in which supervision is more difficult.

*Results are based on aggregated data from telephone interviews with 840 parents with children in kindergarten through 12th grade in Gallup's 2000-2002 Work and Education polls, all conducted in August. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4%.

**Findings for teens are based on Gallup Youth Survey aggregated data from telephone interviews with 1,503 teens, aged 13 to 17, conducted in January 2000 and September 2001.


Gallup https://news.gallup.com/poll/6937/Teens-Sound-Off-School-Safety.aspx
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