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Exposure to Violence in Adolescence and Precocious Role Exits

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Abstract

Exposure to violence is a serious public health concern that compromises adolescents by affecting their behavior and psychological well-being. The current study advances knowledge about the consequences of exposure to violence in adolescence by applying a life course perspective to evaluate the developmental implications of adolescents’ exposure to violence. In particular, drawing on a sample of 11,949 school-aged adolescents in the U.S., we examine whether exposure to violence in adolescence is associated with precocious role exits that some adolescents experience. Exposure to violence is conceptualized as including both direct (i.e., experiencing physical victimization) and indirect exposure (i.e., witnessing others’ victimization). Three types of direct exposure to violence are examined: street, intimate partner, and family victimization, as well as four types of indirect exposure including: street, peer, and school violence as well as exposure to family/friend suicide. Using three waves of longitudinal data from the Add Health Study, we find that exposure to violence is associated with greater risks of running away from home, dropping out of high school, having a child, attempting suicide, and coming into contact with the criminal justice system in later adolescence. In addition, risks depend upon the relational context in which the exposure to violence occurred, risks increase with greater exposure to violence, and risks are, for the most part, highest for those youth exposed to both indirect and direct violence in adolescence.

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Notes

  1. Scarpa’s (2001) work shows that exposure to violence pervades even populations traditionally regarded as low in risk and emphasizes the need to include a representative sample of youth in studies examining effects of exposure to violence in adolescence.

  2. It is also important to point out that not all adolescents subscribe to the same overarching culture. Instead adolescent roles and transitions may vary among subcultures within the larger culture.

  3. Supplementary analyses examined whether and how our sample of respondents restricted to those respondents who participated in all three waves of in-home surveys differ from a sample of Wave 1 respondents. Findings of the attrition analyses indicate that background demographic and behavioral characteristics (e.g., delinquency, violence, substance use) of our sample are not significantly different from a sample of respondents interviewed at Wave 1. However, our restricted sample does contain slightly more Non-White youth (49% compared to 47%).

  4. These latter two measures of exposure to violence are based on information collected retrospectively in the Wave 3 interview where respondents answer a question about parent-child abuse that occurred in childhood or adolescence. This retrospective approach is supported by evidence that respondents can recall salient life events at a much later point in time (Henry et al. 1994).

  5. A reviewer correctly point out that absent detailed information regarding the respondent’s interpretation and perception of the experienced victimization, it may be that it acts less as a role exit and is more reflective of the person simply responding to the victimization by not going to school.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a seed grant from Ohio State University’s IPR center and a federal grant from NSF (60011856). This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516–2524 (addhealth@unc.edu). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, Townsand Hall, 1885 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Dana L. Haynie

  2. Ball State University, Muncie, IN, USA

    Richard J. Petts

  3. Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    David Maimon

  4. University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Alex R. Piquero

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  1. Dana L. Haynie
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Correspondence to Dana L. Haynie.

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Haynie, D.L., Petts, R.J., Maimon, D. et al. Exposure to Violence in Adolescence and Precocious Role Exits. J Youth Adolescence 38, 269–286 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-008-9343-2

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