Sanction Avoidance Strategies: Examining Contexts and Targets of Youth Aggression

• In Event: 434 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Youth Aggression and Problem Behavior

Abstract

Recent cases of bullied youth committing suicide, or “bullycide,” have led to legal approaches to deter aggressive behaviors in schools. Anti-bullying legislation has been adopted in almost every state to prevent the victimization of youth, but the focus on deterring and criminalizing individual behavior prevents consideration of the contextual factors that lead to aggression. The authors use an exploratory analysis of survey data from 834 public high school students in New Jersey to illustrate why sanctions alone are not enough to prevent student victimization. Findings reveal that youth may engage in strategies to avoid detection or punishment for their aggressive behaviors. One way youth may avoid sanctions is through their selection of the spatial and temporal locations of victimization and aggression, Aggressing in more covert locations may minimize the likelihood an authority figure will detect and address the behavior. Another way youth may minimize the likelihood that their aggression will result in punishment is through the selection of characteristics youth target for victimization, particularly when targeted individuals are not part of a legally protected group. The intersection of sanction avoidance strategies with perceptions of school discipline will inform a theory of how youth navigate an expanding field of sanctions designed to deter aggressive behaviors, while still engaging in the potentially status-enhancing victimization of other students.

Authors

• Alicia Raia-Hawrylak, State University of New Jersey-Rutgers

• Christopher Donoghue, Montclair State University