Abstract
Twenty-nine students from a neighborhood high school in
Chicago were shot last year, eight of them fatally. Tragedy like
this has played out in all major U.S. cities for decades. For
hundreds of children, crime and gangs are an inescapable element in
their life. Disadvantages from living in a violent environment are
expected, but ill studied is whether crime rates and the prevalence
of gangs are preventing students from succeeding academically. This
study investigated whether schools in dangerous areas reported
lower student performance statistics for their freshmen class than
schools from safer neighborhoods. The ecological-transactional
theory indicates that community factors such as violence can
inhibit the development of cognitive functions necessary to learn.
Accordingly, this study expected that greater crime rates and
number of gangs would lower a school's percentage of students
on-track to graduate, average GPA, and fraction of individuals with
As and Bs. Twenty-two neighborhood Chicago high schools with
publicly available academic statistics were selected with
corresponding violence information compiled from the Chicago Police
Department. Economic, familial, and racial differences were
controlled using census tract data. Individual and multiple
regression analyses found no statistically significant correlation
between a school's performance and the crime per capita or number
of gangs in the surrounding area. Given the undisputed body of
literature showing a link between perception of violence and
grades, this study indicates that actual levels of violence may be
irrelevant. Instead, consequential to a student's success may be
his or her ability to cope with traumatic proximal
events.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………....43
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