Effects of Community, School, and Student Factors on School-Based Weapon Carrying

Abstract

Extant research has theorized that community conditions affect the level of student violence in and around schools, yet few studies have tested this proposition directly. This research does so by assessing whether social conditions in a school's attendance area affect the likelihood of students bringing weapons to school. Current results indicate that the level of economic disadvantage, residential mobility, and violent crime in a school's attendance area are unrelated to student-level weapon carrying. The implications of these findings are discussed.