Adolescent Exposure To Violence And Adult Outcomes

This book uses life-course longitudinal data collected from a national probability sample of respondents over a span of nearly three decades to examine the impact of multiple forms of exposure to violence in adolescence on a broad range of outcomes in adulthood. The forms of adolescent exposure to violence include general violence victimization, parental physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, and exposure to neighborhood violence. The adult outcomes include adult educational attainment, employment, marital status, income and wealth, mental health, life satisfaction, illicit and problem substance use, general violence victimization and perpetration, intimate partner violence victimization and perpetration, and arrest. The results demonstrate the complex pattern of how the different forms of exposure to violence in adolescence have varying effects on different types of adult outcomes, and matter differently for females and males. Based on these results, implications for theory, policy, and future research are considered.

Each year, child protective services receive reports of child abuse and neglect involving six million children, and many more go unreported. The long-term human and fiscal consequences of child abuse and neglect are not relegated to the victims themselves -- they also impact their families, future relationships, and society. In 1993, the National Research Council (NRC) issued the report, Under-standing Child Abuse and Neglect, which provided an overview of the research on child abuse and neglect. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research updates the 1993 report and provides new recommendations to respond to this public health challenge. According to this report, while there has been great progress in child abuse and neglect research, a coordinated, national research infrastructure with high-level federal support needs to be established and implemented immediately. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research recommends an actionable framework to guide and support future child abuse and neglect research. This report calls for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to child abuse and neglect research that examines factors related to both children and adults across physical, mental, and behavioral health domains--including those in child welfare, economic support, criminal justice, education, and health care systems--and assesses the needs of a variety of subpopulations. It should also clarify the causal pathways related to child abuse and neglect and, more importantly, assess efforts to interrupt these pathways. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research identifies four areas to look to in developing a coordinated research enterprise: a national strategic plan, a national surveillance system, a new generation of researchers, and changes in the federal and state programmatic and policy response.

Adolescents obviously do not always act in ways that serve their own best interests, even as defined by them. Sometimes their perception of their own risks, even of survival to adulthood, is larger than the reality; in other cases, they underestimate the risks of particular actions or behaviors. It is possible, indeed likely, that some adolescents engage in risky behaviors because of a perception of invulnerabilityâ€"the current conventional wisdom of adults' views of adolescent behavior. Others, however, take risks because they feel vulnerable to a point approaching hopelessness. In either case, these perceptions can prompt adolescents to make poor decisions that can put them at risk and leave them vulnerable to physical or psychological harm that may have a negative impact on their long-term health and viability. A small planning group was formed to develop a workshop on reconceptualizing adolescent risk and vulnerability. With funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Workshop on Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability: Setting Priorities took place on March 13, 2001, in Washington, DC. The workshop's goal was to put into perspective the total burden of vulnerability that adolescents face, taking advantage of the growing societal concern for adolescents, the need to set priorities for meeting adolescents' needs, and the opportunity to apply decision-making perspectives to this critical area. This report summarizes the workshop.

Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.

This timely second edition remains essentially the same in overall organization and chapter layout and titles. New to the book is updated data and facts from empirical research and government and agency reports. Some information in some chapters was retained from the first edition if it was deemed still relevant and interesting. The definition of deviance has been modified to be more in line with standard understandings of the term which frequently describe deviance as violations of social norms. The word “differences” remains part of the definition and implies differences in attitudes, lifestyles, values, and choices that exist among individuals and groups in society. The concept of deviance is no longer treated as a label in itself, also placing the definition of the term more in alignment with its standard usage. The title of the book remains the same and “tradition” still implies the book covers areas that have long been addressed in deviance texts such as addictions, crime, and sexual behaviors, to name a few. The term “stigma” is retained for two reasons: it is in honor of Erving Goffman, a giant in the discipline of sociology who offered much to the study of differences, and it is used to accentuate the importance of societal reaction in a heterogeneous society. In this updated edition, every attempt has been made to respond to input from colleagues and students concerning text content and writing style. Chapters still include “In Recognition” or comments that honor scholars whose research and professional interests are related to the chapters under study. Effective case studies are again included in the chapters. Considerable effort went into decisions of what was to be added, changed, maintained, and deleted from the first edition, resulting in meaningful modifications throughout the book.

This open access book brings together discourse on children and peace from the 15th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, covering issues pertinent to children and peace and approaches to making their world safer, fairer and more sustainable. The book is divided into nine sections that examine traditional themes (social construction and deconstruction of diversity, intergenerational transitions and memories of war, and multiculturalism), as well as contemporary issues such as Europe’s “migration crisis”, radicalization and violent extremism, and violence in families, schools and communities. Chapters contextualize each issue within specific social ecological frameworks in order to reflect on the multiplicity of influences that affect different outcomes and to discuss how the findings can be applied in different contexts. The volume also provides solutions and hope through its focus on youth empowerment and peacebuilding programs for children and families. This forward-thinking volume offers a multitude of views, approaches, and strategies for research and activism drawn from peace psychology scholars and United Nations researchers and practitioners. This book's multi-layered emphasis on context, structural determinants of peace and conflict, and use of research for action towards social cohesion for children and youth has not been brought together in other peace psychology literature to the same extent. Children and Peace: From Research to Action will be a useful resource for peace psychology academics and students, as well as social and developmental psychology academics and students, peace and development practitioners and activists, policy makers who need to make decisions about the matters covered in the book, child rights advocates and members of multilateral organizations such as the UN.

This timely, much-needed resource identifies gaps in our understanding of the effects of exposure to violence on children -- and sets a direction for future research to support interventions and violence prevention.;