Browsing by Author "Agnich, Laura Elizabeth"

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    A Cross-National Study of School Violence
    Agnich, Laura Elizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2011-05-11)
    This study examines the predictors of school violence cross-nationally, testing the applicability of criminological theories of adult violence to violence in the school setting. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), a method of multi-level linear analysis, of the 2007 Trends in International Math and Science Studies (TIMSS) data augmented with data from UN Human Development Reports, UN Demographic Yearbook, CIA World Factbook and the World Health Organization Mortality Database, I determine the predictors of school violence at the school and national levels to determine what variables account for cross-national variation in the level of school violence. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) takes into account the structure of nested data, and this study examines schools nested within nations. The relationships between school and national level inequalities, social disorganization, institutional anomie, social support, resource deprivation theories and school violence are tested. Violence is operationally defined as a continuum of aggression ranging from non-physical to physical (see Yu 2003), incorporating low-level as well as more serious forms of interpersonal violence. I find that measures of social disorganization, institutional anomie and resource deprivation at both the school and national levels predict higher levels of violence within schools. Surprisingly, homogeneity rather than heterogeneity is a significant predictor of physical bullying. In addition, math achievement and achievement score variation significantly predict the level of school violence cross-nationally. At the national level, placing too much emphasis on students' achievement on standardized tests may inadvertently create a culture conducive to school violence. Emphasizing a diverse range of ways to measure students' achievement other than standardized testing may reduce the likelihood that students experience strain and engage in violent behavior at school. This research is the first to use multi-level linear analysis to discern the school and national level predictors of school violence.
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    Masculinities and Sexual Violence among a Sample of Clients of Street Prostitutes
    Agnich, Laura Elizabeth (Virginia Tech, 2007-05-08)
    The purpose of this study was to determine the predictors of violent sexual ideology among a sample of clients of street prostitutes. Despite the abundance of feminist theory and research on prostitution and sexual violence, very little research examines clients of prostitutes, who have many opportunities to perpetrate sexual violence against women who engage in prostitution (Davis 1993). Because street prostitutes are structurally vulnerable to male violence due to the low respectability of their occupation, clients are especially important to study. Because violence against women and sex work has both been studied in relationship to masculinities, this study examined the relationship between marginalized masculinities and violent sexual ideology among 423 clients of street prostitutes. The sample studied was derived from the National Institute of Justice Clients of Street Prostitutes 1996-1999. Using OLS regressions, I determined the significant predictors of violent sexual ideology among these clients. I found that rape myth acceptance, frequency of pornography use, frequency of sex, age, frequency of thinking about sex, lower levels of sexual conservatism and lower levels of perceived attractiveness were significantly related to violent sexual ideology.
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    School Shootings and Mental Illness: A Moral Panic
    Richardson, Kristin Lynn (Virginia Tech, 2016-06-30)
    This research uses moral panic theory to investigate the ways in which print media coverage influences the association of mental illness with acts of mass violence in schools. I explore the relationship between the rhetoric of moral entrepreneurs (such as victims' friends and family members, law enforcement agencies, criminal justice and mental health professionals, gun rights activists, mayors, members of Congress, and presidents), the construction of a moral panic, and the identification of a folk devil (a person or population deemed responsible for the evils of a society; to be feared and controlled in order to minimize threat). Perpetrators of school shootings are often discussed in terms of their consumption of violent media (such as movies, music, and video games), their access to firearms, their social standing among their peers (socially isolated, ostracized, or bullied at school), and their mental health status. I hypothesize that mental illness has become a common frame in which school shooters are discussed by the media, despite the fact that mentally ill persons are less likely than non-disordered individuals to commit acts of violence. Therefore, this characterization of the mentally ill as violent and dangerous is disproportionate to the actual level of threat. I conduct a quantitative frame analysis of print newspaper articles published in the New York Times and one local newspaper during the month following each mass school shooting between 1991 and 2015, coding for the type of moral entrepreneur (grassroots, interest-group, or elite), the folk devil identified (violent media, firearms, social alienation, and/or mental illness), and whether the folk devil was being affirmed or denied. Results reveal that guns are affirmed as the folk devil more often than mental illness, but are also denied most often; whereas mental illness is affirmed nearly as often as guns, and is less frequently denied as the folk devil — leading to the conclusion that mental illness is the most frequently accepted folk devil associated with school shootings. This serves as a cautionary warning against the conflation of mental illness with mass shootings, because it intensifies the stigma attached to mental illness — a known deterrent to seeking treatment.