Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons^™

Definitions Of Violence: African-American And Iraqi Refugee Adolescents' Perceptions, Beverly M. Black, Barbara L. Peterson, Arlene N. Weisz, Poco D. Kernsmith, Linda A. Lewandowski, Krupa K. Hegde

Social Work Faculty Publications

This article explores the perceptions of urban African-American and Iraqi refugee adolescents regarding community violence, school violence, family violence and dating/intimate partner violence. A subset of participants from a larger study on violence and trauma was selected to participate in the current study. Using a card-sort exercise, participants identified situations as violent or not violent. Iraqi youth identified noticeably more behaviors as violence than African-American youth. Few significant gender differences emerged. Findings of important cultural differences provide implications for violence prevention programming.