1

RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alyssa Figueroa
Annotated Bibliography
Gwynedd-Mercy University
Danielle Budenz and Monica Walsh

2
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blosnich, J. (2011). Low-level violence in schools: Is there an association between school safety
measures and peer victimization?. Journal Of School Health, 81(2), 107-113.
Blosnich uses this scholarly article to define and broaden awareness of bullying
throughout public schools. The author also looked into the use of other safety measures
such as metal detectors to determine if crime rates went down. His conclusion is
inconsistent with results due to them fluctuating. He used data from the 2007 SCS. This
article, although scholarly, is not of much importance since the results are inconsistent.
Bowen, G.L., Bowen, N.K. (1999). Effects of crime and violence in neighborhoods and schools
on the school behavior and performance of adolescents. Sage Journals: Journal of
Adolescent Research. 14(3), 319-342.
Bowen and Bowen wanted to focus their research on both the school and neighborhood
aspect of violence. The two were interested in the effects of the exposure of violence on
the participants school attendance, behavior, and grades. The researchers used a national
probability sample of middle and high school students. These participants recently
finished the National School Success Profile (SSP). Another survey the participants
finished was the national Teens, Crimes and the Community Program (TCC). From these
surveys the researchers concluded that students do not feel safe in school settings nor do
they feel safe in their neighborhoods. The researchers were also able to conclude that
students with higher violence exposure suffer emotional consequences such as PTSD,
hopelessness, and anxiety. However, despite the research, the researchers were unable to
supply evidence that violence does indeed impact school attendance, behavior and
grades. This journal article is of great importance and gives great information from the

3
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
research conducted. It does not use a multiple of data collection tools which causes
unreliability and making it invalid.
Coon, J., & Travis, L. F. (2012). The role of police in public schools: A comparison of principal
and police reports of activities in schools. Police Practice & Research, 13(1), 15-30.
doi:10.1080/15614263.2011.589570
The theme of this article is the understanding of law enforcement in a school setting. The
purpose of this article is to make the audience aware of the violence that occurs in school
and the use of law-enforcement. Coona and Travis used various surveys filled out by
principals of Title I schools and law enforcement agencies in that given town. The
surveys asked about the roles of officers in public schools and the frequency of law
enforcement working with schools. The results of the survey concluded that law
enforcement is involved most in law enforcement related activities. The surveys are being
used to give different perceptions on better understanding the role of police officers in a
school setting.
Crepeau-Hobson, M. (2005). Violence prevention after columbine: A survey of high school
mental health professionals. Children & Schools, 27(3), 157-165.
The author, Crepeau-Hobson, states throughout his article that direct and indirect
strategies need to be used in order to gain maximum effectiveness in decreasing school
violence. Crepeau-Hobson used surveys sent to al public high schools in the Colorado
Department of Education. He also used demographic information, school information,
and a checklist of school based mental-health strategies to yield to his results. CrepeauHobson wanted to determine if the state of Colorado was making their schools a safer
environment since the Columbine incident. His results showed that there was an increase

4
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
in programs for students in the public schools. Crepeau-Hobson offered a great variety of
information that pertains to my research proposal.
DeMitchell, T. D. (2003). Policy responses to violence in our schools: An exploration of security
as a fundamental value. Brigham Young University Education & Law Journal, (2), 459.
DeMitchell makes the theme of his paper evident as a security policy emerging as a new
fundamental value in education. Policies are important to the general population helping
people survive. DeMitchell wrote the article to pursue the safety measures taken in school
since September 11, 2001. Through the use of several random superintendents in the New
England area, DeMitchell achieved received a 38.8% return rate on surveys. The
questions on the survey relate to the 5 propositions that he wanted answered.
With proposition one, the respondents find a difference between discipline and security
policies. The respondents note that they have more concern about safety then before
through the questions used to target proposition two. From answering questions related to
proposition three, the survey showed the 52.2% of school districts reported an increase in
spending on security measures. Proposition number four was able to recognize that
security is not in relation to size or location. It also showed that gender is not important.
Questions related to proposition number 5 showed that superintendents would take
newfound money and use it towards school safety measures instead of a program for
teaching academics. DeMitchell, an excellent journalist, notes that this is a continuous
problem in education. He notes that further research needs to be concluded on this topic
in order for it to be a fundamental issue.

5
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hamburger ME, Basile KC, Vivolo AM. (2011). Measuring bullying victimization, perpetration,
and bystander experiences: A compendium of assessment tools. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
This article focused on one certain aspect of school violence: bullying. It is a
compendium that can be used for other teachers or educators to use. The article is
organized into bully only information, victim only information, and both bully and
victim. Each measure contains reliability and validity information, the name of the
measure, the developer, the target group as well as the published year and characteristics
of the measure. The scales used for bully and victim provide much knowledge. This
article was very reliable and thorough; however, I do not think it pertains to the data that I
would like to collect for my proposal.
Johnson, S. (2009). Improving the school environment to reduce school violence: A review of the
literature. The Journal Of School Health, 79(10), 451-465.
Johnson portrays how school violence can impact the social, psychological, and physical
well-being of both students and teachers and disrupt the learning process. This review
focuses on the mechanisms by which the school environment determines the likelihood of
school violence. From her research, Johnson was able to classify the environments based
on the amount and type of violence. This is a very reliable source to use for my proposal.
It has a lot of key components that would definitely help my research.
Ludwig, K. A., & Warren, J. S. (2009). Community violence, school-related protective factors,
and psychosocial outcomes in urban youth. Psychology In The Schools, 46(10), 10611073.

6
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ludwig and Warren aimed their study to examine the relationship of two school-based
protective factors, student identification with school and perceived teacher support to
psychosocial outcomes of urban youth exposed to violence. The researchers had a sample
of 175 participants, 90 female and 85 male, from two northeast urban high schools. The
participants ranged in age from 14 to 19, with the average age being 16. Ludwig and
Warren sent out consent forms to the teachers that volunteered their classes. The teachers
of the class were given the Identification with School Questionnaire which consisted of
16 questions. out of the 175 participants, eighteen students did not complete the
questionnaire by either skipping a question or missing a page entirely. These students
questionnaires were not used in collecting data. Teacher support was also measured using
the Teacher Support Scale composed of 25 questions. the researchers were also able to
measure psychosocial functioning through the Youth Self Report, and hope was assessed
using the Childrens Hope Scale.
The results were conducted separately for males and females as well as combined. The
combined results stated that exposure to violence was significantly related to higher
ratings of psychosocial symptoms, both internalizing and externalizing. The female
participants had internalizing psychosocial symptoms while male participants had
significantly higher externalizing symptoms. This research study may have possible
threats to validity in that it used one method for assessing the variables of interest, and it
was self-report data. This source offered a lot of insight to the issue I have interest in.
Although extremely great information was found, the threats to validity does not make it
very reliable.

7
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Milam, A. J., Furr-Holden, C. M., & Leaf, P. J. (2010). Perceived school and neighborhood
safety, neighborhood violence and academic achievement in urban school
children. Urban Review, 42(5), 458-467.
Milam, Leaf, and Furr-Holden wanted to focus this study specifically on community and
school violence because it is a major public health problem and it is not being researched
enough. The theme that is evident in this study is that community violence affects the
students academically. This study was done in an urban school district with primary
schools students, specifically 3rd-5th graders. The researchers used a variety of tests to
measure the community violence, the school violence, and academic achievement.
The assessment used for community and neighborhood violence is called the
Neighborhood Inventory of Environmental Typology (NIfETy), which was observational.
This measurement includes 172 items operationalized within 7 domains: physical layout,
structures on the block, dwelling type, youth and adult activity, physical order and
disorder, social order and disorder, and the presence of VAOD (violence, alcohol, other
drugs) indicators. These observations and assessments were conducted in 2005 by two
person team field raters. Environmental data was collected randomly within residential
blocks. The researchers also used a neighborhood violence risk score measuring violence
using the seven variables from the NIfETy assessment: blood in the street, the presence of
shell casings, police tape, memorials, people yelling, swearing and fighting. The results
yielded that schools in neighborhoods with high violence ratings consistently showed a
decrease on Maryland State Assessment performance. The researchers also had the
participants take a School Climate Survey using a Likert Scale. The survey showed that
schools with higher self-reported safety going to and from school had a higher percentage

8
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
of students passing the math and reading of the MSA. The researchers also looked used
spatial and statistical analysis. The study that was done by these researchers is very
important because it is valid and reliable, as well as containing the information I needed
for my proposal.
Nickerson, A. B., & Martens, M. P. (2008). School violence: Associations with control,
security/enforcement, educational/therapeutic approaches, and demographic
factors. School Psychology Review, 37(2), 228-243.
This scholarly article is about a study on school violence. It takes into account the
different variables that aid in school violence such as demographic characteristics. It took
place after the Columbine incident but before No Child Left Behind was implemented.
The authors presented this study to show that school violence is related to school crime
and disruption. The authors suggested three approaches to violence prevention and the
response to each. This study was confusing and used a lot of data that I did not
understand. It is a great source if one can break down the numbers. It is meant for another
researcher who could comprehend the information.
Osofsky, J.D., (1999). The impact of violence on children. Retrieved from
http://www.icyrnet.net/UserFiles/vol9no3Art3.pdf.
Osofsky stated in her article that exposure to violence can have significant effects on
children during their development as well intimate relationships children begin to form.
Osofsky surveyed children as well as mothers on the east coast about violence. Her
article later went on to mention the impact violence has on parents and their ability to
parent effectively. This article does not focus on violence in the school setting; however,
it does focus on the impact violence has on a child. Although the research is not

9
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
conducted in a school setting, it gives me knowledge of the impact of violence on
children. This is still very insightful and will help with my research proposal.
Pottinger, A.M., Stair, A.G., (2009). Bullying of students by teachers and peers and its effect on
the psychological well-being of students in jamaican schools. The Journal Of School
Violence. 8(4), 312-327.
Pottinger and Stair wanted to focus the study outside of developed countries and use
African-American participants since most research done conveyed Caucasians. The two
sought to answer the following questions: How does student bullying present in schools
and the social climate that exists in Jamaica: types of experiences, age or grade of
occurrence, and gender and socio-economic indicators? How does peer-on-peer bullying
differ from educator-on-student bullying? How do psychological and behavioral
outcomes differ in students from kindergarten through grade 12 who have been bullied
either by their peers, educators or both?
To answer these questions, the researchers had 225 university students answer aa
questionnaire during a pre-arranged time. School bullying was also measured by the
Student Alienation and Trauma Survey-R (SATS-R) which is another questionnaire. The
psychological outcomes were measured using the SATS-R part 2. Once data was
collected, it was then clustered and grouped into factors. Seven factors were created:
depression, oppositional behavior, suicidality, somatic symptoms, fighting, loss of trust,
and post-traumatic stress disorder. The results from the questionnaires reported the most
frequently reported incidents as being teased, yelled at, being robbed and hit with a ruler
or paddle. Over half of the sample reported some form of molestation. The researchers
concluded that psychological outcomes were independently predicted by the type of

10
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
bullying. The experiences differed for males and females. The discussion of this article
suggests that it is lacking reliability and validity since questions brought up past events.
This information was helpful but it is lacking the reliability and validity to make it a
credible source.
Shakoor, B.H., Chalmers, D. (1999). Co-victimization of african american children who witness
violence-: Effects on cognitive, emotional and behavioral development. The Leadership
Development Institute and Community Mental Health Council.
This article shows the results from the survey of 1,035 African-American youth from
several elementary and high schools in the Chicago area. The survey was used to provide
primary prevention programs to reduce the incidence of black-on-black homicide within
the community. Shakoor used a lot of national surveys as measures for her own research.
The themes identified in this scholarly article were gender differences, school differences,
age differences, cognitive effects, emotional influences, and behavioral problems.
From the surveys given, Shakoor was able to conclude the following: in gender
differences, the majority of gender that was a victim of co-victimization was males; in
age differences, the majority of students who witnessed crimes were 16 years old and the
most frequent form of violence seen was robberies. The amount of time the participants
spent on the street and poor achievement in school tend to worsen the problems of
delinquency and absenteeism. This, in turn, causes drop outs and more street time. The
researchers were able to conclude that achievement in African-American inner city
schools falls behind those in suburban and middle class communities. However, with
these findings, the researchers were not able to adequately conclude any cognitive effects
through their study. This scholarly journal article offered great insight and information;

11
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
however, it did not help my research proposal since their cognitive and behavioral effects
section lacked quantitative and qualitative information from their research.
Singer, M.I., Anglin, T.M., Song, L., Lunghofer, L. (1995). Adolescents exposure to violence and
associated symptoms of psychological trauma. The Journal of the American Medical
Association.
The researchers objective was to measure the extent of exposure to various types of
violence, as either victims or witnesses. They administered a questionnaire to high school
students in six public high schools. The researchers developed hypotheses that were
supported with the data. The participants all suffered from some type of trauma. This
article was very insightful from a medical aspect and supported my research proposal.
Toldson, I. A. (2012). Editor's comment: Insecurity at black schools: When metal detectors do
more harm than good. Journal Of Negro Education, 81(4), 303-306.
This article proposed several different methods to decrease school violence without the
use of prison like objects such as metal detectors. Toldson wants to provide more
extracurricular activity for students afterschool to avoid having the students in law
breaking behavior. Racial difference seems to be a theme among this article. Toldson
conducted her research over four years and has come up with the results of using
effective strategies before the use of metal detectors on schools. the purpose of this article
was to find alternatives to dealing with school violence in urban city school. It was
evident that the theme in this article was about the African American race. This source
gave a lot of insight to the topic of school violence. It will help my research proposal.

12
RUNNING HEAD: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Watkins, C., Mauthner, M., Hewitt, R., Epstein, D., & Leonard, D. (2007). School violence,
school differences and school discourses. British Educational Research Journal, 33(1),
61-74. doi:10.1080/01411920601104441
This study focused on the concept of the violence-resilient school. The researchers
gathered data from six different inner-city schools and then compared the data collected.
Within the six schools used, four were co-ed and two were single sexed, one for girls and
one for boys. The researchers used observation and selection of exclusion records for two
school years. They then tabulated the exclusions that were related to violence. Also
within the school, the researchers examined each schools practice and disclosures. Police
Performance Information Bureau provided the researchers data of violent crimes for one
year by grid reference. The last data tool the researchers used was the structured
interview.
Through these measurement tools, the researchers concluded that the organizational
discourse of the school is related to the organizational practices. School violence is also
related to practices and discourses in the school. The structure that this article was written
was very confusing to read; however, the information was very well researched. I did
think the information would be more directly related to school violence and not towards
the policies of the schools.