1. Race Differences in Girl Violence:
The Importance of School
Success
Maxine S. Thompson, R.V. Thivierge-Rikard,
Ph.D. M.A.S.S.
Maxinet@sasw.ncsu.edu rvrikard@ncsu.edu
Presentation at the 2008 Southern Sociological
Society Meeting
Richmond, VA
April 10th, 2008

2. Issues in Girl’s Violence
• Increase in adolescent girls’ level of
violence in school environments
• African American students have a
higher rate of violence compared to
Hispanic and white students.
• Little or no research on the role of self
identity as a predictor of violence
among adolescent Black females

3. Social Identities
• Being a good student and “fitting in”
the school culture.
• Oppositional culture promotes the
preference of peer culture and rejects
academics.
• Dissonance between salient identities
creates stress.

4. Research Question
• Is the level of school violence for Black
adolescent females higher than that of white
adolescent females?
• Does a normative student identity versus a
marginalized role identity explain student
violence
• Do salient identities explain race differences
in girl violence?
• Do salient identities moderate the race
differences in girl violence?

5. Girl Violence
• Girls do indirect violence which is
mostly teasing and ridiculing others.
• Girls bully others for being unattractive,
not dressing stylishly, being physically
well developed or not “fitting in”.
• Girls are targets of sexual jokes,
gestures or looks.

6. Girls Identity Claims and Violence
• Salient identities provide consistent
styles of behaving and a basis for
choosing which situations to enter and
which to avoid.
• Stress comes when identity claims are
threaten or challenged.
• Reactions are anger and/or developing
a “personal” that nullifies the
dissonance

7. Other Considerations:
• Family Context - affective dimensions of
family appear to be critical for adolescent
females than their male counterparts
• Interpersonal Stress -
• Anger – as an emotional response to stress.
• Peer Groups - peer social networks serve to
perpetuate or extinguish an individual’s
particular social identity

8. Hypotheses
H1. The level of violence will be higher for
black middle school females than for white
females,
H2. The level of violence will be lower among
girls for whom the student role is important,
H3. Stress, anger and peer influence will
mediate the relationship between race and
violence, and
H4. Race will condition the relationship
between identity as student and violence.

9. Data and Analyses
• Data for this research come from the Gender
and Middle School: Adolescent Gender
Identity and Well-Being 2003 survey.
• A total of 385 students (205 males and 180
females) were surveyed from a racially
heterogeneous urban middle school.
• The present research only examines the
incidence of violence committed by Black,
white, and “other” racial/ethnic female
students (n=155).

10. Measures
• Dependent Variable – Violence – “How often have
you…”
1. “I enjoy upsetting wimps”: “Never,” “Rarely,”
o
“Sometimes,” and “Often.”
2. “Carried a hidden weapon in the last year,”
o
3) “Hit (or threatened to hit) a teacher or other adult at
o
school,”
4) “Hit (or threatened to hit) one of your parents,” and
o
5) “Hit (or threatened to hit) other student(s).”
o
“Never,” “Once or Twice,” “Once every 2 months,” “Once a Month,” “Once
o
every 2-3 Weeks,” “Once a Week,” “2-3 Times a Week,” and “At Least Once a
Day.”

11. Measures
• Independent Variable – Independent Variables –
Race/ethnicity
o
Age
o
Good Student Identity – “How important is it…”
o
1) to have other students to think I am a good student,

2) to be a good student,

3) for teachers to think I am a good student.

“Not Important at All,” “Somewhat Important,” and “Very

Important”

12. Measures
• Control Variables –
Highest education level of one parent - girls’ home
o
environment
o Stress
 Teacher - “I didn’t get along with one of my teachers in the
past year” and “My teacher yelled at me in front of the class
in the past year.”
 Parent - “My parents argue at home” and “I argue with my
parents.”
 Friends - “Friends were mean to me in the past year” and
“My friends ignored me in the past year.”
“Yes” or “No” if the incident had occurred in the past
o
year.

13. Results
• See Table 3:
Black girls, compared to whites, are two times
o
more likely to commit a violent act (Model 1).
o The importance of other student’s perceptions
and self perception of being a good student has
a significant negative (counterbalancing) effect
on violence (Model 2).
o Having friends who hit other and tease others
has a significant positive effect on girls’
violence (Model 5).

14. Results (cont.)
Interaction of the importance of other students
o
perception of a Black girl as a good student has
a significant and fivefold negative effect on
violence (Model 6).
o Black girls who perceive the importance of
being a good students were nearly three times
less likely to commit a violent act than whites
(Model 7).
o However, the importance of teacher’s
perceptions was not mediated by race/ethnicity
(Model 8).

15. Discussion
• Summing up…
• The oppositional culture literature has
neglected the importance of education for
Blacks. Education is a vehicle for success.
• Lack of research on how students balance
the dissonance between peer identity/
pressure and commitment to one’s
education.

16. Discussion (cont.)
– Academic identity is important for all girls (self
and peer perceptions)
- However, teachers’ perception of an
academic identity is not important.
– We speculate that both self perception of an
academic identity and marginalized/deviant
groups influence a girl’s level of violence.
– Anger did not explain violence.

17. Discussion (cont.)
4. Although Black girls do commit more violent acts
than whites; the levels of violence are explained by
the influence of marginalized group identity.
5. The academic or student identity buffers the
impact of race; that is, Black girls with a strong
commitment to the student role are less likely to be
violent than white girls.
Implication:
Two groups, “marginalized” (i.e., “bully”) and
“academically committed,” in the school
environment

18. Race Differences in Girl Violence:
The Importance of School
Success
Maxine S. Thompson, R.V. Thivierge-Rikard,
Ph.D. M.A.S.S.
Maxinet@sasw.ncsu.edu rvrikard@ncsu.edu
Presentation at the 2008 Southern Sociological
Society Meeting
Richmond, VA
April 10th, 2008