Date of Award
10-1-1991
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Center for the Advancement of Education
Advisor
David Flight
Committee Member
Linda Murray
Committee Member
Ronald A. Newell
Keywords
action plans, administrators, awareness, Broward County, community agencies, community awareness, Florida, gang awareness, high schools, juvenile services, law enforcement agencies, parents, school board, school disruptions, school personnel, teachers, training, Youth Gang Conference, youth gangs, youth gang liaison coordinator
Abstract
The first segment of this report describes a program for improving the awareness of youth gangs in our schools and in the community. The program was designed to team school personnel with law enforcement agencies and other allied groups in a systematic plan to increase the awareness of parents, school staff, and members of the community of youth gangs and their activities in Broward County, Florida. In a survey of teachers and administrators during a Youth Gang Conference which was held in February of 1989, it was revealed that the majority of the participants indicated a need to be trained in gang awareness and identification.
Individuals with knowledge of the youth gang phenomenon have pointed out that one of the major impediments to dealing with this menace is the lack of awareness of the magnitude of the problem on the part of school personnel, parents, and members of the community. In close relationship to this is the fact that school personnel and members of the community, many times, deny the existence of youth gangs in our neighborhoods and schools.
The awareness aspect of the program described in this report brought together the cooperative strengths of community agencies, law enforcement groups. and the schools in order for them to address the presence of youth gangs in the Broward County community. As a result of this practicum intervention, community agencies, parents, and school personnel became aware of and acknowledged that youth gangs are in our midst. The Juvenile Services Board of Broward County voted to allocate funds for this program and The School Board of Broward County, Florida hired a youth gang liaison coordinator. Additionally, the high schools involved in this project developed specific action plans which assisted them in avoiding many of the disruptions associated with youth gang activities.
The second segment of this report describes a program which was an outgrowth of the awareness intervention. This facet of the program was designed to provide a pilot NIH curriculum for middle school students in three schools. Middle schools were targeted because of the organized need for early intervention.
The six-week curriculum program was implemented in eighth-grade dropout prevention classes, which contained pre-screened high-risk students. A similar comparison control classes were identified in other matched schools. The pilot group was administered the pre-post gain student survey, which was developed by the Paramount, California school district, whereas the comparison group was given the survey as a post-test.
As a result of this curriculum intervention, it was found that there were not any differences found upon the survey responses or other measures to indicate that the gang prevention curriculum had been effective as implemented. It was ascertained that the groups involved in the study was not comparable, however, it was hardened to find that the programs targeted groups already against gangs before the intervention was offered.