Sample Characteristics by Age Cohort and Student Status

Before addressing the research questions, we describe the sample. Table 8.1 presents the unweighted sample characteristics by age cohort and student status. The total unweighted sample included 1,020,019 respondents. A majority of the sample were nonstudents (57.6%), and nearly half of the sample were in the age 25 to 34 age cohort (45.6%). While all of the individuals age 12 to 14 were students in our sample, students made up 92.4% of the 15 to 17 cohort, 39.7% of the 18 to 24 cohort, and 10.6% of the 25 to 34 cohort.

Comparing Students’ Victimization Risk at School and Away from School

The first research question exammed whether students were less likely to be violently victimized at school compared to students who

Table 8.1 Unweighted Sample Characteristics by Age Cohort and Student Status

Note: Students age 12 to 14 and 15 to 17 are grade school students. Students age 18 to 24 and 25 to 24 are college students. N/A mdicates groupings that are not applicable and are not incltided in the analysis.

are away from school. To address this question, we calculated victimization rates for grade school students (age cohorts 12 to 14 and 15 to 17) and college students (age cohorts 18 to 24 and 25 to 34), by the incident location (at school, or away from school). Figure 8.1 illustrates the results for serious violence (aggravated assault, rape/sexual assault, robbery) and simple assault (physical assault with minor or no injury). The x-axis displays the age cohort, and the y-axis indicates the victimization rate per 1,000 persons in each age cohort. Rates and significance tests complementing Figure 8.1 are provided in Table 8.2.

Findings show that a global statement that a student is safer at school versus away from school is overly simplistic. Rather, this relationship depends on the age cohort and type of violence considered. When considering only serious violence, students across all age cohorts and school levels were significantly less likely to be victimized at school compared to away from school (p<,05). The greatest differences in risk were obseived for college students, with rates of less than 1 victimization per 1,000 persons occurring at school, compared to 15.1 victimizations (age 18 to 24) and 11.9 victimizations (age 25 to 34) per 1,000 persons away from college campuses.

A somewhat different pattern is obseived for simple assault. Although the pattern of simple assault risk for college students was similar to what was found for serious assault: victimization risk was significantly lower at school compared to away from schools (p<05), this pattern was reversed for younger students. In the 12 to 14 age cohort, students were significantly more likely to be victimized at school compared to away from school (29.2 and 12.0 victimizations per 1,000 respectively,

Figure 8.1

Simple Assault and Serious Violence Victimization Rates per 1,000 Persons for Students ‘at School’ and ‘Away from School’

Table 8.2 Victimizations Rates (per 1,000) and Significance Testing: At School v. Away from School

Note: NS indicates nonsignificant results (i.e., p > .05). 95% CI refers to 95% confidence interval.

p<.05). Significance testing indicates no differences in the 15 to 17 age cohort victimization rates, hi other words, simple assault victimization was equally likely at and away from school among 15- to 17-year-olds.