Understanding the Association Between Community Violence Exposure and Adolescents’ Academic Functioning

Objective: This study examined the association of adolescent community violence exposure (CVE) and academic functioning in order to investigate emotion regulation and inattention as potential mediators. Method: Data were drawn from a sample of 598 Black (42%) and Hispanic (43%) adolescent boys (49%) and girls living in New York City. A meditation with regression analysis addressed the potential mechanisms, emotion regulation and inattention, through which CVE related to adolescents academic functioning. Results: Findings indicated that higher rates of CVE were negatively associated with school engagement, but not emotion regulation and inattention, resulting in no case for mediation. Contrary to predictions, emotion regulation and inattention did not mediate the path to which CVE was associated to school engagement. However, CVE, emotion regulation and inattention uniquely predicted academic functioning. Conclusions: Findings are discussed in terms of how traumatic exposures such as community violence disrupt brain and body regions responsible for emotion regulation and inattention, all of which have important implications for interventions targeting social emotional learning and academic success and functioning for adolescents. CVE AND ACADEMIC FUNCTIONING! 4 Introduction There is a growing body of literature documenting the incidence and prevalence of youth exposure to community violence, as well as its influence on an array of developmental outcomes (Buka, Stichick, Birdthistle & Earls, 2001; Cooley-Strickland et al, 2009; Fitzpatrick & Boldizar, 1993; Gorman–Smith & Tolan, 1998; Rosenthal, 2000). What is less well understood, however, is role of exposure to community violence, as an experience of trauma, on academic functioning and the specific mechanisms that link the two. In this paper I address this gap in the literature by examining the association of community violence exposure (CVE) on academic functioning through the role of emotion regulation and inattention as mediators. In the remaining pages of this introduction, I begin by summarizing literature on the incidence and prevalence of CVE and its links to major developmental domains. I then review what is known about the role of CVE in academic functioning specifically. From there, I consider key mechanisms that may link CVE to academic outcomes, in the process making the case that CVE is a form of trauma that plays out in a set of biologically-based processes (emotion regulation and inattention) central to the developmental stage of adolescence and their academic success. I propose it is these processes that account for the association between CVE and academic outcomes. Background and Context Community Violence Exposure Community Violence Exposure (CVE) is typically defined as witnessing of or victimization by a violence-related act such as shooting, mugging, illegal drug activity, physical fighting, or some other similar act within one's home, school, or neighborhood CVE AND ACADEMIC FUNCTIONING! 5 by a known or unknown perpetrator (Shahinfar, Fox, & Leavitt, 2000). Studies of the impact of CVE on adolescent outcomes have shown a link between chronic and acute exposure to community violence and trauma-specific consequences. For example, PTSD symptoms include cognitive, behavioral, and social difficulties; increases in intrusive thoughts, hypervigilance, hyperarousal, emotional numbness, and avoidance; as well as social and emotional withdrawal (Buka, et al., 2001; McLaughlin et al., 2013). Further, research indicates CVE to be a commonly reported traumatic experience among adolescents (Costello, Erkanli, Fairbank & Angold, 2002). A relatively recent national telephone survey examining violence, abuse and crime exposure among children and adolescents revealed that 60% of the representative sample reported at least one incident of direct (being a victim of violence) or indirect (witnessing or exposure to violence) exposure to community violence in the past year (Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, & Hamby, 2009). In addition, adolescents ages 14-17 were more likely exposed than were younger children (Finkelhor et al, 2009). Particularly troubling is that adolescents who report at least one direct or indirect incident of exposure to community violence are at increased risk for subsequent exposure (Finkelhor et al., 2009). Among this group, minority youth—who often reside in urban areas where crime and exposure to violence are high— are exposed to community violence at higher rates in comparison to their non-minority group peers (Buka et al., 2001; Henrich, Schwab-Stone, Fanti, Jones & Ruchkin, 2004; Overstreet, 2000). For example, Fitzpatrick and Boldizar (1993) report that in a sample of 221 African American adolescents, more than 70% were victims of violence in their community, while a whopping 85% of adolescents reported witnessing violence in their community. CVE AND ACADEMIC FUNCTIONING! 6 Much of the literature to date links adolescent exposure to community violence to a host of negative psychological outcomes, in particular to internalizing (e.g., anxiety) and externalizing (e.g., aggression) outcomes (Cooley-Strickland et al, 2009; Fowler, Tompsett, Braciszewski, Jacques-Tiura & Baltes, 2009; Gorman–Smith & Tolan, 1998). In consequence, high and/or recurring incidents of exposure to community violence have been described as a form of trauma (Costello et al., 2002). Through its influence on psychological functioning, exposed youth are also at heightened risk for academic failure (McCoy, Roy, & Sirkman, 2013; Schwartz & Gorman, 2003). However, to date, research on the associations between CVE and academic outcomes are less prevalent than those exploring CVE and mental health. Thus, questions continue to remain about the longterm impacts of CVE on adolescent academic functioning, as well as knowledge of key developmental mechanisms linking CVE to academic functioning. For the purposes of the study, it is important to note that I operationalize academic functioning to include both performance and school engagement. Community Violence Exposure and Academic Functioning Research indicates that exposure to community violence disrupts learning (Sharkey, Tirado-Strayer, Papachristos, & Raver, 2012). Studies suggest an association between CVE and school success (Bowen & Bowen, 1999; McCoy et al.,2013; Sharkey, 2010), thus resulting in negative school outcomes (Bowen & Bowen, 1999). For example, Bowen and Bowen (1999), using a nationally representative sample of 2,099 middle and high school students, found that students had more difficulty avoiding school behavior problems when they encountered violence in their neighborhoods and schools. In addition, student attendance and student perceptions of how they were doing in school CVE AND ACADEMIC FUNCTIONING! 7 were lower for students who had high levels of CVE. In a more recent study with a sample of 500 urban schools, McCoy et al., (2013) examined the reciprocal relationship between neighborhood crime and school-level academic achievement, finding that crime, particularly violent crime in the school neighborhood, was associated with declines in academic achievement among students over time. Similarly, Sharkey (2010) reported that recent community homicides substantially reduced performance on cognitive assessments in a sample of predominantly African-American, 5-17 year olds. Moreover, in a study examining the relationship between exposure to community violence and academic outcomes in 118 adolescents found that CVE was associated with lower school engagement and served as a mediator between CVE and GPA (Borofsky, Kellerman, Baucom, Oliver & Margolin, 2013). Academic performance and school engagement serve as important constructs of academic functioning. Academic performance often includes standardized assessments, which in social science research is considered to be a traditional metric of academic functioning. School engagement represents students’ emotional, behavioral and cognitive connection to school, thus, playing a role in overall academic functioning (Fredricks, Blumenfeld & Paris, 2004). As noted above, the research evidence clearly suggests an association between CVE and poorer academic functioning. However, much of this work uses cross-sectional data in childhood, with less examining longitudinal associations of CVE and academic functioning in adolescence—a transitional stage of cognitive and social development. Furthermore, key developmental mechanisms that explain how CVE influences poorer academic functioning have not been specified. CVE AND ACADEMIC FUNCTIONING! 8 Mechanisms Explaining the Relationship between CVE and Academic Functioning Community Violence Exposure and Trauma. The extant literature does not address directly the mechanisms that are likely to play an important role in the relationship between CVE and academic functioning—but there is sufficient research and theory to begin hypothesize the mechanisms. Prior studies offer insights into possible pathways by which adolescent CVE disrupts academic functioning. One possible link between CVE and academic functioning may be the experience of trauma, which can disrupt important cognitive functions, such as memory, attention and reasoning, as well as managing and modifying emotions. Trauma is a form of stress that disrupts the body and brain regions responsible for regulating emotions and attention. Specifically, repeated exposure to threatening environments disrupts the natural processes of neural activation in response to threat (Perry, Pollard, Blakley, Baker & Vigilante, 1995). In particular, recurrent exposure to threat activates the stress response system in the brain (i.e., the “fight or flight” system), which can result in a form of hyper-vigilance to danger or risk over time. With time, those who are chronically exposed to such forms of stress can be more likely to respond with dysregulation, aggression, lack of focus, or significant