Teaching and Learning Guide for: Youth (and) Violence
Authors: Hogeveen Bryan R. 
Published: November 2008

Author's introduction

By reflecting on violence in its many manifestations this course is intended to problematize youth's relationship to violence. Not only will it underscore how and why violence is perpetrated by young people, but, perhaps more important, how young people are affected. Students will reflect on how violence impacts and enters their own lives – sometimes in very inauspicious ways. Much of what counts as entertainment is laden with, and centres on, violence. For example, Grand Theft Auto is a popular video game wherein game players assume the role of a wannabe gangster whose rise though the criminal underworld is predicated upon his thieving and murderous efficiency. Similarly, the movie Never Back Down follows a young male as he attempts to fight his way into the vaunted inner circle of his high school's ‘in’ group. Marred by and revered for his reputation as a ‘tough guy’, the protagonist is forced, in a contradiction that only makes coherent sense in the context of the pervasive violent masculinity which buoys the film, to fight his way clear of this foul reputation.

Human intersections with violence are undeniably and unexpectedly complicated. We are fascinated and our lives are directly affected by violence regardless of proximity. Significantly, violence – both the Hollywood version and that which is ‘real’– affects each and all. Fears of violence, whether they are informed by official statistics, crime‐based dramas, the 6 o’clock news or reality television, contour our existence in very definite ways. Our temporal and spatial movement through urban space, our understandings of law and governance strategies, our relations with ‘others’– significant and otherwise – are conditioned by tangential, lived, experienced and witnessed violence. It alters our way of being, where we choose to live, and how we conduct, protect and entertain ourselves. No one is immune. Human experience is contoured irrevocably by violence.

At issue is our inconsistent and contradictory relationship to youth violence. Parents applaud young people's violence – especially their sons’– as they ‘duke it out’ on the football field and in the hockey arena and urge them to ‘get’ or ‘kill’ the other team. At the same time, young people are overrepresented as victims of violence – especially our daughters. This course provides an opportunity to explore and analyze how youth [and] violence is braided into the fabric of Western culture.

Starting points/learning objectives1

What follows are issues students should consider and meditate on throughout the term. I encourage readers to introduce them at the beginning of the semester and return to them several times throughout. They may also be used to frame study questions and as a course summary.

What is violence?

Why is there such growing concern about youth violence?

What role does the media play in our understanding of youth violence?

How are youth gangs perceived?

What is the relationship between youth and violence?

What is the connection between masculinity(ies) and violence?

How does Western culture champion and, at the same time, abhor youth violence?

What are ‘solutions’ to youth violence?

What role can youth play in this process?

Author recommendations

Hannah Arendt, 1970, On Violence. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace.

Following her tumultuous experiences of living through the Second World War and student protests of the 1960s, Hannah Arendt penned her reflections on violence. She famously writes that, ‘Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power’ (53). She maintains that even though power and violence may hold phenomological elements in common, they are in fact opposites: ‘where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power's disappearance’ (56). Arendt develops this line of argument later in the book and concludes that, ‘Every decrease in power is an open invitation to violence – if only because those who hold power and feel it slipping from their hands ... have always found it difficult to resist the temptation to substitute violence for it’ (87). For Arendt, worlds (both individual and global) become irrevocably altered through incidences of violence. She writes, ‘the practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world’ (80). Arendt's reflections occasion an opportunity to reflect not only on interpersonal violence, but perhaps more important, state violence.

Fearnley, Fran (ed.). 2004. I wrote on all Four Walls: Teens Speak Out on Violence. Toronto, Canada: Annick.

How do youth experience violence? This collection contains the captivating stories of nine affected youth whose voices narrate experiences of being victims and instigators of violence. Their stories evidence the complexities of violence. They demonstrate how a great deal of slippage exists between the categories of victim and offender. Instead of being clear cut, the spellbinding tales evidence how the line separating the violent and the victim is often blurred. Most striking about this collection is the demand that adults listen to youth's voices. Tragically, youth are too often the objects of social regulation and academic discourse without being its authors. This collection forces the reader to consider what role, if any, youth voices may play in the amelioration of violence.

Loeber, Rolf and David P. Farrington (eds.). 1998. Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders: Risk Factors and Successful Interventions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Co‐edited by Rolf Loeber and David Farrington, this impressive collection offers innovative and insightful essays centring on the aetiology and trajectory of violent youth. This report of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's focus group on serious and violent offenders asks the reader to reflect on well‐worn assumptions. Instead of attending to single and static causal explanations of youth violence, the authors identify significant risk and resiliency factors. Collectively, the 17 chapters argue for more proactive responses to youth violence that attend to the complexity of juvenile development. The authors maintain that effective reforms and interventions can be implemented only when predictable assemblages of risk and protective factors are isolated. This volume of essays is impressive for the surfeit of data on risk and resiliency.

Messerschmidt, James. 2000. Nine Lives: Adolescent Masculinities, The Body and Violence. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

No list of recommended readings on violence would be complete without at least one of James Messerschmidt's splendid books. In addition to Nine Lives, his Masculinities and Crime and Flesh and Blood are equally impressive. Tying these works together is the author's insistence that masculinities are at the centre of any coherent understanding of violence. Equally important to Messershmidt's work in Nine Lives is his use of the ‘life history method’; which involves ‘appreciating how adolescent male violent offenders construct and make sense of their particular world, and to comprehend the ways in which they interpret their own lives and the world around them’ (5). For Messerschmidt, the world of boys is saturated with violent images that provide a rather limited cultural script through which to define manhood and manliness. Instead of prizing sensitivity and empathy, this hegemonic masculinity rewards (among other destructive qualities) toughness. The significance of this book lies in how Messerschmidt underscores the gendered meaning of violence in the world of nine boys.

Sheridan, Sam. 2007. A Fighter's Heart: One Man's Journey Through the World of Fighting. New York, NY: Grove.

A scarred man dripping in blood emblazons the cover of Sam Sheridan's book. Taken after one of his professional fights, the image captures the gaze while it repulses the mind. Sheridan's work takes the reader through the preparation and training of the violent body. The interested are catapulted into the world of fighting for sport and the intense and somewhat bizarre physical and, perhaps more important, psychological preparations fighters undertake to do violence to an other. In this book, Sheridan takes the reader on a journey through the life of a professional fighter and along the way provides insight into the corporeality of violence. Sheridan writes, ‘Fighting is not just a manhood test; that is the surface. The depths are about knowledge and self knowledge, a method of examining one's own life and motives. For most people who take it seriously, fighting is much more about the self than the other’ (337). While the other books I have recommended seek to stand at a distance from violence and describe the physical, psychological and spiritual construction of the violent body from a safe vantage, Sheridan's book dives head first into the masculine phenomenon.

Zimring, Franklin. 1998. American Youth Violence. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

With fantastic media claims of a looming youth violence crisis and equally unreasonable governmental policy responses as the backdrop, Franklin Zimring's book offers a sober(ing) reflection. While the author finds media representations of juvenile violence particularly troubling, he considers the aggressive governmental response exceedingly incongruent with the scope of the problem. Wild media depictions of marauding youth criminals and equally pugnacious governmental responses has contributed to an ethos of intolerance manifest in an increasingly punitive juvenile court. After a systematic and careful analysis of juvenile court data and existing state policy, Zimring concludes that youth violence is a problem that requires a more level‐headed approach than is evidenced in escalating incarceration rates and reactionist policy.

Zizek, Slavoj. 2008. Violence. New York, NY: Picador.

Like Arendt, Slavoj Zizek implores the reader to think more critically and widely about the meanings of violence. Enjoining his characteristic psychoanalytic cunning bolstered by Marxist sagicity, Zizek maintains that violence embodies three overlapping and bouying configurations: subjective, objective and systemic. Through the lens of popular and not‐so‐popular movies and jokes, he suggests that our myopic preoccupation with subjective violence (interpersonal) obscures more insidious forms of systemic violence (committed by capital as intrinsic to the cost of doing business). Engrossment in subjective violence not only allows the systemic forms to go on (relatively) undetected, but to fester. Zizek's book demands that the reader assume a more panoramic stance when posing questions about violence.

Course assignment

Advertising campaign to end violence

In groups or individually, students act as the creative marketing team for the mayor who is intent on curbing violent youth crime.

Instructions

Select a category of violent youth crime for which you would like to create an advertising campaign (e.g. gang violence; dating violence; assault; sexual assault/rape & etc).

For your selected issue, create an advertisement in any media (i.e. poster; newspaper/magazine spot; radio ad (60 sec.); television spot (90 sec.); Public Service Advertisement (PSA, 20 min.); Youtube message (2 min.); newspaper insert; billboard & etc.). You must describe the location/place where the campaign will be found (i.e. which newspaper? During what television show(s)?, etc.).

In addition to your advertisement, you are required to submit a 7 to 10‐page paper that provides the theoretical and intellectual background to your advertising campaign (drawing on at least seven sources). The paper will outline the nature of the selected violent crime problem and explain how the campaign will manage or curb its incidence. Elements of your paper will include: clear introduction and conclusion; clear identification of the major factors involved in the issue; familiarity with the relevant literature; clear organization of the material and arguments; and critical analysis (i.e. What are the limitations of your approach).

You will be given 10 minutes during a town‐hall meeting held during the last week of classes to pitch your campaign to the mayor and alderpersons (aka the class). You must explain why your approach will prove effective and ultimately receive the mayor's endorsement.

Effective Advertising campaigns will be attractive, memorable, clear and creative. A useful example can be found at: http://www.gov.ab.ca/acn/200706/216833FE9BEF6‐0ECF‐81D6‐01A4883EC4C04B71.html

Supporting media:

http://www.aglc.gov.ab.ca/pdf/social_responsibility/cage_poster_one_stepped_toe.pdf

http://www.aglc.gov.ab.ca/pdf/social_responsibility/cage_poster_five_asked_dance.pdf

You must submit and justify the budget for your campaign. The price tag must be in‐line with potential return.

Recommended films and videos

A number of outstanding videos on the topic of youth violence now exist, and I use a number of these throughout the course. In addition to films, I use a variety of additional media forms (i.e. websites, newspaper articles and television news) and guest speakers (i.e. Former gang members, juvenile justice professionals, street kids) that encourage critical thinking. Three films that I find particular useful are:

Tough Guise–http://www.mediaed.org/videos/MediaGenderAndDiversity/ToughGuise

Teaching guide: http://mediaed.org/videos/MediaGenderAndDiversity/ToughGuise/studyguide/html

Gang Aftermath–http://www.nfb.ca/collection/films/fiche/?id=54450

A Clockwork Orange–http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/

Useful websites

Fight Violence.net –http://www.fightviolence.net/

Ihuman –http://www.ihuman.org/

Jackson Katz – 10 Things Men Can do to Prevent Gender Violence –http://www.jacksonkatz.com/wmcd.html

Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence (PREVnet) –http://prevnet.ca/

Public Health Agency of Canada – Dating Violence –http://www.phac‐aspc.gc.ca/ncfv‐cnivf/familyviolence/html/femdatfreq_e.html

The Youth Restorative Action Project –http://yrap.org/

Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General –http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/youthviolence/

Sample course outline

Section 1 –Introduction to the course

The first class(es) are intended to provide students with an overview of the course. The starting points/learning objectives outlined above provide a useful entry.

Section 2 –What is violence?

Providing conceptual clarification of the main concept under consideration is essential before proceeding too far into course content. This section reflects on how violence is defined (and left undefined) in philosophy, law, and criminology. Students will be asked to meditate on the limitations of each approach and to query whether violence can ever be justified and, if so, how.

Section 3 –How much violence?

Citizens are concerned about violent crime and are impressed by what crime statistics reveal. However, official statistics reveal only those cases which come to police attention or, more specifically, where police arrest a suspect for committing what the criminal code determines to be a violent offence. Understandably, not all violent crime is reported to police. Criminologists refer to the remainder as the dark figure of crime. It follows that crime scholars and statisticians can never be certain they have captured all the crime – violent or otherwise – that is committed in a particular society. When official statistics and media reports are the sole means employed to construct the public face of violence, victimization remains obscured. ‘Not on the public's radar in the ethos of school shootings and high profile stabbings is that youth are the most likely victims of violence. Indeed, when the focus of the public's ire is set against a (perceived) rise in violent crime’;2 victimization (i.e. bullying, dating violence, and, but not limited to, sexual assault) becomes an almost irrelevant aside to statistics. This section of the course provides an opportunity to shift the locus of debate from sensational media accounts to the complexities involved in youth violence.

Section 4 –Understanding Violence and the Violent Offender?

For what reasons do youth act violently? Since expert opinion varies widely, the answer you receive to this question will depend greatly on to whom it is posed. With particular attention paid to gender (especially masculinity), this section surveys various explanations of violent youth behaviour.

Section 5 –Violent Victimization

Youth are typically overrepresented as victims of violent crime. This section of the course considers why this seems to be the case. It also surveys different forms of violent victimization including: racial violence, bullying, dating violence and sexual assault. Students will be asked to consider the most likely perpetrators of these crimes.

Section 6 –The Culture of Violence

Violence pervades Western culture. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the mass media. Movies, video games, sports, music videos and television programmes all contain heavy doses of violence. This section of the course confronts the violent images many take for granted. An attempt is made to juxtapose simulated violence with ‘real‐life’ violence and ponder what renders the former (more) acceptable while the latter is (almost) universally condemned. Through an examination of violence in media (movies, video games, etc.) and sport (hockey, football and mixed martial arts) students consider what our relative acceptance of these forms of violence reveals about Western society.

Section 7 –Regulating and Managing Violence

Fear of violence has prompted individuals to respond in very direct ways to the prospect of victimization (i.e. buying pepper spray, purchasing burglar alarms, avoiding a particular area of town after dark). They have also demanded that their governments impose the most austere punishments on violent offenders and enact increasingly intrusive legislation. Bootcamps, chain gangs, the strap and, of course, incarceration have been advanced in the fight against violence. Canada's ruling Conservative party has recently pressured the Senate to speed up their deliberations over their proposed Tackling Violent Crime Act; which boasts a number of measures intended to satiate demand from a fearful public.

Questions to consider in this section of the course include: Why has state intervention proven relatively ineffective? What innovative programs exist ‘outside’ of the state? To what extent does the amelioration of violence depend on the creation and widespread acceptance of a more tolerant and less aggressive masculine ethic? What role can youth play in preventing violence?

Section 8 –Conclusion

The final section provides an opportunity to reflect on course themes by returning to the learning objectives and starting points outlined above. It is also an opportunity to move forward. If all agree that youth violence is indeed a problem, we must ask what we (each and all) are willing to do toward its amelioration. In the meantime we need to ask difficult and uncomfortable questions while assembling creative means of positively improving the situation many young people face. This means going beyond interventions that replicate the status quo to considering what a more just and humane world would look like.

Notes

* Correspondence address: Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, 5‐21 H.M. Tory Building, Edmonton, AB T6G 2H4, Canada. Email: bryan.hogeveen@ualberta.ca.

1 Starting Points are adapted from Minaker and Hogeveen, Youth, Crime and Society: Issues of Power and Justice.

2 Hogeveen, Bryan. 2007. ‘Youth (and) Violence.’ Sociology Compass. ½: 463–484.

References

Hogeveen, Bryan 2007. ‘Youth (and) Violence.’ Sociology Compass ½: 463–84.

Minaker, Joanne C. and Bryan Hogeveen 2008. Youth, Crime and Society: Issues of Power and Justice. Toronto, Canada: Pearson.