Youth, Violence, and Social Disintegration

How and why do young people become perpetrators and victims of violence? This volume examines violent behavior and addresses these questions in an international context. In youth violence, what roles are played by public spaces, the institutional context, socialization processes, religion and other kinds of ideologies, and, more generally, the experience of social disintegration? Are there global commonalities with regard to programs for preventing and intervening in youth crime? A look at the global trends of youth crime and violence and the development of social conditions for young people worldwide shows the importance of finding answers to these critical questions. The theoretical framework for articles in this volume is the theory of disintegration. The article authors examine whether the disintegration approach, which suggests that social disintegration encourages the development of social harmful attitudes and behavior, offers explanations for the forms of youth violence under examination and for the experience of violence.
The analysis are deliberately very different from each other and show that there are many forms of youth violence that cannot be explained in terms of a single cause. The selection of topics reflects a comprehensive and committed approach to international social conditions and problems, as well as national differences, including minority and majority perspectives, which evade simplistic comparison. The volume concludes with a discussion of similarities and differences in youth violence prevention and intervention programs, with a view to establishing a basis for international collaborations. This is the 119th volume of New Directions for Youth Development, the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series dedicated to bringing together everyone concerned with helping young people, including scholars, practitioners, and people from different disciplines and professions. The result is a unique resource presenting thoughtful, multi-faceted approaches to helping our youth develop into responsible, stable, well-rounded citizens.