Making Friends in Violent Neighborhood

According to the article “Making Friends in Violent Neighborhood: Strategies among Elementary School Children” By Anjanette M. Chan Tack and Mario L. Small. March 15,2017, Sociological Science in the article the problem is that certain researcher is trying to study that they are trying to examine the friendships among children and the violent behavior. Researcher are trying to examine the friendships with other children’s where other children were observed. Children in violent neighborhood approach friendship cautiously, with a goal of staying safe while many studies have examined friendship formation among students.  Young people tend to react to violence as a way to keep themselves from getting target that is why many children join gangs for protection. In the neighborhood the conditions can affect the children because of the poverty and the conditions in the neighborhood.

In the previous research in the neighborhood violence is a way to have youngster to have friendship from network that says that forming relationships with other peers can provide protection for people that live in a violent neighborhood. Many of the students said things about serious violence going on because people are killed because of neighborhood violence. In the neighborhood it is a risk because in the article it show that’s neighhood are found risk a lot of times “In 2016, Chicago, the site of our study, experienced 750 murders, the largest number since 1997 (Bostman and Smith 2016). Violent crime rates in Chicago have been persistently high for some time.

An earlier survey of more than 500 children in three elementary schools on Chicago’s South Side found that 26 percent of elementary school children had witnessed a shooting, 30 percent had witnessed a stabbing, and 78 percent had witnessed a beating”, (Tack And Small 2). People who were previously in bad neighborhoods are cautious to see if they are able to go outside without being killed or anything like that. The bad things in violent neighborhoods are that there are many gangs and people in gangs will start killing each other because you would hear the gun shot around your house. Even in neighhood you will be get involve with fights. Students that are not in gangs are told to joined gangs with others, and then they would tell you make you do drugs and all kinds of things in neighborhoods in the ends they would end up fighting.

The kind of issue that are being investigated are how the neighborhoods are like. In a middle school sixth, seventh, and eighth graders of 2 Chicago schools mentioned that in the community’s friendship that include a lot of strategy that include that many children are looking for friendship for protection, friends who help avoid violence, even testing their friends to see if there are trustworthy enough. In the neighborhood violence is a way to get involved with having fewer friends. Researcher found that children who react to a threat of violence will form a friendship plan, because there are many kinds of risk that are going on such as the risk of getting hurt in a physical confrontation(Fights) and the risk of getting into a confrontation (getting involved). During the interview, the children said that they need to be social active with friends, form friendship with other children. They needed other children to get involved with a broken relationship, how they would maintain a friendship with other. And Many children that were interviewed used a plan to figure out whether or not to form a friendship.

The author believe neighborhood violence will be related to having few friends of a group of adolescents. So many of these children believe if there get to close enough they would get hurt. They were testing if I am watching people close enough to see before becoming friends with them because when you let them in, later on when you get to know a person you’ll find out their reals side and their real color and you don’t know when they would stab you in the back. Students would watch other to see their action are so they would look at you for a long time. They would decide which friend they would hang out with or not.

Through one of the story Alice is very cautious “Alice watched her potential friends carefully ‘to see if they are true friends or would they go behind your back, stoop low, and to see whether they tell stuff about you that’s not true. I’d be testing people. I’d tell somebody something that’s not true, but then if somebody else hears what I told that person, I know that they’re not a true friend.’ Sandra had developed her wariness towards her peers through close observation. The researcher would investigate the relationship between schools and how students would form connection with other student. While, the study was going on researcher would observe how the student would interact with other students as they walk in the school or as they walk down the block or took a bus and the interaction the students have with others.

In the study Goodwin and Brown Middle school were involved with the study where 16 parents were interviewed and 12 teachers were involved. The grade of sixth, seventh ,and eight graders with the age of 11 to 15 participated in the study.  Even during breaks the researcher tried to get close with the teacher, students, and parents.

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