Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of youth
gang awareness training on school personnel. Middle and high school level
teachers, counselors, and school administrators in a rural Oregon school
district were the focus of this study.
Six specially designed modules were created by the researcher and
used to train school personnel (N=122). Subjects received four hours of
gang awareness training conducted by the researcher and participants
completed a questionnaire administered at the conclusion of the training
session. From this pool of subjects, ten individuals were selected to
participate in in-depth interviews conducted eight to twelve weeks following
the initial gang awareness inservice training. Data obtained from the
questionnaire and in-depth interviews were analyzed and organized to
address the primary question of the study: Will inservice training based on
specially designed modules improve an educator's awareness or
understanding of youth gang issues?
The results of this study led the researcher to conclude that gang
awareness training was effective in increasing the level of awareness and
understanding of youth gang issues for school personnel in a rural school
district. It was further concluded that training modules which contained a
significant amount of information posed a challenge for school personnel to
effectively retain the information and that their understanding of the material
diminished in the weeks following the initial training session. The results
indicated that some subjects may have experienced difficulty in transferring
their new skills into practice and were in need of direct coaching on how to
apply their new skills.
Specific recommendations made by the researcher to help guide
future research in this important area include the need to: identify the risk
and protective factors for gang involvement in the three phases of social
development for youths (elementary, middle, and high school), address the
research of Joyce and Showers (1980) and identify the most effective
combination of training methods to inservice school personnel, deliver gang
awareness training at the elementary and middle school level before youths
are involved in gangs, and encourage teacher preparation institutions to
include youth gang awareness training in their programs for aspiring
teachers, counselors, and school administrators.
