Offers an alternative perspective on school violence and other crime on school property that seeks to understand school violence as a contextually determined social phenomena. The paper discusses district-to-district variability in crime on school property in terms of out-of-school and in-school community and variability in economic and…

Using data on variability in West Virginia high school dropout rates, this study examined contextual factors in teen pregnancy. Results indicated that teen pregnancy was explained in a similar way to dropping out. The presence or absence of opportunities and valued participation in a socially, culturally stable community affected both issues. (SM)

This paper examines pregnancy in early adolescence, among West Virginia females aged 10-14, as it relates to local economic and social contexts. Although research on adolescent pregnancy is substantial, it is generally limited to the experiences of older adolescents and premised on assumptions of methodological individualism--that the correlates…