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Urban and suburban delinquency equal
USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), August, 2004
The presumption that suburban schools have less disorder and delinquency than their urban counterparts is incorrect, maintains a study from the Manhattan (N.Y.) Institute. Researchers used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health on 20,000 students in grades 7-12, from urban, suburban, and rural areas.
The results indicated: two-thirds of individuals in urban and suburban schools have had sex; urban pregnancy rates were higher (20%) than suburban rates (14%); 40% of 12th-graders in urban and suburban schools have used drugs, while suburban seniors were more likely to drive while on drugs (20%) than urban 12th-graders (16%); suburban seniors were more likely to have tried alcohol more than two or three times (74%) compared to urban students (71%), and were more likely to drive drunk (22%) than urban pupils (16%); and suburban students were more likely to have tried cigarette smoking (60%) compared to urban kids (54%).
Moreover, other behaviors such as fighting and stealing were equally as likely to occur in suburban and urban institutions. In looking at urban and suburban students, one in three was involved in a physical fight in the past year.
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