"They Gotta Beat Us": Older Adolescents' Experiences and Conceptualizations of Violence in Philadelphia Neighborhoods

Background: Exposure to violence represents a unique trauma for adolescents that disrupts key developmental tasks including identity formation. Prior research has typically focused on younger, middle to early high school-aged youth, generally males, and primarily utilized quantitative methodologies to explore the impacts of neighborhood effects and violence. Within this work, violence has primarily been defined as interpersonal and has focused on occurrences in singular contexts (school, home, or neighborhood). Further, researchers have used the Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey (ACES) to explore the longitudinal impacts of witnessing violence and experiencing other traumas over the lifespan. Studies using the ACES interview adults about their childhood and adolescence retrospectively. Research using the ACES has demonstrated that longitudinal health outcomes are associated with experiencing trauma throughout the life course, include cardiovascular disease, obesity, early mortality, and diabetes.

Methods: This study used a multicase study design and ethnographic, cartographic, and physiological methods to investigate how older adolescents in Philadelphia neighborhoods experience and conceptualize violence. Twelve adolescents, aged 16-21, from a range of neighborhoods were recruited. The sample consisted of six males and six females; all participants self-identified as either African American or Latinx . Eighty-five interviews and over 100 hours of field observations were conducted over the course of the study. Each case was interviewed 7-8 times. Four of the 7-8 interviews per participant were conducted in conjunction with a unique method of heart rate (using a Garmin watch) and GPS monitoring.

Results: Participants recounted experiencing violence in their homes, schools, and neighborhoods. Their narratives around violence revealed the ways alternative forms of violence, namely symbolic and structural violence impacted their development. Additionally, participants discussed the presence of police in their neighborhoods and their responses to violence. Heart rate and GPS data revealed the ways their experiences translated into bodily stress and how at times it restricted their movement.

Conclusions and Implications: Perhaps one of the most important findings of this study is a deeper understanding of not only the multiple contexts in which older youth experience violence – including homes, schools, and neighborhoods – but the multiple types of violence experienced. Current literature overwhelmingly focuses on violence more narrowly defined as an interpersonal, physical act. While participants recounted multiple instances of such violence, their personal narratives also draw attention to a more nuanced and broad conceptualization of violence, both over their life course and in their everyday lives. Their narratives provide clear illustrations of how multiple forms of violence – interpersonal, structural, and symbolic – intersect to create both immediate and long-lasting stressors and ill effects. Thus, one important and unique contribution of this work for social work practitioners and policymakers is its attention to the multitude of violent experiences youth suffer and the impact this has on their development.