Gender, Age, and Racial Differences in Self-Reported Fears Among School-Aged Youth

Little is known about how self-reported fears differ among racially diverse school-aged populations. Given this gap in the literature base, we examined the extent to which self-reported fears differed among White American, African American, and Hispanic youth (Grades 2–12), using the American Fear S...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of child and family studies 2013-02, Vol.22 (2), p.268-278
Main Authors: Burnham, Joy J., Lomax, Richard G., Hooper, Lisa M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescents
Age differences
Aged
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Black American people
Black White Differences
Child and School Psychology
Child psychology
Cross Cultural Studies
Death
Discriminant Analysis
Educational Policy
Emotions
Ethnicity
Fear
Fear & phobias
Gender
Gender differences
Guns
Hispanic Americans
Methodology (Data Collection)
Original Paper
Psychology
Race
Racial differences
Schools
Sex
Social Sciences
Sociology
Young people
Youth
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Little is known about how self-reported fears differ among racially diverse school-aged populations. Given this gap in the literature base, we examined the extent to which self-reported fears differed among White American, African American, and Hispanic youth (Grades 2–12), using the American Fear Survey Schedule. The study sample included 1,033 youth (M age  = 12.56; SD = 3.02) from two southeastern states. Group differences on self-reported fear scores were analyzed using descriptive discriminant analysis. The results revealed statistically significant differences in five select fears among our racially diverse study sample. Gender differences—with girls reporting greater rates of fears than boys—were evidenced in our study sample as well. Fear differences among the sample included highest animal and death and dying fears for the African American youth, highest school-related fears for White youth, and the least fears—family-related concerns by the Hispanic youth. Another finding was the prominence of fears related specifically to crime, robberies, guns, weapons, and violence. Implications are discussed and potential directions for future research in the schools are presented.
ISSN:1062-1024
1573-2843
DOI:10.1007/s10826-012-9576-2