Students and teachers generally feel safe in public schools, although 23 percent of students and 11 percent of teachers say they have been victims of violence on or near school property, according to a survey released Thursday.
The most commonly reported incidents involve pushing, shoving, grabbing, slapping, verbal insults and stealing, said the latest Metropolitan Life Survey of the American Teacher, which was released at an all-day conference on school violence."Incidents involving weapons are rare; however, threats involving weapons are more frequent," the survey found.
Thirteen percent of the students surveyed said they have carried a weapon to school at some time.
"Law enforcement officials are more likely to believe self-defense is a reason to carry weapons than are teachers or students," the report found. "Students place more emphasis on impressing others and feeling important as motivations."
Six percent of the boys and 1 percent of the girls said they had threatened someone with a knife or gun in or around school. Those with poor grades were more likely to make the threats, the study said.
Those results are consistent with other surveys on the prevalence of weapons in schools. A Justice Department survey released last weekend, for example, found that more that than one-fifth of boys at 10 inner-city high schools own guns. And a survey for Harvard University last spring showed that 15 percent of students had carried a handgun in the previous 30 days.
In the current study, 5 percent of the students - and 21 percent of those with poor grades - said they had threatened a teacher in some way.
Teachers and law enforcement officials attributed violence in public schools to a lack of supervision at home, lack of family involvement in schools and exposure to violence in the mass media.
Students said violent acts occur most often because of provocation from others, trying to impress friends and jealousy over a boyfriend or girlfriend.
The survey said 95 percent of the acts of violence against teachers were committed by students.
Teachers were more likely to have been the victim of violence if they believe their school provides only a fair or poor education or if it has mostly minority students, according to the survey.