Table 3.
Comparisons of school disengagement and academic outcomes for episodic and repeated group fighting adolescents in the United States.
| How Many Times Have You Taken Part in a Fight Where a Group of Your Friends Fought against Another Group? | ||||||||||
| No Group Fights (0 Fights) | Episodic (1–2 Fights) | Repeat Offender (3+ Fights) | ||||||||
| (n = 182,868; 85.20%) | (n = 25,056; 11.33%) | (n = 7923; 3.47%) | ||||||||
| % | 95% CI | % | 95% CI | RR | (95% CI) | % | 95% CI | RR | (95% CI) | |
| School Disengagement | ||||||||||
| Felt overall about going to school | ||||||||||
| Kind of liked/liked a lot | 82.47 | (82.23–82.71) | 72.77 | (72.00–73.53) | 1.00 | 62.46 | (60.93–63.96) | 1.00 | ||
| Hated/didn’t like very much | 17.53 | (17.29–17.77) | 27.23 | (26.47–28.00) | 1.80 | (1.73–1.88) | 37.54 | (36.04–39.07) | 3.00 | (2.80–3.21) |
| Felt that the school work was meaningful and important | ||||||||||
| Sometimes/always | 80.92 | (80.67–81.17) | 72.50 | (71.73–73.26) | 1.00 | 64.29 | (62.80–65.76) | 1.00 | ||
| Never/seldom | 19.08 | (18.83–19.33) | 27.50 | (26.74–28.27) | 1.68 | (1.61–1.75) | 35.71 | (34.24–37.20) | 2.57 | (2.40–2.75) |
| Importance of things learned in school for later life | ||||||||||
| Somewhat/very important | 89.09 | (88.89–89.28) | 84.38 | (83.74–84.99) | 1.00 | 78.20 | (76.89–79.45) | 1.00 | ||
| Very/somewhat unimportant | 10.91 | (10.72–11.11) | 15.62 | (15.01–16.26) | 1.61 | (1.53–1.70) | 21.80 | (20.55–23.11) | 2.58 | (2.38–2.80) |
| How interesting were courses at school | ||||||||||
| Somewhat/very interesting | 78.88 | (78.63–79.14) | 69.62 | (68.82–70.41) | 1.00 | 61.02 | (59.49–60.54) | 1.00 | ||
| Very/somewhat boring | 21.12 | (20.86–21.37) | 30.38 | (29.59–31.18) | 1.70 | (1.64–1.77) | 38.98 | (37.46–40.51) | 2.64 | (2.47–2.82) |
| Academic Performance | ||||||||||
| Grades for last semester/grading period | ||||||||||
| An “A” average | 32.62 | (32.31–32.92) | 19.09 | (18.40–19.80) | 1.00 | 13.60 | (12.57–14.70) | 1.00 | ||
| A “B” average | 42.71 | (42.39–43.03) | 40.51 | (39.64–41.38) | 1.57 | (1.49–1.65) | 33.97 | (32.45–35.53) | 1.67 | (1.50–1.85) |
| A “C” average | 19.76 | (19.50–20.01) | 30.22 | (29.40–31.04) | 2.46 | (2.32–2.61) | 35.16 | (33.62–36.73) | 3.35 | (3.00–3.73) |
| A “D” average or lower | 4.92 | (4.78–5.06) | 10.18 | (9.66–10.74) | 3.30 | (3.05–3.57) | 17.27 | (16.09–18.52) | 6.46 | (5.70–7.32) |
Note: Youth reporting no group fights specified as base category for multinomial regression. Risk ratios (RR) adjusted for adjusted for age, gender, race/ethnicity, household income, and father in household. RR and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) in bold are statistically significant.