Beyond the bell curve: Community disadvantage and the explanation of black-white differences in adolescent violence

Disproportionate involvement in violent behavior among African American, versus white, adolescents is a major arena of debate in the social sciences. The individual difference approach draws attention to verbal ability as an explanation of black-white differences in violence. Sociological theories stress variation in community and family socioeconomic disadvantage. We contrast these causal images of racial differences in serious violence using the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health and contextual modeling. Results indicate that verbal ability has an indirect effect on violence through school achievement, but does not account for the greater involvement in violence among black adolescents. The analysis is most consistent with a sociological model that views the race-violence link as a spurious outcome of community context.