organized around the following four themes: 1. Perceptions, fears, and experiences related to guns 2. Correlates of gun carrying 3. Relationships between gun carrying, crime, and drugs 4. Impacts of gun carrying on school performance, school behavior, and school climate
Study Overview
This report on gun carrying is part of the 2002 Arizona Youth Survey, a larger study conducted by the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission, with technical assistance from the Southwest Prevention Center at the University of Oklahoma. The Youth Survey is conducted bi-annually in Arizona to inform state and local policy regarding youth drug use and delinquency. Site selection and sampling procedures were dictated by that study's design. All schools in the state were identified using records provided by the Arizona Department of Education. First, schools were stratified bycounty to assure that a proportionate number of schools and students were sampled from each of Arizona's 15 counties. Second, because the study was limited to students in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades, schools not offering these grades were removed from the sample. Third, schools were categorized by type, representing the size of the school (large, medium, and small) and the grade levels that were taught in each school (i.e., kindergarten through 12th grade, 6th through 8th grade, 10th through 12th grade). Schools then were randomly selected from each category. If a selected school declined to participate in the study, another school from the same category was randomly selected as a replacement. Of the original 59 schools selected for the study, 30.5 percent declined to participate. When