New York University professor Patrick Sharkey spoke about his research concerning urban violence and its effect on childhood development Wednesday at the School of Public Health.
During the speech, Sharkey explained how exposure to homicide in a child’s neighborhood could negatively affect their academic abilities. In one of his studies, children exposed to violence took a test and scored significantly lower in the days following the event.
Vocabulary scores were also substantially lower after exposure to violence. Sharkey hypothesized that the children were distracted for periods of days or weeks after the violence, causing their scores to be lower.
“Violence is a presence within the community,” Sharkey said. “It effects everyone within that environment.”
Despite the demonstrated negative effects on the mental activities of children exposed to violence, Sharkey said the net effect in the population is likely improving due to the falling rate of overall violence.
“The most peaceful time in the last hundred years is right now,” Sharkey said, citing that the poorest in society have a lower violence rate today than the richest level of society did in 1993.
LSA sophomore Manvir Mangat, who attended the lecture, said she was surprised violence has actually declined to a historic low.
“I guess with social media, you hear about violence so much, but you never realize that in actuality it has decreased so dramatically,” she said.
According to Sharkey, the correlation between school performance and crime rates follows this trend, as the states where crime has dropped the most have seen the largest improvements in academic achievement over the same time frame.
“I think we are now at a point where we can make efforts that were impossible in the 1990s,” Sharkey said, referring to a sense of optimism about urban policy for the future.
Terry Thompson, assistant professor of public health, said Sharkey’s findings change the way students and faculty should look at education.
“We have a strong social dynamic here, so we address and look at certain issues like this,” Thompson said. “So this continues to show you our commitment to understanding what is going on in everyday life.”