Risk, Protective Factors, and Symptomatology Among Urban Adolescents: Findings of a Research Study on Youth Violence and Victimization

Drawing on extant literature on the impact of risk and protective factors on externalizing and internalizing behavior, this research explores the relationship between sociodemographic and family background characteristics, exposure to violence, and victimization as risk factors and the moderating effects of coping strategies as protective factors utilized by 453 African-American adolescents exposed to community violence drawn from a larger sample of survey data on 500 youth. Findings suggest a linkage between the indicators of exposure to violence and victimization, symptomatology, and coping strategy among youth. Implications for future research are addressed.