The relationship between the physical and social environment to the behavior of individuals is an intrinsic part of sociology and criminology. This relationship exists in every environment regardless of size, yet typically we apply theory at the neighborhood level. In this work I test the propositions of the disorder model on the environment – behavior dynamic in high schools. I argue in this work that the high school, in many ways is similar to the neighborhood environment and thus can serve as a laboratory environment. Accordingly, I have addressed a variety of disorders and their relationship to behavioral adaptation through fear.
Result of regression analysis ultimately provide only moderate support for the disorder model, but these findings provoke do have value. First, the fear and victimization hypothesis emerges as a possibly more important means of understanding the nature of adaptive behavior. Second the data facilitate the exploration of places within places, or micro-places, which illustrate the need to better direct efforts in schools.
Finally, and most fundamentally, this study contributes to the existing debate on how exactly fear and adaptive behaviors are related. Various opinions exist in the literature which range from fear as a predictor of behavior to fear as an outcome of risk perception and constrained behavior, and fear as a co-occurrence to behavioral adaptation and risk perception. The data presented here suggest merely that fear and behavior are positively correlated. I feel that a more appropriate model can be developed, and should be explored in future research. I propose one such model above and am hopeful that it will serve as a good starting point for further theoretical refinement. Ultimately, this data provide only moderate support for the proposed theoretical “broken windows” mechanisms, and thus should be thought of as only generally supportive of such theory. Yet clearly the findings leave room for other theoretical possibilities including either 1) enhancement of theory linking disorder to adaptive behaviors; 2) abandoning “disorder”-based explanations in favor for “fear and victimization” theories of student avoidance and protection; or 3) integrating disorder and fear/victimization theories into a more comprehensive “multilevel” approach.