With gang initiation starting as early as the primary school grades, the challenge to educators and administrators is to identify and suppress gang activities within the confines of school grounds. Taking into consideration the impotence of school systems to control the neighborhood and family environments, understanding the important role of schools to keep students engaged in scholarship to prevent gang membership cannot be stressed enough. Taking an applied approach, this chapter identifies what educators, administrators, and staff can do to identify behavior that might be on the surface mere imitation of gang membership (e.g. throwing gang signs), but could be symptomatic of close contact with known gang members and possibly exposure to the violence associated with gangs. The more school personnel can be cognizant of behavior that is indicative of exposure to gangs, curriculum planning and after school programs can be designed more efficiently to counter delinquent influences within the community, beyond “just say no” strategies.
Assessing linguistic levels of L2 English in primary school programs