ABSTRACT
The final chapter brings together the ideas presented throughout the book to culminate in our argument that youth violence needs to be contextualized. Ahlin and Antunes argue that youth violence can be placed within an ecological framework, with various layers of explanation for perpetration and exposure. The layers most salient to explaining youth violence are community, family, peers and schools, and youth characteristics. The authors also contend that the routine activity theory and lifestyles perspectives are aptly positioned as theoretical explanations for the contextualization of youth violence and application of the ecological layers used to explain youth violence. This chapter includes a summary of competing theoretical explanations of youth violence. This overview of theories serves to reinforce the applicability of routine activity theory and the closely related lifestyles perspective as supportive of an ecological routine activity framework for the study of youth violence. Routine activity theory and lifestyles perspective account for the multiple ecological layers influencing youth perpetration of violent acts and their exposure to community violence.
