ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses why boys who engage in violence commit different types of sexual and assaultive violence, examining the movement from predisposition to violent event. It compares violent and nonviolent boys, focusing especially on the connections between family, school, and violence/nonviolence. Boys do not begin school with a completely assembled masculinity. The nonviolent boys' relationship to sexuality was quite different. Jerry openly discussed sexuality with his parents; he had relatives and friends who were gay; his family emphasized that it did not care what his sexual orientation was; and he had two girlfriends in junior high school. The differing interplay between home and school created a setting for the social construction of violent and nonviolent masculinities. Indeed, the life stories of Sam, John, Zack, Lenny, Jerry, and Dennis show that these six boys resolved oppressive peer abuse situations at school in ways related to their differing interactions with adults at home.
