Abstract

In Mexico in recent years violence has been increased, specific in northern states, but also others crime and violence rates have been increased. The impact of these rates in general population has few records (official or research reports), studies in youth exposed to violence focuses mainly in bullying and dating violence, however in adolescents population practically doesn’t exist community violence records or measures indicated to this problem. This context teenager’s circumstances (exposure to violence and rising crime levels and insecurity) (Pansters and Castillo, 2007, Hope, 2012 ), require instruments to assess this specific phenomenon in youths since the information on the perception (and exposure) of violence and insecurity in the country has increased in the last years, but little is known about young people, then the aim of this study is to obtain the validity and reliability of the Exposure to Insecurity and Violence Questionnaire for Adolescents. Participants were 573 junior and senior high school students (13-19 years, x = 14.89, SD = 1.5, 56% middl 50.08% men) in Mexico City. A forced factor analysis, by 6 factors (KMO = .849, p = .001, 10 iterations) based on previous findings of a qualitative study (Gomez & Lucio, 2013, in press) was conducted. This model explained 39% of variance, which indicates that violence is a multidimensional phenomenon. Reliability was obtained by Cronbach’s alpha with a total value of .92.

Abstract

With the transformation of Spain into an immigration country, society has become a major change by setting up a social space characterized, increasingly, by cultural, ethnic and religious diversity. In this new frame is interesting to investigate the overall value of diversity into the Spanish society. The two aims for of this paper are, on one hand, to process feedback on Spanish opinion on immigration between 1996 and 2007, and, on the other hand, to find out the role of the media in the construction of that opinion. For the first aim, an index of anti-foreigner sentiments was constructed using data provided by the national survey on opinions and attitudes on immigration, published annually by ASEP. For the second, an analysis, using the Agenda-Setting Theory, of articles published on immigration that appeared in the newspapers, «El País» and «El Mundo». The results show that a negative sentiment towards the outgroup has increased over time. The main variables explaining these trends are a sense of threat, to the population and to identity, and competition for resources and political decisions in integration – legalisation. The media analysis has six dimensions, the main ones refer to the illegality of the phenomenon, linking immigration to crime, and the social integration policies, highlighting the role of the media in creating public opinion.