Wander Plassa da Silva

The objective of this work is to analyze the determinants of school failure among teenagers and young Brazilians, especially the effects of fear of crime and violence. The econometric method used was the logit and the database obtained from the "Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios" (PNAD) 2009, when it made a specific survey on the subject fear of crime and victimization. The results show that adolescents and young people who suffer from fear of crime in their own neighborhoods are more likely to present school failure as well as those who have suffered some kind of aggression or crime. There was an inequality in the probability of school failure, since they are more significant at lower income levels. Another disparity was the spatial because live in northern increase the likelyhood of school failure as well. In turn,personal and family characteristics, such as being non-white, male, worker or have children in youth, having a mother with low education, living in singleparent family or with large numbers of children also increase the likelihood of being behind the grade. Therefore, in this study, it was concluded that in addition to the variables traditionally examined in studies of school failure, violence and the fear of crime among adolescents and young Brazilians, could affect school performance, which deserves greater attention of police makers in development of more effective policies.