As pupils get older, acceptance of graffiti grows.

It’s a state of mind in the public schools.

What’s verboten in 5th grade is cool a year or so later.

So says a survey of 5,000 pupils.

You’re in fifth grade, graffiti’s a crime.

You hit sixth or seventh grade, it becomes art.

That’s the most important finding to emerge from a survey of

Philadelphia public school students, conducted by PhilaPride and the

School District. The plan is to develop an anti-graffiti curriculum,

using the survey results as a guide.

Although district officials aim to use the curriculum in all grades,

they will probably start with middle school because of the survey

findings, Pamela Wilkinson, special projects assistant with the

district, said yesterday.

“It’s a major problem throughout the district,” she said.

The district spends an estimated $1.75 million a year battling graffiti,

the study found. The survey, which went out to 5,000 students in grades

5 through 9 across the city, shows that the younger bunch upholds the

community standard: Wall-writing is criminal.

But views change after sixth grade. Most students no longer see graffiti

as a crime, and by seventh grade, they are buying into the notion that

it’s urban art, the position of a majority of ninth graders.“They think

graffiti is art; they think it’s cool; they

think it’s hip,” said Vicki Wilson, community relations director for

PhilaPride, a nonprofit group that promotes efforts to fight litter

and beautify the city. “The support that it’s getting from non-writers

and at-risk kids is high.”

The survey also helped debunk the popular misconception that the

majority of wall-writers are minorities. Nationally, more than 68

percent of youths arrested on graffiti charges are white.

It was whites, the survey found, who showed overwhelming support for the

hobby, with close to 60 percent of them saying it was a “smart” thing

to do, as opposed to being a “stupid” activity.

African Americans and Latino students also saw graffiti in a positive

light, although not as strongly as the whites, the survey found. Only

Asian students held back praise.

Not surprisingly, the survey found that female students frowned on

graffiti and said it should be punished as a crime. Most guys saw it as

not very harmful and something that should be accepted or ignored.

More than 85 percent of wall-writers are male, the study said.

As for punishment, the survey found that fifth and ninth graders

supported some kind ofcommunity service — and fifth graders said that

offenders should losetheir driver’s licenses. When caught in school, a

wall-writer should get a stern lecture, most

ninth graders said. Fifth graders supported a phone call to parents and

after-school detention.

Ninth graders supported a fine for those caught. None of the students

surveyed thought jail time or a permanent criminal record was called

for. Wilson, of PhilaPride,said teachers tended to believe that

punishment was the way to curb graffiti. `They believe they’re totally

immune to punishment,” she said of youngsters.Wilson said changing

young people’s perceptions of graffiti was tough.

Many of them seewall-writing as rebellious. So how do you make rebels

listen to the establishment? “It’s a really tricky and fine line . . .

creating a curriculum that will withstand the pressure,” she said.

One goal will be to shake students up a bit, she said, to make them see

that “the way people feel about their property is the way you feel

about your clothes, about your music.”

Philadelphia Online — The Philadelphia Inquirer, City & Region —

Copyright Tuesday, August 26, 1997

– Lea Sitton Stanley – Inquirer Staff Writer