case study of school violence

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Preventative strategies to curb school violence: a case study of selected schools in hhohho district of eswatini, mbabane.

1. Introduction

2. the literature review, 2.1. school-based violence preventative strategies, 2.2. peer mediation, 2.3. bullying prevention, 2.4. early intervention: mentoring and counselling, 2.5. discipline as a violence prevention tool, 2.6. school management and school-based violence, 3. materials and methods, 3.1. research approach, 3.2. location of this study, 3.3. selection of participants and data collection, 3.4. data analysis, 3.5. data quality, 3.6. ethical guidelines, 4.1. learner-on-learner violence.

“Yes, violence occurs within our school premises. We experience it almost daily. We are even too scared to report such cases. This terror occurs because we live in a cruel world where we fear for our lives. Girls shout at each other, often for taking each other’s boyfriends” (L:3).

“Yes, I experienced violence when I was still a beginner doing my Form 1. I was dating a Form 5 learner whom I suspected of being a gangster and a ‘weed’ smoker. With time, I realised that I could not stand him anymore. On telling him that I would not continue with the relationship anymore, he got mad, took out a knife from his school bag and threatened to stab me” (L:7).

“This year alone, we experienced about four cases of violence. For instance, a boy hit another boy when the two were inside the classroom. In another instance, learners fought and during the fight, one of them had to thrust a knife. Another instance involved one boy chasing the other threatening to stab him with a knife. Yesterday, one learner reported that he was slapped severely by another. The attacker reportedly left his class and went to the other one’s class where he beat him up” (T:1).

“I concur with what Respondent 1 has just said. There is violence within our premises. A friend of mine once got involved in an argument with one of the boys in Form 5. The argument resulted in threats such as: “After school, I will deal with him accordingly”. To me, that threat itself was abusive and a violation of my friend’s rights within the school premises. Every time after school, we had to ensure that the culprit would not keep trace of our whereabouts. Then one day, he managed to locate our whereabouts and upon seeing us, he demanded money to appease him, a demand which we did not have. He then threatened that if we did not give him the money, he would take our valuable assets, which he did. We could hardly report him because he threatened to stab us with the knife he had” (L:6).

4.2. Teacher-on-Learner violence

“There are situations when teachers do not get along with learners. They do not treat us equally as humans. This then results in us developing hatred towards those teachers and their favourite learners, which then generates conflicts. Pupils sometimes temper with such teachers’ cars to frustrate them while on the school premises”(L:1).

“At some point in classrooms, we feel undermined or not taken seriously by our own teachers because they sometimes do not consider our answers or they make fun out of the answers we give, which then makes us act in an unexpected manner towards such teachers. Teachers take advantage of us because they are superior. Even if we go to the administrators to report that certain teachers are sometimes biased in class, the administrators either take our story lightly or are inclined to believe what these teachers tell them” (L:9).

4.3. Forms of School Violence

4.3.1. physical fighting, verbal abuse, and bullying.

“Yes, we usually experience physical fighting. At some point, a learner was thrown onto the window by another learner. It was really fatal. Last year, learners were fighting almost every day. This violence was now escalating at a tremendous rate and the insinuation was it could be more than an issue from school but at home as well; thus, learners settle their scores from home here at school” (T:7).

“The violence is advancing towards a point where learners bring the weapons they use to stab other learners whilst on the school premises” (T:3).

“A student was thrown out of the window after being bullied and threatened by other boys in upper grades. The student had sustained deep cuts and he was rushed to the hospital. It was a really bad situation” (T:5).

“We are humiliated in front of other students by fellow students who feel they wield more power than others. This also happens among girls who attack how one looks or walks, and this makes one want to stay at home. They spread lies about others, making them become the talk of the school. This makes some of us feel uncomfortable” (T:3).

“Another student brought a weapon into school and used it to attack others. This weapon was an industrial hammer. The weapon was taken out when a fight over desks escalated. This is dangerous, as more and more students tend to think that weapons solve quarrels. An influx of these weapons will be experienced in the school premises” (T:10).

4.3.2. Corporal Punishment

“It is quite an enormous challenge merely talking to misbehaving children. When we were growing up, the Bible taught us that there was always one strand of foolish behaviour within children; so, beating up a child would not be a solution. Hence, calling the parent would be part of the solution to this matter” (T:6)

“Deviant learners need to be suspended! Should a disciplinary case extend beyond our control, then the concerned learner must be expelled with immediate effect. Learners’ parents and police officials must also be involved, depending on the gravity of the matter. Any form of violence in schools must be considered a criminal offense” (T:8).

“Although physical discipline instantly fixes a behavioural problem, it can still cause psychological problems as it can make that particular child more aggressive in the long term. Building a testing relationship and good discipline takes time and energy but is worth it in the long run” (P:9).

4.4. Causes of School Violence

4.4.1. location of the school.

“The school is located in a township. Townships are characterised by unruly behaviour. It is highly likely that children from the surrounding areas have learnt this behaviour at home and they bring it to school. It is mostly boys who exhibit violent behaviour” (P:2).

4.4.2. Domesticated Squabbles from Home and/or the Community

“Yes, there was a time when two Form One boys got involved in a serious physical fight. This was caused by them undermining each other. One of the boys told the other boy that he came from a more powerful community or society. During the fight, one of the boys was thrown onto the window which resulted in him sustaining a deep cut on his forehead” (L:1).

“Children often resort to violence due to anger. As parents, we must attend to the causes of anger. Upon our return from work, though we may be tired, we ought to even ask our children about their schoolwork. They indeed need our attention. Parents tend to prioritise their work over family issues. So, one strategy of addressing anger would be communicating more frequently with our children and spending more time with them. Parents should not leave the responsibility of bringing up their children to helpers; in fact, they should be there for their children” (P:7).

4.5. Recommended Strategies and Their Effectiveness in Curbing Violence in Schools

4.5.1. anger management initiatives.

“Career guidance should be offered in schools in order to deal with anger management issues. This will enlighten students on the notion that being violent does not sort out issues but reporting or talking over issues will result in the issues being sorted out amicably” (P:6).

“I do not believe that I should use physical efforts to teach my child to deal with life situations, but I believe that the child must practise how to deal with the challenges of life all by themselves. However, guidance and motivation are equally crucial. I should discourage the wrongs” (P:3).

“Apart from using teachers, I think the Government needs to hire other specialists or agencies that can deal with learners’ behaviour when in the school premises. Teachers have their own problems, which make them unable to handle learners in the same way because we are different. Even in class, teachers may not be able to treat us in the same way. On the other hand, hired agencies will not even be aware of our academic performance, which will enable them to treat us fairly” (L:10).

“I think the Government should hire trained personnel or professionals like psychologists to work as full-time workers in schools. This will help in dealing with this situation. As teachers, there are some things we are unable to handle. So, such issues need to be referred to counsellors in the Royal Eswatini Offices because we are always busy with learners’ academic work. We always find ourselves postponing cases, resulting in those cases never being discussed again. Therefore, my wish is that the Government hires psychologists that will be stationed at every school in the country” (T:5).

4.5.2. Parent–Teacher and Learner Support Groups

“Even at home, we need to teach our kids to appreciate that if someone or something is bothering them at school, they must report it to the relevant authorities. In schools, there must be a period when each teacher is assigned to teach several learners about how to handle life issues and on how to solve problems. Then, the teacher may form groups, maybe according to learners’ grades, to allow these learners to teach one another about things that were learnt by the respective groups. Let them have discussions in their age groups, which will allow them to cooperate amongst themselves” (P:4).

4.5.3. Reinstating Corporal Punishment in Schools

“We have a lot of students and so I would not say that these other strategies are effective. Coming from the old school, we were used to using corporal punishment in schools and all went well, unlike in current circumstances where we cannot administer corporal punishment on learners. We just keep on thinking and wondering about how we are going to positively punish these learners since punishing them is not an easy task. Honestly, just talking to learners never really works. Personally, I prefer corporal punishment to positive punishment because it enables effective use of time by staff. This contrasts with other forms of punishment, such as detentions, where staff members have to waste hours supervising learners who have misbehaved” (T:9).

“Even our Government, at the highest level, has contributed, whether directly or indirectly, through the numerous laws it promulgated and the many conventions it ratified without consulting teachers or principals of schools regarding their take pertaining issues of violence in schools. Government would just present issues unilaterally. For example, Government instructed educators to stop corporal punishment forthwith and embrace positive discipline instead. Government only told people to use positive discipline without even training them on what this positive discipline entailed. The Government often acts on the assumption that we are accustomed to the new disciplinary measures, yet someone needs to unpack it for us” (T:5).

“As learners, we sometimes violate our teachers’ rights. We are naughty; hence, we undermine the authority of some teachers (especially female teachers) who even leave the class crying because of the things we would have said to them when they were teaching. What we do is just too much for them. We destroy our teachers’ self-esteem and that results in them teaching us in an angry mood, which is not good at all. We are naughty because we know that corporal punishment is no longer permitted in schools. I think the Government needs to bring back corporal punishment. When we look at the generation that was subjected to corporal punishment, we would rarely find a headline in newspapers covering stories about school-based violence, but today’s generation is something else. The older generation would respect teachers, unlike us; we are a crazy generation” (L:7).

“Violence happens a lot, especially to the interns or student teachers. We take advantage of them because they are new in the school. So, we think we know everything, thereby destroying their confidence. Corporal punishment must be brought back to clean up the mess now pervading the schools” (L:5).

“I would like to highlight that violence should be viewed from two different perspectives: (1) culturally, in the olden days, it was never called or named violence when our parents used to correct us through beatings. It was a normal thing for one to be beaten up to correct their wrong-doing. So, the context of violence, to some people, relates to the physical fights that people engage in even when there is no dispute. They regard violence as a phenomenon that occurs when a person has mistakenly stepped on the toe of another. Corporal punishment, which is now perceived as violence, was previously seen as an aspect that would positively shape a child’s life. Honestly, I would not perceive corporal punishment as violence, even when it is used at home; rather, it is a correctional measure which is now being referred to as violence” (P:8).

“Even if we have come here to learn and get education, that does not warrant being punished to death, because we are sometimes made to clean corridors or even dig several big pits and later made to fill them up with soil. What is the meaning of that? Why is one made to dig a pit which is not necessary? This is tantamount to killing the students” (L:2).

4.5.4. Psychological Interventions

“A change in the country’s laws obliges parents to discipline their children at home in order to curb the violence occurring in schools. Children should be taught the wrong and the right things at a tender age. This, however, does not dismiss the fact that deviant behaviour may develop despite having taught the children about the right things. So, as parents, once situations of violence have been reported at school, we should sit the child down and determine why they behave in a certain way. Dialoguing with a child is the starting point” (P:10).

“The upbringing of a child is dependent on the parent; however, teachers act in locoparentis while children are in the school setting. This was a traditional mode of canalisation which has since been looked down on because of laws that are now barring teachers from beating up children. It is therefore important for the Ministry of Education to enforce ‘periods’ of counselling sessions held with students during school hours. As teachers, we need to constantly remind children to exhibit good behaviour and this is another way of counselling them” (T:8).

“I am one of the parents who do not believe in the efficacy of beating up children. I believe that talking to these children is a more reasonable way of disciplining them. Once you start beating up a child, he or she will start hating you and even develop anger, which will then affect other people particularly other learners. So, I am against the idea of applying corporal punishment on learners”(P:4).

5. Discussion

6. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Sibisi, N.N.; Sibisi, N.T.; Mpofu, Z.F. Preventative Strategies to Curb School Violence: A Case Study of Selected Schools in Hhohho District of Eswatini, Mbabane. Soc. Sci. 2024 , 13 , 79. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13020079

Sibisi NN, Sibisi NT, Mpofu ZF. Preventative Strategies to Curb School Violence: A Case Study of Selected Schools in Hhohho District of Eswatini, Mbabane. Social Sciences . 2024; 13(2):79. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13020079

Sibisi, Nomathemba Nomakhosi, Nonhle Tracey Sibisi, and Zandile Faith Mpofu. 2024. "Preventative Strategies to Curb School Violence: A Case Study of Selected Schools in Hhohho District of Eswatini, Mbabane" Social Sciences 13, no. 2: 79. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13020079

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• Introduction
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Includes 2263 survey respondents. Odds ratios (ORs) are adjusted for age; race and ethnicity; eligibility for free or reduced-cost lunch; delinquent behaviors; attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms; past 6-month use of alcohol; past 6-month use of nicotine, marijuana, and/or illicit drugs; past 30-day cyberbullying; subjective social status at school; and continuous scores from prebaseline major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder.

Includes 2263 survey respondents. Odds ratios (ORs) are adjusted for age; sex; eligibility for free or reduced-cost lunch; delinquent behaviors; attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms; past 6-month use of alcohol; past 6-month use of nicotine, marijuana, and/or illicit drugs; past 30-day cyberbullying; subjective social status at school; and continuous scores from prebaseline major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder.

a Includes American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, mulitracial, and other race or ethnicity.

eFigure. Flow Diagram for Participant Selection

eTable 1. Comparisons Between Adolescents Included and Excluded in the Study Sample

eTable 2. 2 × 2 Tables Comparing the Proportion of Adolescents Surpassing the Borderline/Clinically Significant Thresholds for Each Internalizing Problem at the Prebaseline and Follow-up Waves

eTable 3. Adjusted Association of Concern With School Shootings and Violence With Depressive, Generalized Anxiety, and Panic Symptoms, Using Linear Regression and Continuous Symptom Scores as the Outcome (n = 2263)

eTable 4. Adjusted Association of Concern With School Shootings and Violence With Depressive, Generalized Anxiety, and Panic Symptoms, With the Addition of Depressive Symptoms at the Baseline Wave as a Covariate (n = 2263)

eTable 5. Adjusted Association of Concern With School Shootings and Violence With Depressive, Generalized Anxiety, and Panic Symptoms, With the Addition of Concerns About Societal Discrimination and Police Brutality as Covariates (n = 2263)

eMethods. “Issues in Society” Survey Items and Methods and Results of Sensitivity Analyses

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Riehm KE , Mojtabai R , Adams LB, et al. Adolescents’ Concerns About School Violence or Shootings and Association With Depressive, Anxiety, and Panic Symptoms. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(11):e2132131. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.32131

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Adolescents’ Concerns About School Violence or Shootings and Association With Depressive, Anxiety, and Panic Symptoms

• 1 Department of Mental Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
• 2 Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
• 3 Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor
• 4 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
• 5 Institute for Addiction Science, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
• 6 Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Question   Is reported concern about school violence or shootings associated with internalizing problems among adolescents?

Findings   In a cohort study of 2263 adolescents, greater concern about school violence or shootings was prospectively associated with increased odds of reporting generalized anxiety and panic symptoms 6 months later. There was no overall association between concern about school violence and depressive symptoms.

Meaning   These findings suggest that concerns about school violence or shootings might be a risk factor for internalizing problems among adolescents that may warrant public health attention.

Importance   The prevalence of internalizing problems among US adolescents has risen in the past decade. The extent to which concerns about school violence or shootings are associated with risk of internalizing problems is unknown.

Objective   To examine the prospective association of concern, worry, and stress related to school violence or shootings with internalizing problems and to examine sex and racial and ethnic differences in the magnitude of the associations.

Design, Setting, and Participants   This longitudinal cohort study involved 3 surveys administered 6 months apart (fall of grade 11 [prebaseline]; spring of grade 11 [baseline]; and fall of grade 12 [follow-up]) from 2015 to 2016. Participants included 2263 students from 10 high schools in Los Angeles, California. Analyses were performed from April 29, 2020, to April 8, 2021.

Exposures   Baseline self-reported level of concern, worry, and stress about shootings or violence at the student’s school or other schools, each rated on 5-point scales (ranging from not at all [0] to extremely [4]) with a mean score calculated as a 3-item composite index rescaled into z -score standard deviation units.

Main Outcomes and Measures   Surpassing clinically significant or borderline significant thresholds for major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or panic disorder based on symptom ratings on the Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale at 6-month follow-up.

Results   Of the 2263 students included in the analyses (1250 [55.2%] girls; mean [SD] age, 16.5 [0.4] years), appreciable proportions reported being very or extremely concerned (850 0f 2226 [38.2%]), worried (703 of 2209 [31.8%]), or stressed (332 of 2183 [15.2%]) about shootings or violence at their school or other schools. After adjusting for prebaseline covariates, concerns about school violence or shootings were associated with clinically significant generalized anxiety symptoms (odds ratio [OR], 1.31; 95% CI, 1.15-1.50) and panic symptoms (OR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.05-1.32), but not depressive symptoms (OR, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.99-1.30) at the 6-month follow-up. There was a significant association between concern with school violence or shootings and depressive symptoms for Black youth (OR, 3.15; 95% CI, 1.38-7.19) and non-Hispanic/Latinx White youth (OR, 1.62 [95% CI, 1.25-2.09]) but not for youth of other races and ethnicities (OR for Asian, 1.26 [95% CI, 0.86-1.85]; OR for Hispanic/Latinx, 0.94 [95% CI, 0.76-1.16]; OR for other, 0.93 [95% CI, 0.54-1.61]). Sex did not moderate these associations.

Conclusions and Relevance   The findings of this study suggest that concern, worry, and stress related to school violence or shootings may be risk factors for internalizing problems among adolescents, with variation in the strength of the association by race/ethnicity.

Since approximately 2011, the prevalence of major depressive disorder and depressive symptoms has increased among US adolescents. 1 - 3 As of 2014, the 12-month prevalence of major depressive episodes was 11.3%, representing a significant increase from 8.7% in 2005. 1 In 2018, 70% of youth reported anxiety and depression (collectively termed internalizing problems ) 4 to be major problems among their peers. 5 Given the strong association between adolescent internalizing problems and subsequent adverse outcomes in adulthood, 6 research is needed to identify factors with a high exposure prevalence that increase the risk of internalizing problems among adolescents and are contemporarily salient.

Explanations for increasing internalizing problem trends are largely speculative, and some hypotheses include increases in digital media use, exposure to cyberbullying, economic recessions, decreased sleep quantity and quality, concerns about the environment, and exposure to the consequences of the opioid epidemic. 2 , 3 , 7 An emerging and increasingly salient stressor for youth is exposure to violence in school settings and concern about school shootings. In 2019, approximately 8.7% of students from 9th to 12th grade reported that they did not attend school owing to safety concerns at least once in the past 30 days—an increase of more than 2-fold since 1993. 8 School shootings are often widely publicized, and mere knowledge about such shootings might influence youths’ perceptions of safety at their own school, even if gun violence in their own schools and communities has never occurred. 9 For adolescent residents of communities affected by gun violence, the portrayal of school shootings in the media could be particularly distressing.

In 2018, more than half of US students reported feeling somewhat or very worried about the possibility of a shooting happening at their school. 10 Of note, these worries were more common among female, Black, and Hispanic students 10 and may contribute to disparities in adolescent mental health. Collectively, these findings raise the possibility that youths’ concern about violence and school shootings may be a contributing factor to internalizing problems and may differentially relate to internalizing problems by sex, race, and ethnicity.

In this longitudinal cohort study, we tested the hypothesis that adolescents who reported greater concern, worry, and stress associated with school violence or shootings would report greater odds of depressive, generalized anxiety, and panic symptoms at a 6-month follow-up. We also examined whether these associations differed by sex, race, and ethnicity. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the association between concern about school shootings and internalizing problems among US adolescents.

The data in this cohort study were drawn from the Happiness and Health Study, a longitudinal cohort of adolescents from 10 public high schools in Los Angeles, California. 11 Participants who were in the 9th grade and their parents provided active assent and consent before enrolling in the study. Thereafter, assessments were administered every 6 months in classrooms. Students who were not present on the day of survey administration completed abbreviated surveys that omitted key measures and were therefore not included in this study. The University of Southern California institutional review board approved the study. This study followed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology ( STROBE ) reporting guidelines.

Questions regarding concern with school violence or shootings were first introduced during the 11th grade survey assessment in spring of 2016, which represents the baseline wave for the current study; surveys 6 months before (fall of 2015 in 11th grade) and 6 months after (fall of 2016 in 12th grade) represent the prebaseline and follow-up waves, respectively. The sample included students who completed assessments at all 3 waves; had complete data for sex, race, and ethnicity; and had measurements for the concern about school violence or shootings scale and at least 1 of the internalizing problem outcomes. A participant flow diagram is presented in the eFigure in the Supplement . Of 4100 eligible 9th grade students, 3396 enrolled in the study, and data from 2263 participants were included in analyses. eTable 1 in the Supplement displays demographic comparisons between participants included in analyses and those excluded from the sample.

In a survey section labeled “Issues in Society,” students were asked to rate their degree of “concern, worry, and stress towards the following issues in terms of their effect on [them] personally” (the eMethods in the Supplement provides a complete list of survey items). Three separate items measured the degree to which adolescents were concerned, worried, and stressed with regard to “shootings or violence at your school or other schools,” with response options of not at all (0), slightly (1), somewhat (2), very (3), and extremely (4). As in prior studies using similar measures of concern for other issues, 12 we formed a composite index reflecting the level of concern about school violence or shootings by calculating the mean of the 3 items (range, 0-4). Composite scores are hereinafter referred to as concerns about school violence or shootings. This measure had high internal consistency as measured by both the Cronbach α (0.90) and item-total correlations (concern: 0.82, worry: 0.88, stress: 0.74). To assist with interpretability, we converted scores for this measure into SD unit z scores for regression models.

The outcomes of interest included symptom ratings for major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder that surpassed the borderline clinically significant or clinically significant thresholds. These were measured using the respective subscales of the 47-item Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS), which consisted of 10 items for major depressive disorder, 6 items for generalized anxiety disorder, and 9 items for panic disorder. Adolescents were asked to indicate how often certain things happened to them (eg, “I feel sad or empty,” “I worry that bad things will happen to me,” “When I have a problem, I feel shaky”). Response options were never (0), sometimes (1), often (2), or always (3). Total scores for each disorder were obtained by summing the item scores. The RCADS has age- and sex-specific normative samples in which symptom scores can be identified as borderline clinically significant (T score of 65-69) or clinically significant (T score of ≥70). We used these to create a binary outcome variable for each disorder (does vs does not surpass borderline or clinical threshold). The RCADS has been extensively validated in both clinical and school-based samples and has been found to accurately distinguish between diagnostic groups identified by semistructured interviews. 13 , 14

Covariates were selected on the basis of existing literature on the association between perceived school safety and mental health. 15 , 16 Covariates were assessed at a time before the primary regressor variable. 17 For sociodemographic characteristics, we included age, sex (female or male), race and ethnicity (Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latinx, non-Hispanic/Latinx White, or other [American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, multiracial, and other race or ethnicity]) and eligibility for free or reduced-cost lunch (not eligible or eligible). Externalizing, disruptive behavioral problems included attention-deficit/hyperactivity symptoms, measured with the Current Symptoms Self-report Form, 18 and delinquent behavior, measured with a scale assessing the frequency of 11 behaviors in the past 6 months (eg, lying to parents, skipping school), 19 past 6-month use of alcohol (yes or no), and past 6-month use of nicotine, marijuana, and/or illicit drugs (yes or no). School-related covariates included past 30-day exposure to cyberbullying, measured with the 8-item Cyberbullying and Online Aggression Survey Instrument 20 (summary scores dichotomized into yes or no), and subjective social status at school, measured with the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status (scores range from 1-10, with higher scores indicating greater perceived status). 21 Finally, we also adjusted for continuous scores from the prebaseline major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder subscales of the RCADS (described above).

Logistic regression was used to estimate the association of concern about school violence or shootings with depressive, generalized anxiety, and panic symptoms. Regression coefficients were exponentiated for interpretation as odds ratios (ORs) with associated 95% CIs; for the composite concern index, these represent the change in odds of reporting a borderline or clinically significant symptom per 1-SD increase in concern. We estimated unadjusted and adjusted models for each internalizing problem; the adjusted models included all 13 covariates listed above.

We examined whether the associations between concern about school violence or shootings with each outcome differed according to sex and to race and ethnicity by estimating separate adjusted models. These included omnibus interaction terms between concern about school violence or shootings and sex or all race and ethnicity categories.

Sensitivity analyses, which were conducted to test modeling decisions and other assumptions, are described in the eMethods in the Supplement . To account for missing data on covariates in our sample, we performed multiple imputation using chained equations 22 and generated 15 imputed data sets. Huber-White robust SEs were calculated to account for clustering by school. 23 Statistical significance was assessed at 2-sided P  < .05. All analyses were conducted using RStudio, version 1.2.5042, and R, version 4.0.0 (R Program for Statistical Computing). Analyses were preformed from April 29, 2020, to April 8, 2021.

Among the 2263 students included in the analytic sample, the mean (SD) age at the prebaseline survey was 16.5 (0.4) years; 1250 students (55.2%) were girls and 1013 students (44.8%) were boys. The sample was racially and ethnically diverse; 444 students (19.6%) were Asian, 89 (3.9%) were Black, 1001 (44.2%) were Hispanic/Latinx, 375 (16.6%) were non-Hispanic/Latinx White, and 354 (15.6%) reported another race or ethnicity. Complete descriptive statistics are reported in Table 1 .

Table 2 shows the proportion of students selecting each response option for the survey items assessing concern, worry, and stress about school violence or shootings. A considerable proportion of students reported being very or extremely concerned (850 of 2226 [38.2%]), worried (703 of 2209 [31.8%]), or stressed (332 of 2183 [15.2%]) about shootings or violence at their school or other schools. Girls were significantly more likely than boys to report higher levels of concern (very or extremely, 556 of 1231 [45.2%] vs 294 of 1309 [22.5%]), worry (very or extremely, 473 of 1228 [38.5%] vs of 230 of 981 [23.4%]), and stress (very or extremely, 240 of 1209 [19.9%] vs 92 of 974 [9.4%]), as well as higher mean (SD) composite scores (1.84 [1.27] vs 1.27 [1.20]; P  < .001 for all). No significant differences were observed by race/ethnicity in concern, worry, stress, or composite scores.

At follow-up, the proportion of adolescents surpassing the borderline/clinically significant threshold was 350 of 2204 (15.9%) for major depressive disorder, 273 of 2205 (12.4%) for generalized anxiety disorder, and 302 of 2202 (13.7%) for panic disorder. eTable 2 in the Supplement shows the proportions of adolescents surpassing the borderline/clinically significant thresholds for each internalizing problem at follow-up, stratified by their status at the prebaseline wave.

In unadjusted analyses, concern about school violence or shootings at baseline was associated with surpassing the borderline/clinically significant threshold for each internalizing problem (OR for major depressive disorder, 1.19 [95% CI, 1.06-1.33]; OR for generalized anxiety disorder, 1.48 [95% CI, 1.34-1.65]; OR for panic disorder 1.20 [95% CI, 1.08-1.33]). These ORs indicated that each 1-SD unit increase in level of concern about shootings was associated with 19% greater odds of surpassing the symptom level clinical/borderline threshold for major depressive disorder, 48% for generalized anxiety disorder, and 20% for panic disorder. In adjusted analyses, which included adjustment for various mental health problems such as internalizing symptoms, concern about school violence or shootings was associated with surpassing the borderline/clinically significant threshold for generalized anxiety disorder (OR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.15-1.50) and panic disorder (OR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.05-1.32), but not major depressive disorder (OR, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.99-1.30). Complete results, including covariate estimates, are shown in Table 3 .

Interaction terms for sex were not significant for any of the internalizing problem outcomes (major depressive disorder, P  = .93; generalized anxiety disorder, P  = .055; panic disorder, P  = .27). Interaction terms for race and ethnicity were significant for major depressive disorder ( P  < .001) and panic disorder ( P  < .001), but not generalized anxiety disorder ( P  = .81). Concern about school violence or shootings was associated with major depressive disorder among Black youth (OR, 3.15; 95% CI, 1.38-7.19) and non-Hispanic/Latinx White youth (OR, 1.62; 95% CI, 1.25-2.09) but not among youth of other races and ethnicities (OR for Asian, 1.26 [95% CI, 0.86-1.85]; OR for Hispanic/Latinx, 0.94 [95% CI, 0.76-1.16]; OR for other, 0.93 [95% CI, 0.54-1.61]). There was an association between concern about school violence or shootings and panic disorder among non-Hispanic/Latinx White youth (OR, 1.78; 95% CI, 1.13-2.78) youth but not among youth of other races and ethnicities. Odds ratios and 95% CIs for surpassing the borderline/clinically significant threshold for major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or panic disorder, stratified by sex or race and ethnicity, are shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2 , respectively. The sensitivity analyses produced results that were broadly consistent with the main analyses (eMethods and eTables 3 to 5 in the Supplement ).

In this prospective study, we found that approximately one-third of adolescents in our sample reported feeling very or extremely concerned, worried, and stressed about shootings and violence at their own school or other schools in 2016. Higher levels of concern about school violence or shootings were associated with heightened odds of meeting borderline/clinical criteria for generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder 6 months later, even after adjusting for previous level of internalizing problems and 10 additional demographic and externalizing covariates. The strength of some of these associations varied by race and ethnicity; among Black adolescents, the magnitude of the association between concern about school violence or shootings with subsequent major depressive disorder was particularly high compared with the association for adolescents of other races and ethnicities. Against a backdrop of an increase in the prevalence of internalizing problems in US youth 1 - 3 and concerns over racial and ethnic disparities in youth mental health, 24 these findings warrant public health attention.

Numerous prior studies have found that exposure to violence in school settings (both direct involvement and witnessing), as well as perceptions of safety at school, are associated with adverse mental health outcomes. 16 , 25 - 29 Our study connects to emerging literature highlighting vicarious effects of school-based violence in that we did not study exposure to violence directly, but rather a concern about violence or shootings both at students’ own schools and at other schools as an overarching societal problem and possible widespread threat. In addition, our results suggest that these concerns could represent a new possible explanation for upward trends in the prevalence of internalizing problems among adolescents, adding to a mounting list of potential causes that includes environmental concerns, digital media use, declining sleep duration, and increasing wealth inequality, among others. 2 , 3 , 7 Together these factors reflect a constellation of social, political, economic, and environmental concerns that may contribute to a perception of “social fracture” among youth. 6

Unlike other studies, 10 , 15 we found no evidence that racial and ethnic groups differed in likelihood of reporting concern about school violence or shootings. However, we did observe a stronger association between these concerns and major depressive disorder among Black students, compared with other students, raising the possibility that concerns with this violence may be a particularly potent risk factor for major depressive disorder among Black youth specifically. Our measure of concern about school violence or shootings did not ask specifically about the source of this violence; for Black youth, the sources of violence in school settings may be more varied than for other youth, including school resource officer programs that place police in schools. 30 Other scholars have written about how “anticipatory trauma” is a racialized experience that may result in hypervigilant behavior and symptoms of chronic stress, which are common antecedents of internalizing problems. 31 , 32 In addition, given the modestly stronger association between concerns about school violence or shootings and panic disorder among non-Hispanic/Latinx White students, an alternative explanation is that youth of different races and ethnicities express internalizing problems through different phenotypes in response to these concerns.

The high proportion of adolescents who reported concern about school violence or shootings may warrant population-based intervention strategies. Tiered, school-based services can provide universal mental health promotion programs to all students, as well as targeted interventions and counseling for students with increased perceived need. 33 A recent systematic review 34 suggests, however, that more research is needed on the adaptation of these programs to best meet the needs of students of color. Upstream approaches may also be successful in simultaneously addressing gun violence, perceptions of safety, and internalizing problems. Although more research is needed on long-term efficacy, interventions that include social-emotional learning components and prevent earlier, more minor instances of violence seem especially promising. 28 , 35 Finally, beyond the school setting, policies that directly address gun violence (eg, child access prevention laws) 28 or increase access to mental health services may also be helpful for promoting well-being among youth.

This study has some limitations. The scale measuring concern about school violence or shootings has not been psychometrically validated; however, the items had high internal reliability in this sample. In a related vein, our scale measured concern about shootings and violence at the students’ school and other schools together using a single item stem, and it was not possible to disentangle concerns related to violence vs shootings in particular and at a student’s own vs other schools. The extent to which these results with a regional urban/suburban sample generalize to adolescents across other regions is unknown. We assessed internalizing problems with a self-report inventory of depressive and anxiety symptoms instead of a diagnostic interview. Data collection for this study occurred from the fall of 2015 to fall of 2016, and it is likely that the nature of concerns about school violence has changed since this period, especially given the high school shootings in 2018 in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas, both of which were highly publicized and motivated protests across the country. We included a wide variety of confounders, but other variables of interest, such as neighborhood-level exposure to violence and mental health treatment, were not assessed, and thus residual or unmeasured confounding remains a possibility. We observed some demographic differences between study participants and those not surveyed at baseline, lost to follow-up, or excluded due to missing data, which may affect the generalizability of the results.

In this longitudinal cohort study, concern about school violence or shootings was associated with anxiety and panic symptoms among adolescents, with variation by race and ethnicity. This study highlights the need for research on interventions that can foster perceptions of safety at schools, prevent downstream violent behaviors, and improve the mental health of youth.

Accepted for Publication: August 31, 2021.

Published: November 1, 2021. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.32131

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License . © 2021 Riehm KE et al. JAMA Network Open .

Corresponding Author: Kira E. Riehm, MSc, Department of Mental Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, 624 N Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205 ( [email protected] ).

Author Contributions: Ms Riehm had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Concept and design: Riehm, Mojtabai, Leventhal.

Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: Riehm, Adams, Krueger, Mattingly, Nestadt, Leventhal.

Drafting of the manuscript: Riehm, Leventhal.

Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: All authors.

Statistical analysis: Riehm, Mojtabai, Leventhal.

Obtained funding: Leventhal.

Administrative, technical, or material support: Leventhal.

Supervision: Mojtabai, Adams, Nestadt.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Krueger reported receiving grants from the University of Southern California during the conduct of the study. No other disclosures were reported.

Funding/Support: This study was supported by grants K24DA042950 and R01DA033296 from the National Institute for Drug Abuse; a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award 1F31MH124330-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health (Ms Riehm); and a Doctoral Foreign Study Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Ms Riehm).

Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The sponsors had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

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Deadly Lessons: Understanding Lethal School Violence (2003)

Chapter: part i: case studies of lethal school violence.

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

17 The request for original research on what appear to be rare and ex-treme events necessitated a comparative case study approach. However, the aim of the case studies was not to generate certain, scien- tific knowledge about the causes, consequences, and effective methods of preventing and controlling these events. It was obvious from the start that these few cases could not support such an ambitious goal. As a scientific matter, there were too few data points to allow us to decide which of many possible explanations were true and which of many plau- sibly effective responses would actually work. The aim instead was to use the limited experience available to develop some plausible hypoth- eses about causes and effective interventions and to check commonly held assumptions for their plausibility. DEVELOPING THE CASE STUDIES In developing and comparing these cases, the committee was com- mitted to using the discipline and methods of science to ensure that the information gathered was accurate and could be usefully interpreted by others. The desire to be disciplined in the development of the cases forced us to take up three important study design issues: (1) how the cases would be selected for study, (2) what information would be sought across all the cases, and (3) what sources of information would be used. We sought to answer these questions in a way that would maximize the evidentiary and inferential power of the cases—again, recognizing in Part I Case Studies of Lethal School Violence

18 DEADLY LESSONS: UNDERSTANDING LETHAL SCHOOL VIOLENCE advance that the cases would fall short of providing definitive scientific answers. CASE SELECTION The first challenge was to choose the particular cases to be developed. This task had both practical and scientific elements. Congress had pro- vided some guidance to the committee on this matter by specifying eight incidents that were illustrative of the problem they considered important to take up and that might be suitable for detailed study. The practical part of the problem, given that resources were available for only six cases, was to select from among those listed. The scientific question before the committee was to determine the general class of violence of which these eight incidents were exemplars. As stated in Chapter 1, Congress asked the committee to examine “inci- dents of lethal school violence in urban, suburban, and rural schools,” yet all of the cases identified by Congress occurred in suburban and rural schools. It seemed important that the committee address both the spirit and the letter of the congressional request. We therefore decided initially to study incidents that had the characteristics listed in our operational defi- nition of lethal violence regardless of the nature of the community in which they occurred. Moreover, as part of our work, we developed a dataset of all such incidents, using it as a kind of sampling frame for the set of cases and later as a way of indicating both levels and trends in this form of violence. Since much of the lethal violence among young people had occurred in inner-city schools, we assumed we would find examples of this kind of lethal violence in inner-city schools as well. To our surprise, we could find no cases in urban inner-city schools that met these requirements in the time period we were examining, 1997–1999. There were incidents of lethal violence in urban schools, and there were a few schools that had experienced more than one fatality in a given year. But no incidents had what seemed to be the key character- istic of multiple victimizations including fatalities occurring in the same incident. That preliminary finding was a very important one to the committee. It seemed that the form of lethal school violence that occurred in the late 1990s might represent a distinct form of lethal school violence—one that might be similar in its consequences for the victims and communities in which it occurred, but different in its causes and in its effective prevention and control. This possibility encouraged us to take up the important scientific

19PART I: CASE STUDIES OF LETHAL SCHOOL VIOLENCE question of what the relationship might actually be between the form of lethal school violence that was concentrated in inner-city schools and the seemingly newer form of lethal school violence that erupted in suburban schools in the late 1990s. Several such relationships were possible. One was that the different forms of violence were the products of similar causes that played out differently in the different community contexts. A second was that the inner-city violence had created the conditions that shaped the later suburban violence. A third possibility was that there was, in fact, little relationship between the urban violence and these new cases. The decision to take up the scientific issue of whether this was a new and unique form of lethal school violence had important implications for case selection. It would be important to look closely at examples of lethal school violence in inner cities to determine whether the causes of such violence were similar to the causes of the newer forms of violence. In effect, we could choose the cases to get some variation on the dependent variable: within the class of incidents neutrally described as lethal school violence, we could look at the form that this violence took in different kinds of communities—urban, suburban, and rural. If it turned out that the antecedents to lethal school violence in inner-city schools were differ- ent from those in suburban and rural schools, then we would have some evidence pointing toward a firmer conclusion that this was a separate strain of violence. But there was another reason to look at lethal violence in inner-city schools. A preliminary look at the data indicated that levels of overall lethal violence in inner-city schools were much higher than in suburban- rural schools and had been that way for a long period of time. By devel- oping cases on lethal violence in inner-city schools and comparing them with lethal violence in suburban-rural schools, we could put these inci- dents under a microscope and describe the structure of the similarities and differences in the character and antecedent causes of lethal violence in different settings. This would help us understand whether there was something about inner-city communities that made them immune to the forms of violence that hit suburban-rural schools in the late 1990s, and whether there was something about the suburban and rural communities that seemed to protect them from the violence that struck the inner cities in the decade from 1985 to 1995. These considerations were sufficient to persuade the committee that a portion of our limited resources should be focused on developing cases of lethal violence in inner-city schools. To find such cases, we simply had to relax the time frame under consideration. In the period 1990–1992, we found two inner-city schools that had experienced incidents in which multiple individuals were killed and injured. A school in Chicago experi-

20 DEADLY LESSONS: UNDERSTANDING LETHAL SCHOOL VIOLENCE enced a shooting in which one person was killed and two were wounded in 1992. And a school in New York experienced two incidents involving multiple victimizations. In an incident in late 1991, one person was killed and one was injured. In a second incident shortly thereafter in February 1992, two people were killed. We decided to develop cases on these events in addition to four from among the cases Congress identified. With regard to the suburban and rural cases, the committee was aware that in three of the sites listed in the legislation, the shooters had been interviewed for case studies conducted by others, including the Secret Service, the Department of Education, and the Federal Bureau of Investi- gation. We assumed that the previously studied sites would not be par- ticularly amenable to yet another team of researchers conducting an in- depth examination of their community and decided to exclude them from our sample. We decided that we could better add to the knowledge base by selecting sites that had not been previously studied. We had hoped to be able to examine data from the Secret Service and Department of Educa- tion case studies of other rural and suburban sites for our analysis, but confidentiality agreements between the researchers and their subjects pre- cluded this possibility. In the end, we chose the following six cases for close examination: • Heritage High School, Rockdale County, Georgia • Parker Middle School, Edinboro, Pennsylvania • Heath High School, Paducah, Kentucky • Westside Middle School, Jonesboro, Arkansas • Tilden High School, Chicago, Illinois • Thomas Jefferson High School, East New York, New York THE CASE TEMPLATE Once the cases were chosen, the next decision was what information to gather for each case. The aim was to be sure that there was enough information to be able to consider a variety of possible explanations for the violence that was at the center of the cases, and to gather the informa- tion as consistently as possible from one case to another in order to be able to check for the presence or absence of each particular variable. The committee developed a template that each case-writing team could use to guide their data collection efforts. A shortened form of that template follows: 1. Situational factors: Narrative description of the events immedi- ately surrounding the incident (leading up to and immediate response to

21PART I: CASE STUDIES OF LETHAL SCHOOL VIOLENCE the incident at different levels of analysis as seen by different participants and witnesses): • Description of the shooting itself: preparations, precipitating events (including possible provocation by victims), location, tar- gets, relationship of shooter to victims, immediate responses that ended the incident • Motivations/state of mind of shooter at time of shooting • Recent trends in objective and subjective life of the shooter • Witness accounts of shooting (including their interpretations of the offender and motivations) • Warning signs for incident (e.g., shooter’s threats, widely known festering grievances and disputes) • Immediate conditions in the school affecting motivation for incident • Immediate conditions in the school affecting response to incident • Immediate conditions in the community affecting motivation for incident • Immediate conditions in the community affecting response to incident 2. Individual factors: Individual traits and family background of offenders: • Prior criminal activity of the offender • School record (both achievement and disciplinary) • Peer standing/affiliations at school (What groups? What stand- ing in individual groups? Relationships with opposite sex?) • Important adults in offender’s life/quality of communication and connection • Family relationships (parents/siblings) (strength/quality) (pa- rental knowledge/supervision of kids) • History of mental illness • Interest/consumption of violent media materials • Experience with firearms 3. Community-level factors affecting incident and response: • Economic status of community (mean and variance) • Stability of community (transience) • Social coherence/divisions in community (ethnic, racial, reli- gious, political) • Stock of “social capital” in community • Engagement of community with teenagers and with schools • Teen culture in community • Police strategy/organization/connection to community • Justice system organization/connection to community

22 DEADLY LESSONS: UNDERSTANDING LETHAL SCHOOL VIOLENCE 4. School-level factors affecting incident and response: • Size of the school • Organization of the school • Teacher characteristics • Parental involvement in the school • Educational policies of the school (tracking/class size/extracur- ricular activities) • Governance and disciplinary policies and practices of the school • Security arrangements for the school • Extent and quality of teacher connection to students beyond curriculum 5. Description of response and consequences for community of both incident and responses made: • Outcomes of court cases (criminal, civil) • Consequences for offenders • Consequences for victims • Consequences for families of offenders • Consequences for families of victims • Grief counseling/activity following events • Policy changes (and apparent consequences) initiated with schools: ♦ New hardware at schools (magnetometers, fences) ♦ Heightened surveillance and control of students ♦ Police officers in schools ♦ Use of transfers of students to other schools ♦ Increased efforts to deal with festering disputes and grievances • Policy changes (and apparent consequences) initiated in wider community SOURCES OF INFORMATION With the template developed to define the information to collect for each case, it became important to describe the sources to consult to obtain the needed facts. The sources of information relied on in developing facts and observations to fill out the case template include: 1. Journalistic accounts: • local newspapers • local radio and television • national newspapers and magazines • national radio and television coverage • special documentary reports

23PART I: CASE STUDIES OF LETHAL SCHOOL VIOLENCE 2. Official records pertaining to the incident or the offender: • court records (criminal and civil) • police records • school records 3. Governmental statistics 4. Interviews: • the offender • the offender family • friends/acquaintances of offenders • the victims • the victims’ families • witnesses to shootings • responders to the incident • those involved in handling legal cases • school officials • teens in the community • adults in the community • political leaders in the community • civic leaders in the community 5. Direct/participant observation 6. Surveys PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS All of the case authors submitted their study designs, including mul- tiple consent forms, to their university’s or organization’s institutional re- view board (IRB) for the protection of human subjects, and in one case directly to the National Research Council’s (NRC) institutional review board. The NRC’s IRB provided a second layer of human subjects review for five of the six case studies once they had been approved by university or organizational IRBs. The NRC then sought and obtained a certificate of confidentiality from the Department of Health and Human Services for the entire project—that is, all six case studies. All subjects interviewed in these cases, no matter what their occupation or public role, signed a consent form that cautioned that every effort would be made to keep responses confiden- tial and anonymous. However, those already in the public eye and/or very close to the events who would be readily identifiable could not be promised such protections. Finally, only the individual case authors have access to the interview data on which these cases are based.1

24 DEADLY LESSONS: UNDERSTANDING LETHAL SCHOOL VIOLENCE VALUE OF THE CASE STUDY APPROACH The strengths and weaknesses of the case study approach are dis- cussed in detail in Appendix A. For this study, the committee sees them as valuable in helping people to understand and respond to instances of lethal violence in schools and school rampages. The case descriptions reveal important possible causes and points of intervention that might never have been considered by social scientists working with general models of violence and relying on statistical information to guide their understanding of causes and solutions. To some degree, thick description of events allows for a different kind of causal analysis than is possible by using large samples of superficially described events. In sum, the cases present a different method for developing ideas about causes and poten- tial interventions. Indeed, in looking at phenomena that are very rare and cannot be studied in laboratories, it may be that thick description is the only viable way of learning much about the likely causes or potentially important interventions. The value of the cases goes beyond their value as evidence in the scientific process of finding causes and effective interventions. The cases are valuable as stories to be used by communities as they make their own judgments about the nature of this threat, what they ought to do to pre- vent it, and how they ought to react to it if a school shooting should occur in their midst. Despite the enormous advances of scientific knowledge, this probably remains the principal way that most people facing real prob- lems continue to try to learn. We present these cases with the hope that they will support learning in the nation’s communities when they are used in formal and informal discussions about the problems of lethal violence in schools and school rampages, as well as when they are used as part of a more elaborate and formalized method of scientific inquiry into these matters. NOTE 1Within the broad outline of the template developed by the committee, the field work for the case studies was conducted and the studies were signed by the case authors as independent researchers. The case authors determined who to interview and what records to review, and each team independently arrived at the findings and conclusions in the individual case studies. Moreover, only the case authors had access to interview transcripts on which these cases are based. The authors were responsible for compliance with the protection for human subjects consistent with the institutional review boards approvals as described.

The shooting at Columbine High School riveted national attention on violence in the nation's schools. This dramatic example signaled an implicit and growing fear that these events would continue to occur—and even escalate in scale and severity.

How do we make sense of the tragedy of a school shooting or even draw objective conclusions from these incidents? Deadly Lessons is the outcome of the National Research Council's unique effort to glean lessons from six case studies of lethal student violence. These are powerful stories of parents and teachers and troubled youths, presenting the tragic complexity of the young shooter's social and personal circumstances in rich detail.

The cases point to possible causes of violence and suggest where interventions may be most effective. Readers will come away with a better understanding of the potential threat, how violence might be prevented, and how healing might be promoted in affected communities.

For each case study, Deadly Lessons relates events leading up to the violence, provides quotes from personal interviews about the incident, and explores the impact on the community. The case studies center on:

• Two separate incidents in East New York in which three students were killed and a teacher was seriously wounded.
• A shooting on the south side of Chicago in which one youth was killed and two wounded.
• A shooting into a prayer group at a Kentucky high school in which three students were killed.
• The killing of four students and a teacher and the wounding of 10 others at an Arkansas middle school.
• The shooting of a popular science teacher by a teenager in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.
• A suspected copycat of Columbine in which six students were wounded in Georgia.

For everyone who puzzles over these terrible incidents, Deadly Lessons offers a fresh perspective on the most fundamental of questions: Why?

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Home > DISSERTATIONS > AAI9923448

School violence: A case study of initiatives to combat violence at Riverside High School

Joseph Augustus Whittington , Fordham University

This dissertation presents a case study of violence in schools. It presents an examination of the types of violence that occurred at Riverside High School in Brooklyn, causes of violence, effects, initiatives that the school applied to combat violence, and the results of those initiatives. The review of literature presents the views of many educationists, psychologists, sociologists, and other professionals. The review also presents a brief history and overview of the problem of violence in schools as well as the theories of violence. From the perspectives of students, teachers, administrators, parents, and members of the community, there are many who believe that violence in American schools has become one of the main concerns in the field of education during recent years. Most educationists, as well as members of the general public, view the problem of violence in schools as not merely a school problem, but as a larger problem of the community that is imported into the school because of various reasons. Most individuals agree that violence has no place in the schools, and that schools ought to formulate contingency plans to deal with student violence should it occur. But very little has been done because within the various studies, reports, and conferences that had been undertaken, not much had been done in the direction of reliably discovering and documenting the causes of violence in the schools. There are a few studies that have shown that there are steps that schools can take to establish and maintain control of violence in schools. At Riverside High School, the first step was the establishment of a Restructuring Committee that was composed of students, teachers, administrators, parents, and members of the community and who desired to work toward charting a new direction for the school. The committee first undertook an indepth and comprehensive evaluation of the programs and events that had been taking place at the school with the view of effecting an overall plan for school discipline and safety. This Restructuring Committee then adjusted a few existing programs and activities, discontinued several, and introduced several new initiatives. Local personnel and other resources from within the school and the community that were formerly underutilized, or were formerly not utilized, were now fully utilized. The students, teachers, administrators, parents, and members of the community who desired positive change collectively worked toward effecting positive changes, and they achieved positive changes. Further, the results of the study at Riverside High School reveal that although a school may be located in a poor urban neighborhood that has been constantly submerged in crime, unemployment, prostitution, and various drug subcultures, and is plagued by violence, there are initiatives that can be successfully applied to combat violence. But such initiatives must be designed to satisfy the needs and maintain the interest of the community that would then become fused with the school, thereby forming the nucleus of sustained positive changes that will continuously maintain their interest while fulfilling their needs, as well as the needs of the school.

Subject Area

Educational administration|Educational sociology|Educational psychology|Criminology

Recommended Citation

Whittington, Joseph Augustus, "School violence: A case study of initiatives to combat violence at Riverside High School" (1997). ETD Collection for Fordham University . AAI9923448. https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI9923448

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What Are Predictors of School Violence? What Are Its Consequences?

When school violence occurs, major negative impacts on students’ personal and academic well-being can result. Equipped with information on the causes and consequences of school violence, we can improve strategies to prevent school violence and ameliorate its detrimental effects, thereby establishing safer learning environments.

A recent NIJ-funded study by researchers addresses what we know about the causes of school violence and the consequences of school violence for those who commit or are victimized by it, and for those who are both victimized by and commit violence. With coverage of past and contemporary literature spanning multiple disciplines, the study offers one of the most comprehensive reviews of school violence research to date. Reviewing twenty years of empirical studies, researchers identified the most significant likely causes and consequences of school violence perpetration and victimization. The findings resulting from the study can:

• Help educators and others improve strategies to prevent and reduce school violence.
• Direct researchers next steps to improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of school violence.

Pulling Together What the Research on School Violence Tells Us

Prior research has found that factors at the individual (e.g., mental health status, relationship with parents), school (e.g., school climate, school disorder), and community (e.g., economic deprivation, crime) levels are related to school violence. Though a great deal of research has identified potential sources and effects of school violence, efforts to comprehensively aggregate and identify gaps in our knowledge have been limited.

To fill this gap, researchers from Florida State University explored and analyzed studies that investigated K-12 school violence's correlates and consequences. The researchers first defined school violence as “the threat or use of force with the intention of causing harm, either at school or during school-related activities.” They then reviewed 55 systematic reviews published between 2000-2020. To supplement this review, they qualitatively summarized the results of 362 recent empirical studies — some of which were funded under NIJ’s Comprehensive School Safety Initiative — published between 2018-2020. Since students may engage in, or be victimized by, violence at school, the researchers assessed the predictors and consequences of in-school violence, victimization, and related behaviors perpetrated by or against students. The researchers also considered the individual, school, and community factors with the strongest and weakest relationships with school violence.

What Are the Predictors for and Consequences of School Violence?

The researchers found several predictors and consequences of school violence perpetration and victimization. These include:

Predictors of School Violence Perpetration

In order of importance, students experiencing or exhibiting the following are most likely to perpetrate school violence:

• Delinquent/antisocial behavior
• Child maltreatment
• Peer rejection
• Moral disengagement
• Deviant peers
• Callous unemotional traits
• Exposure to domestic violence, and any past victimization.

Conversely, students who are more agreeable, exhibited prosocial behaviors, and attend schools with positive climates are less likely to engage in school violence.

Predictors of School Violence Victimization

Students are more likely to be victims who:

• Are more neurotic
• Attend schools characterized by violence
• Have experienced victimization of any kind

In contrast, youth who demonstrate higher popularity and gregariousness are less likely to be victimized.

Those Who Perpetrate Who Are Also Victims

The factors predictive of both school violence perpetration and victimization suggest the presence of some degree of overlap where potential victims of school violence and those who may commit it have similar histories of being delinquent, abused, or mistreated.

Consequences of School Violence Perpetration

Bullying is the strongest outcome of school violence perpetration, meaning that youth who engage in violence at school are at risk of engaging in bullying behaviors.

Less strong, but also important, consequences of school violence perpetration are self-harm, suicidality, weapon carrying, dropping out of school, dating violence victimization, violent offending, and any offending/antisocial behavior.

Consequences of School Violence Victimization

The top three consequences of school violence victimization are:

• Bullying perpetration
• Low self-esteem

In general, the consequences of victimization are primarily indications of poor psychological and emotional health, as well as social issues.

Consequences of Both School Violence Perpetration and Victimization

Bullying perpetration is the most likely problem associated with both school violence perpetration and victimization.

Implications

The study offers a number of important implications for strategies to reduce school violence and suggestions for future research.

This study sheds light on which factors are strongly or weakly associated with school violence, which are linked with school violence perpetration versus victimization, and which to target to reduce school violence. Overall, delinquency, negative emotionality, and exposure to violence are strong predictors of school violence, while bullying, antisocial/aggressive behavior, suicidality, and depressive symptoms are the most salient consequences. Evidence also suggests a unique set of risk factors that are separately associated with either perpetration or victimization. Specifically, school violence perpetration tends to have behavioral consequences, while school violence victimization mostly has emotional or psychological consequences.

The researchers recommend tailored school violence reduction strategies. Programs with the goal of reducing school violence should focus on curbing negative behavioral acts such as bullying, weapon carrying, violence, and school dropout. Conversely, programs concerned with decreasing victimization should emphasize mitigating emotional harms. Finally, as peer-related factors were identified as top predictors for both school perpetration and victimization, successful interventions should encourage peer support and build prosocial relationships.

To improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of K-12 school violence, researchers identify a number of directions for future research. These recommendations include a call for studies to:

• Differentiate between forms of serious (such as those involving weapons) and non-serious violence at school.
• Identify the causal processes that link various predictors and consequences to school violence and victimization.
• Improve understanding of peer and situational contexts that set the stage for victimization and violence at school.
• Incorporate more rigorous, longitudinal designs to draw definite conclusions about school violence's causal processes and consequences.

About This Article

The research described in this article was funded by NIJ. It is based on the report The Causes and Consequences of School Violence: A Review by Jillian Turanovic and Sonja Siennick.

About the author

Raven Lewis is a Research Assistant at the National Institute of Justice. Mary Poulin Carlton is a Social Science Analyst at the National Institute of Justice.

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Violence in the schools: clinical issues and case analysis for high-risk children

Affiliation.

• 1 University of Kentucky Medical Center, Murray State University, KY 42071, USA.
• PMID: 10921208
• DOI: 10.1023/B:CHUD.0000037153.18246.70

School violence in rural communities has gained considerable attention nationally. Examined are theoretical considerations involving escape theory, the risk and protective factors for school violence, case analyses of recent case studies, and discussion of recent school violence involving fatal injuries to others. Also discussed are diagnostic issues in understanding children who are at-risk for school violence and ways school violence maybe managed in the schools. Suggestions and recommendations including recommendations provided by the National School Safety Center for school personnel are offered, as are steps to be taken in creating a safe school environment. This information may be helpful to child psychiatry and clinical personnel who provide services to school aged children.

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How to Identify and Prevent School Violence

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Recognizing the Signs of School Violence

School violence refers to violence that takes place in a school setting. This includes violence on school property, on the way to or from school, and at school trips and events. It may be committed by students, teachers, or other members of the school staff; however, violence by fellow students is the most common.

An estimated 246 million children experience school violence every year; however, girls and gender non-conforming people are disproportionately affected.

"School violence can be anything that involves a real or implied threat—it can be verbal, sexual, or physical, and perpetrated with or without weapons. If someone is deliberately harming someone or acting in a way that leaves someone feeling threatened, that‘s school violence,” says Aimee Daramus , PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist.

This article explores the types, causes, and impact of school violence and suggests some steps that can help prevent it.

Types of School Violence

School violence can take many forms. These are some of the types of school violence:

• Physical violence , which includes any kind of physical aggression, the use of weapons, as well as criminal acts like theft or arson.
• Psychological violence , which includes emotional and verbal abuse . This may involve insulting, threatening, ignoring, isolating, rejecting, name-calling, humiliating, ridiculing, rumor-mongering, lying, or punishing another person.
• Sexual violence , which includes sexual harrassment, sexual intimidation, unwanted touching, sexual coercion, and rape .
• Bullying , which can take physical, psychological, or sexual forms and is characterized by repeated and intentional aggression toward another person.
• Cyberbullying , which includes sexual or psychological abuse by people connected through school on social media or other online platforms. This may involve posting false information, hurtful comments, malicious rumors, or embarrassing photos or videos online. Cyberbullying can also take the form of excluding someone from online groups or networks.

Causes of School Violence

There often isn’t a simple, straightforward reason why someone engages in school violence. A child may have been bullied or rejected by a peer, may be under a lot of academic pressure, or may be enacting something they’ve seen at home, in their neighborhood, on television, or in a video game.

These are some of the risk factors that can make a child more likely to commit school violence:

• Poor academic performance
• Prior history of violence
• Hyperactive or impulsive personality
• Mental health conditions
• Witnessing or being a victim of violence
• Alcohol, drug, or tobacco use
• Dysfunctional family dynamic
• Domestic violence or abuse
• Access to weapons
• Delinquent peers
• Poverty or high crime rates in the community

It’s important to note that the presence of these factors doesn’t necessarily mean that the child will engage in violent behavior.

Impact of School Violence

Below, Dr. Daramus explains how school violence can affect children who commit, experience, and witness it, as well as their parents.

Impact on Children Committing Violence

Children who have been victims of violence or exposed to it in some capacity sometimes believe that becoming violent is the only way they‘ll ever be safe.

When they commit violence, they may experience a sense of satisfaction when their emotional need for strength or safety is satisfied. That‘s short-lived however, because they start to fear punishment or retribution, which triggers anger that can sometimes lead to more violence if they’re scared of what might happen to them if they don’t protect themselves. 

Children need help to try and break the cycle; they need to understand that violence can be temporarily satisfying but that it leads to more problems.

Impact on Children Victimized by School Violence

Victims of school violence may get physically injured and experience cuts, scrapes, bruises, broken bones, gunshot wounds, concussions, physical disability, or death.

Emotionally speaking, the child might experience depression , anxiety, or rage. Their academic performance may suffer because it can be hard to focus in school when all you can think about is how to avoid being hurt again.

School violence is traumatic and can cause considerable psychological distress. Traumatic experiences can be difficult for adults too; however, when someone whose brain is not fully developed yet experiences trauma, especially if it’s over a long time, their brain can switch to survival mode, which can affect their attention, concentration, emotional control, and long-term health. 

According to a 2019 study, children who have experienced school violence are at risk for long-term mental and physical health conditions, including attachment disorders, substance abuse, obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and respiratory conditions.

The more adverse childhood experiences someone has, the greater the risk to their physical and mental health as an adult.

Impact on Children Who Witness School Violence

Children who witness school violence may feel guilty about seeing it and being too afraid to stop it. They may also feel threatened, and their brain may react in a similar way to a child who has faced school violence.

Additionally, when children experience or witness trauma , their basic beliefs about life and other people are often changed. They no longer believe that the world is safe, which can be damaging to their mental health.

For a child to be able to take care of themselves as they get older, they need to first feel safe and cared for. Learning to cope with threats is an advanced lesson that has to be built on a foundation of feeling safe and self-confident.

Children who have experienced or witnessed school violence can benefit from therapy, which can help them process the trauma, regulate their emotions, and learn coping skills to help them heal.

Impact on Parents

Parents react to school violence in all kinds of ways. Some parents encourage their children to bully others, believing that violence is strength. Some try to teach their children how to act in a way that won’t attract bullying or other violence, but that never works and it may teach the child to blame themselves for being bullied. 

Others are proactive and try to work with the school or challenge the school if necessary, to try and keep their child safe. 

It can be helpful to look out for warning signs of violence, which can include:

• Talking about or playing with weapons of any kind
• Harming pets or other animals
• Threatening or bullying others
• Talking about violence, violent movies, or violent games
• Speaking or acting aggressively

It’s important to report these signs to parents, teachers, or school authorities. The child may need help and support, and benefit from intervention .

Preventing School Violence

Dr. Daramus shares some steps that can help prevent school violence:

• Report it to the school: Report any hint of violent behavior to school authorities. Tips can be a huge help in fighting school violence. Many schools allow students to report tips anonymously.
• Inform adults: Children who witness or experience violence should keep telling adults (parents, teachers, and counselors) until someone does something. If an adult hears complaints about a specific child from multiple people, they may be able to protect other students and possibly help the child engaging in violence to learn different ways.
• Reach out to people: Reach out to children or other people at the school who seem to be angry or upset, or appear fascinated with violence. Reach out to any child, whether bullied, bullying, or neither, who seems to have anxiety, depression, or trouble managing emotions. Most of the time the child won’t be violent, but you’ll have helped them anyway by being supportive.

A Word From Verywell

School violence can be traumatic for everyone involved, particularly children. It’s important to take steps to prevent it because children who witness or experience school violence may suffer physical and mental health consequences that can persist well into adulthood.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preventing school violence .

UNESCO. What you need to know about school violence and bullying .

UNESCO. School violence and bullying .

Nemours Foundation. School violence: what students can do .

Ehiri JE, Hitchcock LI, Ejere HO, Mytton JA. Primary prevention interventions for reducing school violence . Cochrane Database Syst Rev . 2017;2017(3):CD006347. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD006347.pub2

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Understanding school violence .

Ferrara P, Franceschini G, Villani A, Corsello G. Physical, psychological and social impact of school violence on children . Italian Journal of Pediatrics . 2019;45(1):76. doi:10.1186/s13052-019-0669-z

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School-based violence: the context and impacts

School-based violence: the context and impacts – understand.

Introduction

School-based violence occurs on school premises either between or among learners, between learners and educators, or between educators and the principal (or between/among staff members).

School violence is defined (Mncube, 2013:3) as “any behaviour of learners, educators, administrators or non-school persons, attempting to inflict injury on another person or to damage school property”.

According to Duma (2013:5), school-based violence “denies those subjected to it their humanity to make a difference, either by reducing them from what they are or by limiting them from becoming what they might be”.

Du Plessis (2007) and Duma (2013) emphasise the importance to distinguish between political violence, gang violence, general criminal violence and violence in relationships. All forms of violence, in some way or another, affect many of our South African schools. 

School violence is prevalent across both developing and developed countries with localised and cultural factors influencing the perception and manifestation of this phenomenon in different contexts (United Nations, 2006).

When looking at this phenomenon, it is important to look at it from a broader social context.

Context of school violence

South Africa has approximately 12 million public schools with independent learners who attend close to 27 000 schools (Kollapan, 2006).  One has to acknowledge the fact that some of these schools are situated in areas and in communities that experience a great deal of crime and violence; thus they are exposed to violence on a frequent basis.

The reality of pupils carrying knives, guns and arriving and going to school under the influence of substances such as drugs and alcohol has become part of daily school life. Such incidences underline the extent of violence and crime that occur in our communities, which generally impacts negatively on education and what happens in the school in particular (Mncube & Harbor, 2013:1).

Scarpa (2003:2) refers to community violence as “violence that is experienced as a victim or witness in or near homes, schools and surrounding neighbourhoods.” The definition of community violence is more comprehensive in that it encompasses violence that occurs within and outside of the family or home (Mkhize, 2012).

Sadly, the normalisation of violence has made it seem as if violence is necessary in resolving conflict. Violence in schools may arise from different sources, occur in different forms, and involve different role players. It may also involve different actors at different times inside the school.

School violence in South Africa has become a significant problem with frequent reports appearing in the written and electronic media about shootings, stabbings, and other forms of violence that occurred in both public and private schools.

Prinsloo (2005:5) defines a safe school as “a school that is free of danger and where there is an absence of any possible harm; a place where non-educators, educators and learners may work, teach and learn without fear of ridicule, intimidation, harassment, humiliation, or violence.”

Comparison of Levels of Violence between ‘Advantaged’ and ‘Disadvantaged’ Schools 

The level of violence in advantaged and disadvantaged schools are not the same, as research has shown that geographic location has an impact on the level of violence that occurs in schools. 

Else (1995) argues that school violence is often the result of the spill-over of other forms of violence such as domestic violence and gangsterism, especially in impoverished areas.

This implies that learners from disadvantaged public schools are more likely to perpetrate violence against educators than learners from advantaged or ‘semi/private’ schools due to several factors, such as the following:  

• Disadvantaged schools generally have larger learner enrolment than advantaged schools, which means that classrooms are more overcrowded and difficult to control.  
• The communities in which disadvantaged schools are situated experience high levels of violence.  
• Some learners in disadvantaged schools come from families that live in poverty, which has a negative effect on for example parents’ interest in and support of their children’s education. 
• Disadvantaged schools lack adequate security measures which contributes to violence occurring within school premises. 
• There is lack of support services from school psychologists or social workers in disadvantaged schools due to the lack of financial assistance from the Department of Education. 

Although the levels of violence in advantaged and disadvantaged schools vary, the main causes of violence in both categories are similar. According to the study conducted by Singh (2006), the findings indicated that the main cause of violence in both categories was a lack of discipline at home.

This implies that the family has a great influence on learners’ behaviour at school.   

Socio-Cultural Factors 

Some South African schools are viewed as the most dangerous places to be, as it is here where non-school persons intrude; and where learners victimise each other and educators, disrupt the culture of learning and the teaching process, and basically vandalise school property (Siegel & Senna, 1988:309).

Most of the offenders in schools are learners who are currently enrolled in schools or offenders, such as gang members, who trespass on school premises.

Some of these trespassers may once have been students at that particular school but have dropped out.

Socio-cultural factors determine what is socially accepted as being right or wrong in communities.

These socio-cultural structures include family, the church, communities, and the law. Unacceptable behaviour by learners includes theft, drug use, rape, murder and bullying, to mention a few. In a society where norms and values still apply, every illegal act perpetrated by the learners should be punished according to the law. 

Causes of school-based violence  

There is no single cause of violence, but there are a number of factors that contribute to the culture of violence in schools. 

Burton (2007:12) argues that “a series of interrelated factors impact on young people in different ways, one of which will be in the perpetrating of violent acts against other young people and society in general”. In order for one to understand the causes of violence, one needs to critically look at the broader context in which the school is situated, such as the community.

According to Singh’s (2006) study on the effects of violence on educators, the main causes of violence in schools were revealed to be academic tension, lack of consequences for poor behaviour, and violence modelled by society.

here is a strong relationship between academic underachievement and antisocial behaviour, particularly aggression (Keller & Tapasak, 2004).

Learners who underperform are more likely to be associated with violence than learners who do well at school and who are ‘top achievers’. Factors such as low educational ambition are also associated with violence in adolescence.   

Bezuidenhout and Joubert (2003:62) identify the following causes of crime which have a negative impact on the culture of teaching and learning in South African schools: 

• Involvement in gang activities;   
• Lack of transformation in schools;   
• Negative perceptions of crime amongst black, coloured and white learners; 
• The presence of guns and other weapons at school;  
• The use of cannabis and other substances;   
• A lack of counselling services;   
• Intolerance towards learners of other races, religions and genders;  
• Parental apathy and the hero-worshiping of criminals and gang leaders. 

The Root of Violence in Schools

Individual, biological, and demographic factors.

Individuals who have a history of being abused either by family members or other members of society are likely to become violent towards others, more especially if they are teenagers. Substance abuse also contributes to persons becoming violent towards others. 

Relationship factors 

An individual’s family is a form of a relationship, thus a relationship that one has with one’s family contributes to whether one shows attributes of violence or not. For instance, teenagers who come from home environments that are abusive are more likely to become violent to others than teenagers who come from homes where they were nurtured and loved. 

Acceptability of violence 

If violence is accepted in the home as a behavioural norm, it implies that it is acceptable to use violence to mistreat others, to disrespect others in one way or another, and that it is okay to physically assault other individuals because it is what is done at home. 

Community 

The communities that we live in have become institutions of violence. In some neighbourhoods values are very low, which is not good for a child’s upbringing. Communities where there are high levels of crime and violence will have a negative effect on teenagers. In some of these communities teenagers are forced to become gang members and they get involved in illegal actives.  

Societal norms and values

Cultural acceptance of violence in today’s society has become common practice in many communities. We live in a society where the violence that takes place in communities is justified. This implies that people who are violent have a certain level of power over other community members.

Community violence 

Violence that occurs in the community spills over to schools which then turns schools into places for violence rather than being the safe havens we think they are.

Mkhize (2012) defines community violence as the “frequent and continual exposure to the use of guns, knives, drugs and random violence”.

Violent incidences at schools are reported from time to time and reflected in the media. These reports indicate the extent of violence in South Africa and how schools, educators and learners are exposed to violence.

Those learners who take weapons into schools are most likely engaged in outside activities related to violence and they then bring weapons to protect themselves or harm others.

Having a weapon on you at any time, whether it is within or outside the school premises, means you are ready to use it at any given moment, which poses a danger to other learners and educators in the school.

This has a negative effect on educators because they always have to be on guard about what their learners might do to them at school. The safety of learners as well as that of educators can no longer be guaranteed in our schools (Bucher & Manning, 2003). School violence presents educators with many challenges and is now a threat to teaching as a profession.

Smith (2007:53) notes the following: “Securing the school premises and being strict about who is admitted to the school grounds is a practical way of solving the problem that demands practical solutions”.

Easy access to schools by outsiders makes learners and educators easy victims of people who enter the premises unnoticed and leave after assaulting learners or educators.

Vally, Dolombisa and Porteus (2002:85) argue that the extensive violence against learners and school personnel has been omnipresent and disruptive and has severely hindered South African schools in their efforts of trying to improve education and address issues of equity in communities where it is most needed.   

Schools that are situated in areas that experience high levels of crime or gangsterism will have incidences where violence that occurs outside will spill over into the school. Crawage (2005) defines gangsterism as “the evolution of an urban identity determined along racial and economic lines”. 

Teenagers that associate themselves with gangs will state that the gang is like family to them and often these teenagers who form or become part of a gang come from poor communities.

Gang violence is often born out of need and a social disadvantaged situation (Donald et al., 2006) to which, due to the influence of a free market democracy, our schools might unwittingly be contributing.  

References 

Bezuidenhout, C. & Joubert, S. (2003). Child and youth misbehaviour in South Africa: a holistic view.  Pretoria: Van Schaik

Buchner, K.T. & Manning, M.L. (2005). Creating safe schools. The Clearing House, 79, 5560. 

Crawage, M. (2005).  How resilient adolescence learners in a township school cope with school violence: a case study. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Education, University of Johannesburg.

Du Plessis, A.H. (2008). Exploring secondary school educator experiences of school violence. Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Pretoria

Duma, S.I (2013) Dynamics of school violence and the role of school leadership in reducing it in two umlazi township school. University of KwaZulu-Natal

Else, N.P. (1995). Educators’ perception of physical violence in secondary schools of Port Elizabeth. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Port Elizabeth.

Kollapan, J. (2006). School violence. Report for the Helen Suzman Foundation, South African Human Rights Commission.  

Mkhize, S. (2012) The Effects Of Community Violence On Learners In A Rural Context. University of  KwaZulu Natal

Mncube, V. & Harbor, C. (2013). Dynamics of violence in South African schools: report. Printed and published by the University of South Africa, Muckleneuk, Pretoria. 

Prinsloo, I.J. (2005). How safe are South African schools? South African Journal of Education, 25Singh, S.K. (2006). Violence in schools: a recipe for disaster. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban (1), 5–10.

Scarpa, A. (2003). Community violence exposure in young adults. Trauma, Violence, Abuse, 4, 210.

Siegel, L. (2006). Criminology (9th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. Available at http://prawntail.com/theories-of-victimization-victim-precipitation-lifestyle-deviant-placeand-routine-activities/ Access date 12/11/16. 

Siegel, L.J & Senna, J.J. (1988).  Juvenile delinquency.  New York: West Publishing Company.

• National Politics

Parkland father addresses Escambia County educators on school violence

On Feb. 14, 2018, Max Schachter lost his son, Alex , during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

Alex was 14, a member of the school’s band, a basketball player and one of the first of the 17 students and teachers killed in the tragedy. Seventeen other students and school personnel also were injured during the 3 minute and 51 second-shooting rampage.

“I couldn’t save Alex that day, but my mission is to make sure this never happens again in another community. “But there is still a lot of complacency,” Schachter told Escambia County School District leaders and administrators on Friday.

“The further away from Valentine’s Day of 2018 when the Parkland shooting happened, there is that sense in some communities around the country that ‘that’s not going to happen here.’”

Schachter said he hopes his presentation shifts that mindset.

“Listen, we never thought it would happen in Parkland. If it can happen in Parkland, it can happen here, and this is what happened, and these are the failures so don’t let it happen in your community.”

Back to school: School bus transport was a mess last year. Both districts promise a better start to year.

Nikolas Cruz, a former Marjory Stoneman Douglas student, was convicted of the shooting in 2022 and is now serving 34 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. The tragedy is the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history.

During his presentation, Schachter shared the missed opportunities that school and law enforcement officials had to avert the tragedy. Cruz had a long and documented history of disciplinary actions at schools as well as threats made on social media platforms.

Authorities had been notified many times about these incidents.

Schachter said whenever another mass shooting occurs in the U.S., it is like a punch in the gut.

“… To myself and all of the other families that have had a horrible tragedy and been through a school shooting. It’s really painful, and it makes me mad, and it makes me work that much harder to reach more people, to reach more school districts, to reach more community members so they can enact the change,” he said.

“Florida is leading the nation in school safety. That is part of my mission, is to spread that around the country so that more people are doing what Parkland, Florida, is doing.”

Since the tragedy, Schachter has been instrumental in the establishment of laws at the state and federal level addressing school shootings.

The father said he believes Alex is proud of the work being done in his name, especially Safe Schools for Alex, an online dashboard where parents can find statistics on their children’s schools.

“Parents can see the incidences of bullying, the number of fights and weapons that are coming into their schools. This really empowers (parents) with the information they need to have the important conversations with administrators,”  he added.

School district leaders and administrators were visibly moved by the presentation.

Dana Boddy, Escambia High School principal, said as a parent and administrator, she is heartbroken by the Parkland shooting.

“All of the warning signs they had, and the opportunities to make good decisions and prevent the attack before it ever happened is heartbreaking,” Boddy said. “It is good we got to see and experience this presentation. It will be fresh on our minds as we go back so we can make sure we keep our schools and children safe.”

She praised the school district for being proactive in addressing school safety.

“Every year, the Escambia County School District has put in place multiple new steps to make sure we keep our children and our staff as safe as possible,” she said.

Frances Gray, an Escambia County Public Schools Foundation board member and former teacher, asked Schachter how his other children were coping with the tragedy.

Schachter said his oldest son works in New York City, his oldest daughter works in Philadelphia and the youngest daughter just graduated high school and will attend the University of Tampa this fall.

“He talked about a lot of what he went through, and he talked about his wife, but I wanted to know how his children were doing, “ Gray said. “My heart is always going out to the children, and how children process what happens when a family is touched by violence.”

She added the work Schachter is doing is important.

“We’ve had so many school shootings, and because I’m from Connecticut, the Sandy Hook School massacre affected me deeply,” Gray said. “I feel like sometimes we become numb, because we have had so many instances of this violence – such as Uvalde, Texas. We expect law enforcement to show up and be the heroes, and I love what Mr. Schacter said to educators − ‘If you are a classroom teacher you are the person responsible for your children and your classroom.’ We also need to be trained and know what to do in situations like this.”

Kyle Kinser, the district’s director of protection services and school safety specialist, said he invited Schachter to speak here after meeting him and touring the now-demolished Building 13 on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school campus in October 2023.

“It was important to me for our leadership and our school personnel to get that same message that I had. We must be vigilant, and we have to continue to be vigilant. We don’t need to wait for another event to happen to renew our focus, and people like Mr. Schachter can highlight that without lives being lost,” said Kinser who also oversees the district’s Guardian program.

The 40 Guardians cover the district’s elementary schools. School resource officers work in the middle and high schools.

“We have to keep our guards up, and we have to keep talking about this. When we stop talking about this, we disgrace those who perished before,” Kinser added.

He noted that safety and security is a priority in Escambia County schools.

“Mr. Schachter’s presentation is troubling. I have two young girls, and I can’t imagine him telling that story once, I can’t imagine him telling it two times. I can’t imagine him doing what he does but he has a purpose. He talked about that purpose today. He talked about focusing on what he could do, so no other family has to experience this tragedy,” Kinser said.

Billy Nolen, a U.S. Navy veteran and one of the district’s first Guardians, said the presentation hit home.

“Hearing from someone who had a child in the school was riveting. It was a lot of information and a lot to think about and very emotional,” Nolen said.

“This will always be in the back of my mind that, ‘Hey, this is what happened, and this is what can happen. We all must be more vigilant and pay attention to the little things.”

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School violence: a qualitative case study

2010, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences

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Celebrating Excellence: Julie Godin, Recipient of the 2024 Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship

Why did you choose to study at the University of Ottawa and the Faculty of Social Sciences?

For me, the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa is the perfect environment to pursue my reflections and work on violence against women, particularly among those with marginalized bodies. I will benefit from the UO's excellence in research and teaching, and the School of Social Work's specialization in health. The presence of the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies and the anchoring of the Feminist Anti-Violence Research Collective (FemAnVi) at the School of Social Work, a collective in which I am already involved, are also major assets in my choice of university, as their proximity will enable me to evolve in a multidisciplinary context.

Finally, one of the most important factors in my decision to pursue doctoral studies was the relationship I developed with my director Alexandre Baril, a professor at the School of Social Work. Right from the start of my time at the UO, he was supportive and genuinely committed to my success. As a specialist in gender and body studies himself, I benefit from his expertise and support in achieving my doctoral objectives. So, despite the distance between my home in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region and the University of Ottawa, all of these factors led me to want to study in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Can you tell us a little about your research?

Although it's commonly believed that it's unlikely that fat women are victims of sexual violence, based on grossophobic stereotypes of their sexuality, they report a higher rate of such violence than thinner women. They are targeted by such violence because of their weight, and the aggressions they suffer are linked to their fatness, for example with www.googrossophobic insults. The consequences of this violence affect all spheres of their lives, including their relationship with their bodies.

That's why this project aims to answer the following question: how does the sexual and grossophobic violence experienced by fat women in Quebec influence their relationship to their bodies? Through the mobilization of intersectionality, this project proposes the use of theories from fat studies, feminist studies and gender studies. It will employ two modes of data collection. Firstly, it will make visible the experience of these women and the consequences of this violence on their relationship with their bodies through 25 individual interviews with women who have experienced this violence. Secondly, participants wishing to be involved in the second phase of data collection will be invited to take part in two focus groups.

The aim of these groups will be, on the one hand, to enable them to reappropriate the knowledge generated during the interviews and, on the other, to give them a space to express themselves collectively on this issue.

In scientific terms, this project will make an original contribution to the fields of gender studies, fat studies, body studies, social work and psychology, by exploring the complex links between grossophobia and sexual violence. At the social level, this project has the potential to offer a new perspective on the experience and support of these women, by emphasizing the grossophobic dimension of certain assaults. How important has your time at the Faculty of Social Sciences been to your achievements?

Having started my PhD program in January 2024, I'm still in the early stages of my career at the Faculty of Social Sciences. However, the attentiveness, availability and solidarity of colleagues, professors and support staff are undeniable and have enabled me to integrate in a very short time, making it easier for me to adapt to this new context of study. The fact that I can benefit from quality teaching in French is also a lever for my success and makes me proud to be able to develop knowledge and carry out work in my mother tongue. What are your next steps?

All the steps leading up to the completion of my doctorate will enable me to pursue my reflections on the links between sexual violence and grossophobia on the relationship to women's bodies, but also on my position as a researcher and activist. Now, I'm halfway through my program, and my courses will be completed by the end of the fall 2024 semester. I'll then be able to embark on my comprehensive exam to consolidate my theoretical learning about my subject of study. In the summer of 2025, I'll be able to start developing the recruitment and data collection tools needed to present my project to the UO's Research Ethics Committee (REC) in the social sciences and humanities. This step is essential before I can begin collecting data from the women in my study population. Finally, the analysis of the data and the writing of my thesis

• Frank Cerabino
• Nation & World
• Fort Lauderdale

Vigil to honor Dwyer High's Te'Shawn Harris, shot to death days before senior year started

The palm beach county sheriff's office is investigating the fatal shooting of 17-year-old te'shawn harris in the early hours of aug. 8 in lake park..

LAKE PARK — Ricky Aiken will never forget Te'Shawn Harris’ smile.

The 17-year-old Lake Park resident kept smiling in the wake of his father’s death, when he picked up work to help his mother pay the bills and spent more time taking care of his little sister.

“This kid had so many losses in life, and where most people would have lost hope, he just refused to lose hope,” said Aiken, founder of Inner City Innovators, a nonprofit that supports at-risk children and addresses gun violence.

No one was smiling Aug. 8. Early that morning, someone shot and killed Harris , days before he was to start his senior year at William T. Dwyer High School in Palm Beach Gardens.

The fatal shooting happened outside a house on the 300 block of Sixth Street in Lake Park just before 3 a.m., according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. It had made no arrests as of Aug. 16 but continues to investigate Harris’ death.

A vigil honoring Harris will take place at 7 p.m. Saturday at Kelsey Park, at Park Avenue and Federal Highway in Lake Park. Aiken also has organized an online fundraiser to cover funeral costs and meals for Harris' family.

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Dwyer High School senior killed days before school started wanted to be remembered as a soldier

Harris grew up in Riviera Beach and spent his freshman year at Palm Beach Gardens High before moving to Lake Park and attending Dwyer. Some of his teachers called him their favorite student. He loved to spend time with friends, play basketball and tell jokes. His signature look was wearing his hair in dreads.

For two years, Harris was a member of Hope Dealers, an Inner City Innovators mentoring program. He attended his last mentoring meeting hours before his death. The discussion question Aiken asked that night was, “How do you want to be remembered?”

Harris wanted to be remembered as a soldier — someone who pushed through and got stronger, no matter how hard life became.

Harris’ father passed away this year, Aiken said. Since then, he brought his little sister along to mentoring meetings each week, which he loved doing.

Mavis Pettway of Lake Park, Harris’ mentor, said he always looked after his little sister and wanted to be a good role model to her.

“Te'Shawn always brought joy to everybody around him,” she said. "He was the light in the room."

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Palm Beach County residents who knew teen never thought he'd be at risk for violence

David Rae, a 36-year-old Hope Dealers mentor who lives in West Palm Beach, was like an older brother to Harris.

They met about a year ago, when Harris asked to tag along to a Hope Dealers field trip to the South Florida Fair. Rae couldn't take him because Harris didn’t have any release forms filled out.

Harris was so excited that he dressed nice and walked quite a distance to reach the meeting spot.

“His disappointment was visible, but he took it like a champ,” Rae said. “He said, ‘Don’t worry, don’t stress, I totally understand.’ It was a nice intro to his spirit. He was caring, genuine and intentional.”

Rae drove him to mentoring sessions — sometimes to school when he needed it — and gave him job interview tips and other life advice.

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Harris was there for Rae in hard times, too.

“He was one of those people who, if he heard you talking bad about yourself, he would snap you out of it,” Rae said.

Rae awoke heartbroken to the news of Harris’ death. He'd just dropped him off at his house the night before and had plans to see him that day.

Rae said he never would have assumed Harris was at risk for violence.

“He lived by his heart,” Rae said. “He wasn’t a gangster and he wasn’t a criminal. It would be a tragedy for anyone to not know the truth about Te'Shawn. He was one of the brightest human beings I have ever met.”

Maya Washburn covers northern Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida-Network. Reach her at [email protected] . Support local journalism: Subscribe today .

Mr. Walz to VP Walz? Former students react to seeing their teacher on presidential ticket

To Minnesotans, Tim Walz is their governor of six years. To Vice President Kamala Harris , he is her newly official 2024 running mate.

But to Nate Hood, he was Coach and Mr. Walz. 

"I'm much more excited about the race now that he's involved," Hood, 40, said. "The energy that he's bringing right now to the campaign reminds me of the energy that he would bring to football practice."

Formerly Hood’s eleventh grade geography teacher, Walz is now #2 on the Democratic presidential ticket . Harris announced the decision Tuesday.

Walz was one of a handful of candidates said to be in the running for the VP spot. Weeks ago, the governor was relatively unknown outside the Midwest. Today, his name recognition and popularity have rocketed among a crowd of freshly energized Democratic voters .

Live updates: Minnesota governor Tim Walz named Kamala Harris' running mate

Hood said the Walz he knows has always been adored. 

“Tim Walz is a very down to earth human being. When you see him and when you talk to him, he's very relatable,” said Hood, a city planner in St. Paul, Minnesota. “I think that's a huge asset for the Harris team.” 

Walz taught social studies and coached a championship team

Walz, born and raised in Nebraska, began his teaching career in South Dakota at a Native American reservation, then spent a year teaching in China, before returning home to the Cornhusker State. 

He and his wife – and fellow teacher – Gwen moved again to her home state of Minnesota in 1996. 

Walz taught social studies and geography at Mankato West High School in southern Minnesota, where he was also a football coach and helped lead the team to their first state championship. 

“When he wanted to amp up players before a game, he did a great job of it,” Hood, a 2002 graduate of Mankato West and defensive line player at the time, said. “Just like the fiery speeches that you see him give today that might go viral, that's what he was doing. Except he was yelling at a bunch of 16- and 17-year-olds.” 

In his new role, Walz will be expected to help amp up the entire Democratic base and any Midwestern moderates still deciding between Harris and former President Donald Trump in 2024. And he began that work even before Harris called his name, credited with coining the insult “weird,” now popularly used by Democrats against Trump and MAGA conservatives. 

More: Why Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz over Josh Shapiro as her running mate

"These are weird people on the other side," Walz told MSNBC in July. "They wanna take books away, they wanna be in your exam room, that's what it comes down to and don't, you know, get sugar-coating this, these are weird ideas. Listen to them speak, listen to how they talk about things." 

A teacher "universally beloved"

Other students at Mankato West remember Walz bringing that same energy and passion to his classroom. 

“I was a ‘C-ish student in high school,” Noah Hobbs wrote on X ahead of the Harris campaign’s official announcement. “Mr. Walz took the time to make sure that I was successful. Not only in his class but others. He made learning exciting.” 

The now-governor had a reputation for being the fun and favorite teacher, even by those who didn’t have him for history class. 

“Everybody liked Mr. Walz,” said Emily Scott, who did not have Walz for a teacher but remembers him leading their school trip to China when she was 17. 

More: 'Boring' vs 'weird': Trump campaign tries to define Walz after his Vance criticism stuck

Scott said Walz, who was also a lunchroom supervisor, acted as a bridge between the student cliques. 

“There were jocks that did football. There were history nerds like me that wanted to go to China,” Scott said. “Debate and speech nerds, band nerds. And Mr. Walz stood in the middle of all of that and was pretty much universally beloved.” 

When a student at Mankato West wanted to start the school’s first gay-straight alliance club in 1999, Walz agreed to be the group’s faculty adviser. 

"It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married," Walz said of his role in a 2018 Star Tribune article . 

Educator to politician, he's still Mr. Walz

Walz made the shift from educator to politician in 2006. He ran for a seat in the U.S. House, flipping what had been a reliably Republican district in southern Minnesota.  

Six terms later, Walz set his sights on governor. He is currently in the middle of his second term.

More: Tim Walz is Kamala Harris' VP pick: Minnesota governor named running mate

Peter Williams, a 2002 alumnus like Hood and Scott, has watched his former geography teacher go from Mankato to Congress to the governor’s mansion, and now to representing the Democratic presidential ticket out on the campaign trail. 

He described Walz as a local celebrity back home in Mankato. 

"He was already a pretty big figure in town that was always so nice to everyone,” said Williams, a 41-year-old attorney in Minneapolis. “It doesn't matter whether he's running for (vice) president or whatever, he's still the same guy. So, yeah, I think of him as Mr. Walz.”