Introduction
The subject of violence in schools is one increasingly marked by public concerns, likely due to modern and tragic episodes of multiple homicides committed within schools. This in turn generates awareness of violence within society itself as permeating schools and/or reflected by what is occurring in these institutions traditionally perceived as “safe” from such behaviors. The correlation is valid and important for, as the research will demonstrate, violence in schools invariably echoes issues within society, a reality long in place and of an inevitably wide range of forms. As the following outline for the research project will reveal, school violence is an inherently multifaceted issue, and one in which the school exists as a more isolated arena in which the various types and causes for violence in the society at large, both in the past and today, are focused and tragically represented.
Background Issues of the Subject
To comprehend how school violence inevitably reflects ideas and issues within the society as a whole, it is first necessary to examine types of it in the past. This approach will validate how the culture informs the behaviors within the schools, and in ways exposing connections to violence between them. In this section then will be focuses on several kinds of violence noted as traditionally occurring in schools, and the first topic under this heading will be a form of it long in place and not perceived as violence until more recent years: corporal punishment as applied by teachers. This was a reality within American education for many years, dating to the earliest schools and based upon English Common Law. It is also not entirely a form of violence of the remote past, nor one in place without legal and social approval. If parents traditionally and generally believed that physical punishment by teachers was valid, so too did the United States Supreme Court uphold this view in its 1977 ruling in Ingraham v. Wright, when it supported a teacher’s “right” to paddle a student to the extent that medical treatment was called for (Regoli, Hewitt, & Delisi, 2009, p. 411). The U.S.S.C. Ruling notwithstanding, corporal punishment was and is a form of violence in schools, and merits attention as reflecting American ideologies actually promoting school violence.
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The second topic within the background section will be on school gangs, and the first appearances of them in the 20th century. Those of earlier decades are not typically viewed as violent in relation to schools, but research reveals a strong connection between street and school gang violence. In the past and today, street gangs recruit from the schools, as marginalized students seek acceptance and are willing to engage in violent behaviors to earn their place in the gang. Then, more modern studies of Chicago’s schools indicate that large numbers of students elect to drop out because of the gang infiltration of the schools (Cummings, Monti, 1993, p. 130). Gang violence, then, is an important topic in assessing school violence of the past, as well as today.
Modern Issues
While not necessarily a strictly modern problem, no analysis of violence in schools is complete without noting the element of sexual violence, which is increasingly a concern. This is the first topic to be researched under the heading of modern issues, and it demands attention because the violence here both reflects societal problems and creates intense victimization. It is noted that sexual assault is carried out by teachers and administrators, but the most prevalent type is that of the male student physically intimidating, molesting, or raping the female (Denmark et al, 2006, p. 101). Such violence, moreover, is not limited to adolescent or older students.
The second topic addressed here is that of bullying, both in its traditional form and in the cyberbullying causing such concern today. Traditional bullying is most certainly violent, as the victim is typically harassed physically, and often beaten. Cyberbullying, however, is by no means removed from violence, and it is noted as occurring frequently in school scenarios, in that the bullies select student peers. That cyberbullying greatly expands the bully’s opportunities has been noted in this regard, in that the effects are then evident when the victim is within the school setting (Bauman, Cross, & Walker, 2013, p. 168). Then, the effects clearly go to victimization sometimes leading to suicide and direct physical violence, so this is a critical topic.
The last topic to be addressed in the section on modern issues will be that of the epidemic of mass homicides as occurring in schools, noting the range of incidents from the Columbine shootings of 1990 to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of 2012. That perpetrators are not always students does not lessen the relevance of the issue as going to school violence, if only because these cases represent actual violence in the schools at its most extreme. Here as well is the opportunity to note how closely linked are social issues and the schools, in that student populations once held to be “safe,” and inherently vulnerable, are the objects of deadly attack.
Conclusion
As the above proposal indicates, school violence is a complex and inherently disturbing reality, and one by no means limited to the modern era. Physical abuse has been in place in schools, and legitimized, in the form of corporal punishment for centuries. Then, older and less overtly violent behaviors such as gangs and bullying today take on new – and more violent – aspects. Beyond this, modern episodes of students gunned down within the schools emphatically demand address, as no more horrific form of school violence may be conceived. As the research will demonstrate, each aspect of school violence also greatly supports how violence is enacted in the society in general, and that schools may be viewed as isolated arenas in which this violence is all the more magnified.
- Bauman, S., Cross, D., & Walker, J. L. (2013). Principles of Cyberbullying Research: Definitions, Measures, and Methodology. New York: Routledge.
- Cummings, S., & Monti, D. J. (1993). Gangs: The Origins and Impact of Contemporary Youth Gangs in the United States. Albany: SUNY Press.
- Denmark, F., Gielen, U., Krauss, H. H., Midlarsky, E., & Wesner, R. (2006). Violence in Schools: Cross-National and Cross-Cultural Perspectives. New York: Springer.
- Regoli, R. M., Hewitt, J. D., & Delisi, M. (2009). Delinquency in Society, 8th Ed. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
