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In this chapter, we consider the complexity of issues associated with violence in schools and provide an overview of this 33rd volume of Advances in Learning and Behavioral Disabilities. We begin with a brief consideration of the nature and definitions of violence as it manifests in schools and then consider three broad areas addressed by the chapters in this volume. First, we consider bullying and the bullying dynamic, including cyberbullying, and the intersection of bullying and students with disabilities. Next, we address the extraordinarily difficult topic of school shootings, including whether and how we can predict, prevent, and respond to school shootings. Finally, we consider more broadly advances in building a more positive school climate and sense of community and creating safer schools generally. In all of these, we acknowledge the challenges of understanding the complexity and multiple causes of school violence, and the apparent rise in many forms of violence in schools, but conclude with thoughts on the positive avenues identified by authors in this volume for ways we might better support children and youth in both preventing violence and responding to it in appropriate, supportive ways.

Purpose – This chapter examines the role of the media, guns, and violence in the social construction of masculinity in today's mediatized American culture.

Methodology – The chapter draws on critical theory and cultural studies to address crises of masculinity and school shootings. It applies and further develops Guy Debord's (1970) theory on spectacle in the contexts of contemporary violent media spectacles.

Findings – In the chapter it is argued that school shooters, and other indiscriminate gun killers, share male rage and attempts to resolve crises of masculinity through violent behavior; exhibit a fetishism of guns or weapons; and resolve their crises through violence orchestrated as a media spectacle. This demands growing awareness of mediatization of American gun culture, and calls for a need for more developed understanding of media pedagogy as a means to create cultural skills of media literacy, as well as arguing for more rational gun control and mental health care.

Originality/value of paper – The chapter contributes to the contemporary debate on mediatization of violence by discussing it within critical theory and cultural studies. The theoretical framework is applied to analysis of a range of different empirical cases ranging from school shootings to the Colorado movie theater massacre at the first night of the latest Batman movie in the summer of 2012.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the reduction of school violence from the management point of view. It reflects on the utterances by teachers, principals, learners and members of school governing bodies (SGBs) to establish the influence that school management practices can have on the prevalence of school violence.

This was a qualitative case study. Thus, semi-structured interviews with teachers, principals, learners and members of SGBs were conducted. In addition, focus group interviews with pupils and observations were used to collect data.

Findings suggest that most schools were still run in an authoritarian manner. Resultantly, it was also found that an authoritarian school management style practiced seemed to encourage the persistence of violence in schools.

Policies should incorporate and emphasise the use of pragmatic, critical democratic style of management to address school violence. This is important because a well-run, inclusive and more democratic school can help to reduce external and internal forms of violence. The results from this study further indicate that a poorly run and badly organised school is more prone to various forms of violence.

The paper adds to the growing body of knowledge in the field of educational management and offers a reference point for further research in the pursuit to eliminate violence in schools. The findings may also be a useful resource for school principals, teachers, policy-makers and other stakeholders who are seeking to eliminate violence in schools.

Recent highly publicized acts of violence and shootings on campus have prompted numerous crime prevention suggestions including having an armed presence in the schools. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of protective measures, policies, and school/neighborhood characteristics on school violence.

The data used in this study were part of the School Survey on Crime and Safety collected in 2006. The dependent measures of school violence include reports of violence, threatened attack with a weapon, attack with weapon, and gun possession. The sample was divided into high schools and all other grades to consider differences in levels of school violence among grade levels in relation to various law enforcement security measures, school security measures, and school characteristics.

Findings revealed mixed and often counterproductive results for law enforcement and school security efforts to control school violence. School characteristics, such as reports of bullying, location, and gang activity yielded numerous statistically significant findings. Policy recommendations and suggestions for future research are provided.

This study differs from much of the previous literature, which typically examines student and administrator attitudes about victimization and crime prevention. The current study examines detailed information on the actual effects of school violence prevention efforts. Furthermore, this study moves beyond most other works (that typically focus on high schools) as it considers school safety approaches by different grade levels.

Recent highly publicized acts of violence and shootings on school campuses have prompted numerous crime prevention responses. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of protective measures such as law enforcement, security policies, and school/neighborhood characteristics on school violence within the context of the racial composition of the school and grade level.

The data used in this study were part of the School Survey on Crime and Safety collected in 2006. The dependent measures of school violence include reports of serious violence, physical attacks/fights, gun or knife possession, and threats and attacks with a weapon. The sample was divided by racial composition of the school (predominately white, and predominately minority schools) and by grade level (high schools, and all other grades). A negative binomial regression was conducted due the count-based dependent variables.

Findings revealed that minority schools often face higher levels of reported violence and had a heavier law enforcement presence, which often had mixed or counterproductive results for reducing school violence. School characteristics, such as reports of bullying, location, gang activity, and security measures yielded numerous statistically significant results.

Officials proposing school violence prevention efforts should strongly consider the importance of school and community characteristics, most notably grade level, and the unique context of a predominately white or minority school as there were different statistically significant results. Furthermore, officials should be cautious about relying on simple efforts such as more security personnel to address school violence. Violence and crime on school grounds should not be viewed as being isolated from violence and other forms of crime in the community. Policy recommendations and suggestions for future research are provided.

This study differs from much of the previous literature, which typically examines student and administrator attitudes about victimization and crime prevention. The current study examines detailed information on the effects of school violence prevention efforts and moves beyond most other works as it considers school safety approaches within the context of racial composition of the school and by different grade levels.

Violence is still an alarming issue in Brazil, a country profoundly affected by social inequality. Since 1997, studies from UNESCO in Brazil have highlighted this worrying situation for youngsters from 15 to 24 years old, who are the portion of the population most exposed to violence, whether as victims, or agents. In terms of deaths that are caused by the so‐called external factors (i.e. homicides, traffic accidents and suicides), the quantitative data corresponding to the youth age groups are so high that they place Brazilian indices as the third highest in the world. In the light of the above, this paper provides a brief overview of the literature on the issue of violence in schools. In addition to that, the paper from the Director of the UNESCO Brasilia Office also analyses the series of studies and researches that UNESCO has been undertaking over the past years, an effort which would culminate into one of its most successful strategies to foster social inclusion through a community perspective, the “Making Room” program.

Purpose – This chapter explores the problem of school shootings as a source of anxiety and fear in schools. Such fear has generated calls for security in schools and has been a catalyst for the development and deployment of antiviolence policies in schools.

Methodology/approach – The chapter begins by examining the development of the Columbine Effect, which is a set of emotions surrounding youth social problems, particularly violence in schools. This Columbine Effect is then explored in relation to its role in the development of policies to mitigate the problem of school violence. These purposes are linked using a multilevel typology of school violence and their sources, created by Henry (2009).

Findings – The chapter explores the levels of violence addressed by six antiviolence policies: crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), zero tolerance, anti-bullying programming, emergency management planning, peer mediation, and school climate programming. The analysis indicates the level(s) of violence each type of policy is designed to address and identifies research evidence regarding the efficacy of each policy. The analysis also focuses on the unintended consequences of school antiviolence policies, especially those which reduce violence on one or more levels, while exacerbating the problem on other levels.

Research limitations/implications – The analytical approach was selective, rather than exhaustive. Nonetheless, the analysis has suggested a number of ironies concerning the unintended consequences of antiviolence programming in schools. This suggests the need for broader analysis in this area.

Practical implications – The analysis identifies a number of detrimental effects that have resulted from school violence policy initiatives ranging from the socialization of youth toward a society of control and authority. In addition, the chapter helps to clarify the (often negative) effects of hype about violence in schools.

Originality/value of chapter – Although not often connected, this chapter explores the intersection between the discourse of school violence (typically, a social problems framing concern) and the development of school antiviolence policies (typically, an applied social scientific concern).

To review the literature on delinquency and victimization among Caribbean youth, utilizing an ecological perspective.

The review was initiated by a search of peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1993 and 2013, which investigated any or all aspects of juvenile delinquency and/or youth victimization in the Caribbean. Studies were critically reviewed to determine whether they addressed relationships between victimization and delinquency, and the role of the social environment on youth.

The search yielded 23 relevant studies: 64 percent of the studies were conducted exclusively in Jamaica, and more than 75 percent were school based. Half of the articles addressed the links between victimization and delinquency among Caribbean youth but the majority was primarily descriptive.

Only peer-reviewed journals were included, so unpublished country and organizational reports were not covered in the review.

More current and longitudinal studies are needed, which examine the connections between delinquency and victimization, and the experiences in the smaller or less developed Caribbean countries.

The review provides directions for the enhancement of positive youth development policy and practice.

This paper fills the gap in the understanding of the research on delinquency and victimization among Caribbean youth. The ecological framework also adds value to the understanding of the topic by highlighting the importance of various social contexts, such as the family, school, and neighborhood, on youth development in the Caribbean.

In recent years, violence in schools has become a major preoccupation all over the world. This has led to a considerable increase in the number of public policies and programmes aimed at tackling the problem, as well as to a very large number of empirical studies. In this article, we begin by showing that this research goes part of the way toward making up for the lack of administrative knowledge of the problem, in particular concerning the prevalence of the phenomenon. It examines the possibility of there being a link between the globalisation of worries about school violence and economic globalisation. To do so, it analyses the hypothetical link between school violence and social inequalities. The literature is precise on this question, opting in favour of there being a strong link between the two: the sociology of violence in schools is a sociology of social exclusion. Research also shows, however, that these causes that are external to schools are not the only explanation of the process and, in particular, that effects linked with the institutions themselves or the system give good reason to hope that action can be effective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine risk factors associated with Western Australian secondary school students’ involvement in violence-related behaviours.

This cross-sectional study examined data collected using an anonymous self-completion questionnaire from 542 school students aged 13-17 years. The questionnaire measured risk factors associated with being a perpetrator and/or victim of violence-related behaviours.

Gender was significantly associated with being a victim and perpetrator of violence-related behaviours. Males were significantly more likely than females to be a victim of threatening and physical violence at school, and to be a perpetrator of physical violence at school and in the community. Males were significantly more likely than females to watch violent media, with exposure to violent media associated with physically hurting someone at school. Students involved in greater acts of animal cruelty had increased odds of being involved in all forms of the violence measured.

Limitations such as the cross-sectional nature of the study and the small sample size are noted, along with suggestions for future research.

Implications of the research for practitioners working with adolescents, with a particular focus on the school setting, are discussed.

Most previously published research on adolescent involvement in violence has been conducted outside Australia, and as such, may not be directly applicable to the experiences of young people in Western Australia.