School Shootings: Conceptual Framework and International Empirical Trends

Abstract

School shootings shock, disturb, and provoke enormous and controversial debate. The stories of perpetrators and victims cause huge public and media resonance, becoming the subject of intense discussion in political debates, pop culture, and scienti fi c research, as well as among numerous adolescents in the Some time ago Harding et al. ( 2002 ) listed the many diverse approaches developed by sociology, psychology, psychiatry, criminology, education, and medicine for understanding this extreme form of violence. Within this spectrum, disciplines often apply different de fi nitions of the phenomenon and set their own speci fi c explicatory priorities (socio-cultural in fl uences, institutional factors, pathological personality structure, etc.). As Muschert ( 2007 , p. 68) points out, this can lead to a counterproductive narrowing of perspective: "School shooting incidents need to be understood as resulting from a constellation of contributing causes, none of which is suf fi cient in itself to explain a shooting. The fact that many researchers have focused on a single causal dynamic has contributed to the lack of integration in the fi eld."While some of the research fi ndings and explanatory models fi t well together, others stand in fundamental contradiction to one another and appear irreconcilable. These differences are magni fi ed in the prevention and intervention sector, where polarization occurs over questions such as controllability (Böckler, Seeger, and Heitmeyer ( 2010 ) . Here, as elsewhere, researchers must acknowledge the ambivalence of control concepts (e.g., the possibility of early detection vs. the danger of

‘The age of school shootings’: A sociological interpretation on masculinity / ‘La era de las masacres en las escuelas’: Una interpretación sociológica sobre la masculinidad

“…Source: Böckler et al, 2013 The use of weapons can be seen as an expression of masculinity. In terms of Bourdieu, weapons are part of the symbolic capital of masculinity (Bourdieu, 2000).…”

“…Source: Böckler et al (2013) A large number of school shootings has been happened in developed countries, particularly in the United States, Germany, and Canada where 76, 8, and 7 cases were reported, respectively (see Table 1). According to Heitmeyer et al (2013), 'intense interpersonal competition' characterizes Western industrial nations, and school shooters experience "[sic] fierce competition for jobs, status, and prestige, and the risk of losing and failure is very high for the individual" (Heitmeyer et al, 2013, p. 43).…”

“…These type of values are strongly related to masculinity (Bourdieu, 2000). Böckler et al (2013) Finally, schools shootings are committed in towns, suburbs, and cities. However, it has been found that "cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other major population centers have not experienced rampage school shootings" (Langman, 2013, p. 135).…”

“…Likewise, it is unlikely that such events take places at school. After the first documented school shooting in Germany in 1913, which resulted in five girls killed (Schlott, 2013), some studies have found that between 120 and 160 total school shootings have happened around the world from the 1920s to 2013 (Böckler, Seeger, Sitzer, & Heitmeyer, 2013;Dumitriu, 2013). This means that no more than two fatal incidents per year have passed in this span of time.…”

Social Solidarity and the Fear of Risk: Examining Worries about the Recurrence of a Mass Tragedy in a Small Community

“…While most of these shootings occurred in the United States, such incidents are becoming increasingly common elsewhere. What is noticeable is that these incidents have taken place most often in developed, Western countries (e.g., Böckler, Seeger, Sitzer, and Heitmeyer 2013;Muschert 2007). Although particularly devastating to the victims and their immediate family and friends, school shootings also result in collateral damage in a wider social context.…”