Drawing on one of the most comprehensive and representative studies of school violence ever conducted, Benbenishty and Astor explore and differentiate the many manifestations of victimization in schools, providing a new model for understanding school violence in context. The authors make striking use of the geopolitical climate of the Middle East to model school violence in terms of its context within as well as outside of the school site. This pioneering new work is unique in that it uses empirical data to show which variables and factors are similar across different cultures and which variables appear unique to different cultures. This empirical contrast of universal with culturally specific patterns is sorely needed in the school violence literature. The authors' innovative research maps the contours of verbal, social, physical, and sexual victimization and weapons possession, as well as staff-initiated violence against students, presenting some startling findings along the way. When comparing schools in Israel with schools in California, the authors demonstrate for the first time that for most violent events the patterns of violent behaviors have the same relationship for different age groups, genders, and nations. Conversely, they highlight specific kinds of violence that are strongly influenced by culture. They reveal, for example, how Arab boys encounter much more boy-to-boy sexual harassment than their Jewish peers, and that teacher-initiated victimization of students constitutes a significant and often overlooked type of school violence, especially among certain cultural groups. Crucially, the authors expand the paradigm of understanding school violence to encompass the intersection of cultural, ethnic, neighborhood, and family characteristics with intra-school factors such as teacher-student dynamics, anti-violence policies, student participation, grade level, and religious and gender divisions. It is only by understanding the multiple contexts of school violence, they argue, that truly effective prevention programs, interventions, research agendas, and policies can be implemented. In an age of heightened concern over school security, this study has enormous implications for school violence theory, research, and policy throughout the world. The patterns that emerge from the authors' analysis form a blueprint for the research agenda needed to address new and exciting theoretical and practical questions regarding the intersections of context and school victimization. The unique perspective on school violence will undoubtedly strike a chord with all readers, informing scholars and students across the fields of social work, psychology, education, sociology, public health, and peace/conflict studies. Its clearly written and accessible style will appeal to teachers, principals, policy makers and parents interested in the authors' practical discussion of policy and intervention implications, making this an invaluable tool for understanding, preventing, and handling violence in schools throughout the world.

"This book outlines a novel unifying model that brings together these previously distinct literatures. We present an ecological model of school violence, bullying and safety in evolving contexts, to integrate all we have learned in the last decade, and suggest ways to move forward"--

Why do so many school antiviolence programs backfire? And why do policymakers keep making the same mistakes? The authors of Responding to School Violence examine the pervasive rise of school security measures since the Columbine shootings, highlighting the unintended consequences of policymaking too often shaped by fear and sensationalism. Probing an array of now ubiquitous tactics and programs¿metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, and more¿the authors show how increasingly punitive schoolhouse dynamics negatively affect student safety and even educational experiences. They also share lessons from past mistakes and identify workable, comprehensive approaches for addressing a recurrent social problem.

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 occurâ€"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?

This book examines the historical context of African Americans' educational experiences, and it provides information that helps to assess the dominant discourse on education, which emphasises White middle-class cultural values and standardisation of students' outcomes. Curriculum violence is defined as the deliberate manipulation of academic programming in a manner that ignores or compromises the intellectual and psychological well being of learners. Related to this are the issues of assessment and the current focus on high-stakes standardised testing in schools, where most teachers are forced to teach for the test.

This book places youth violence within a Routine Activity Ecological Framework. Youth violence, specifically youth exposure to community violence and youth perpetration of violent behaviors, occur within various contexts. Ahlin and Antunes situate their discussion of youth violence within an ecological framework, identifying how it is nested within four mesosystem layers: community, family, peers and schools, and youth characteristics. Contextualized using an ecological framework, the Routine Activity Theory and Lifestyles perspective (RAT/LS) are well suited to guide an examination of youth violence risk and protective factors across the four layers. Drawing on scholarship that explores predictors and consequences of youth violence, the authors apply RAT/LS theory to explain how community, family, peers, schools, and youth characteristics influence youth behavior. Each layer of the ecological framework unfolds to reveal the latest scholarship and contextualizes how concepts of RAT/LS, specifically the motivated offender, target suitability, and guardianship, can be applied at each level. This book also highlights the mechanisms and processes that contribute to youth exposure to and involvement in violence by exploring factors examined in the literature as protective and risk factors of youth violence. Youth violence occurs in context, and, as such, the understanding of multilevel predictors and preventive measures against it can be situated within an RAT/LS ecological framework. This work links theory to extant research. Ahlin and Antunes demonstrate how knowledge of youth violence can be used to develop a robust theoretical foundation that can inform policy to improve neighborhoods and youth experiences within their communities, families, and peers and within their schools while acknowledging the importance of individual characteristics. This monograph is essential reading for those interested in youth violence, juvenile delinquency, and juvenile justice research and anyone dedicated to preventing crime among youths.

Offering a comprehensive review of major legal issues relating to school violence, this resource provides important and useful guidance for dealing with these very timely issues. Topics include student violence and harassment, weapons in schools, searching students in schools, zero tolerance policies, due process for students, threats and threatening communications at school, school liability, and much more.