Introduction

Abstract

Violence is a difficult topic to talk about as an isolated issue because it is integral to so many social concerns, from raising and schooling children, to dealing with the day-to-day realities of the streets and schoolyards, to institutionalized economic and racial oppression, to the latest war zone. Despite the enormity and complexity of violence, we, as educators, need to address directly the violence in the lives of young people in U.S. society. More than a year ago, the Harvard Educational Review Editorial Board decided to devote a Special Issue to the subject of violence and youth. From the outset, the Board sought to extend educational debates on violence beyond the reporting of how unsafe schools have become, or the recounting of the often horrific consequences of violence by and against youth. Instead, we invited contributions that would frame questions of violence in ways that make clearer the various dimensions of this issue, and that illustrate what can be and is being done to work with young people around the problem of violence.