Moral reasoning about school violence: Informational assumptions about harm within school subcontexts

Abstract

Moral reasoning about violence-prone subcontexts in schools is an understudied topic. I propose that concepts from cognitive developmental domain theory, public health, and environmental psychology be used conjointly to explore students' and teachers' understanding of violence-prone subcontexts such as hallways, playgrounds, and cafeterias. It is argued that members of the school community have differing preformed informational assumptions about violence-prone school subcontexts that systematically influence their judgments and interpretations of events in those locations. Two important informational assumptions are (a:) the individuals' or groups' estimation of risk for physical harm or potential provocation in specific locations within the school, and (b) the individuals' or groups' beliefs about the school staff's professional role or responsibility to monitor and intervene in violence-prone areas. This article puts forth the hypothesis that different groups within the school community (e.g., aggressive vs. nonaggressive children, boys vs. girls, teachers vs. students) view violent school events in different ways because each group has different informational assumptions about the violence-prone subcontext. Therefore, each group focuses on different aspects of the physical and social context related to the violent event. Applications of this conceptual framework and future directions for research are explored.