Mass School Shootings Research Articles

Ritual, Media, and Alienation: Three Cases of Constructing the Image of a School Shooter in Russian Media in the Context of the Ritual of Chiral Initiation

Mass school shootings in Russia have become a symbol of deep social and cultural dysfunctions, reflecting a crisis of identity and youth alienation. The paper emphasizes the importance of exploring how the media constructs the image of a school shooter, influencing public perception and the perception of the perpetrators themselves. The media’s role in intensifying the alienation and marginalization of shooters through the ritualization and narrativization of acts of violence requires in-depth analysis. The aim of the study is to analyze the phenomenon of school shootings through the lens of the ritual of chiral initiation and to identify the sociocultural factors contributing to the construction of the shooter’s image. The analysis shows that media coverage of school shootings follows a ritualized script that reinforces the perception of the shooter as an alienated and dangerous individual, cementing his marginal status. The “Non-Return” stage in the chiral initiation ritual illustrates the shooter’s irreversible break from society and self-identity. The study underscores the need for a comprehensive analysis of the media and cultural factors shaping public opinion about school shooters. The target audience of this study includes scholars in sociology, cultural studies, and anthropology, as well as professionals involved in media studies and public safety.

There's Something about Uvalde: American Patriarchy and the Slaughter of Innocents.

After every school shooting in the United States both a wish and a fear arise: Will this be the one? Will this be the tipping point for change in a nation so deeply divided over the meaning of "the right to bear arms?" Sandy Hook, Connecticut? No. Parkland, Florida? No. So, why might the killing of 19 children and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Texas, prove different? The American epidemic of mass school shootings betrays a country's willingness to let its children disappear, to sacrifice them on the altar of an archetypally violent ethos. While the internal experiences of alienation, resentment and contempt are often at play in the individuals who carry out such violence, the author suggests that the uniquely American glorification of "the lone wolf", the "rugged individual" and the "misunderstood hero" fuels a supportive background for mass shooters in a nation that appears to be enamoured of ancient patriarchal attitudes as it doubles down on its valuing of weaponry. Such patriarchal attitudes, underscored by capitalism and the profits of the gun industry, are implicated in the territorial adhesion to American gun rights and in the high cost paid by the blood of innocents. Drawing on Vestergaard & Odde's (2021) concepts of socio-analysis and sociality, this paper explores the dynamic process of "mass-character" marked by "contagion, imitation, attraction and repulsion" that convolute cultural values of heritage and freedom into the perverse expression of mass violence.

School Safety and Mental Health Awareness: Recommendations from K-12 Texas Public School Teachers.

Mass school shootings have created fear in the American public. The results of this fear have been the hardening of schools, lockdowns, and active shooter drills, yet the mass shootings have not ended. The goal of this study was to analyze the mental health awareness of K-12 public schools teachers in Texas with a goal to identify the connections between mental health awareness and school safety. Data were used from an archival database of K-12 teacher responses in the 2020 Texas Educators' Needs Assessment Regarding School Safety and Victims Services to assess the current state of student mental health concerns and the connection of these concerns to school safety. This needs assessment included one mixed methods survey that was collected from Texas K-12 educators and Texas educators working in higher education in 2020. The original study included 25,161 usable responses (6.1%). For the purpose of this study, only K-12 teacher responses were used in the analysis. The K-12 teacher participants (n = 19,888) included the following institutional levels: (a) special setting, 2,919 (14.7%); (b) elementary school, 6,813 (34.3%); (c) middle/intermediate school, 4,189 (21.1%); (d) high school, 5,864 (29.5%); and (e) district level, 103 (0.5%). A total of 8,053 participant's qualitative responses and 10 of the original quantitative survey questions from the archival data were used to identify all findings in the study. Collected qualitative and quantitative participant responses' outlined a need to improve student mental health by strengthening the focus on supporting all stakeholders (e.g., teachers, parents, counselors, and students) in mental health awareness and education. Participant comments focused on the lack of training, counselor support, and community support regarding the mental health needs of their students. Recommendations to improve student mental health that were developed from this study identified key goals in school counselor role and responsibility to student mental health, increased involvement of community agencies, and improvement to in-school mental health counseling. Final recommendations of this study were focused on the need to improve student mental health if stakeholders want to develop a positive school environment. The failure to build an environment that is focused on student mental health will continue to affect the goal to improve overall school safety.

Getting ahead of school shootings: A call for action, advocacy and research

Despite the fact that schools remain incredibly safe spaces for children and youth to spend time, the occurrence of mass school shootings, although rare, is a pressing issue for our society. In this paper we discuss the importance of action, advocacy, and research related to mass school shootings. Specifically, we discuss research-based actions for preventing and responding to mass school shootings, including multi-tiered systems of support, positive behavior interventions and supports, threat assessment, and trauma-informed care. In regard to advocacy, we focus on the need to discontinue ineffective and, in some cases, harmful practices such as zero-tolerance policies. We conclude with an examination of the needed research in this area, with special attention on the use of active shooter drills and firearm legislation.

Contributors to Antisocial Behavior in Adolescence from the Perspective of Developmental Psychology: A Case Study on a School Mass Shooting

As the number of school shooting cases has witnessed a rapid growth in the past several years, there is an increasing concern about the massively growing juvenile crime rate. Some researchers have found that juvenile offenders have misfits, problems in dealing with interpersonal relationships, and resentment toward society and others, and an increasing number of adolescents have engaged in juvenile crimes such as mass school shooting, jeopardizing the social stability and leaving severe trauma on those who are involved in such incidents. The current study conducted a case study on a school shooting in a U.S high school with an aim to determine the causes of such incidents that happen repeatedly in society in recent years. It is found that the adverse family environment, represented by High-Intensity Parental Dispute (HIPD), parent’s negligence and insure child-parent attachment, is the main cause that contributes to juvenile offenders’ lack of empathy and concern for others, leading to aggression and antisocial behaviors. Based on the results of the study, suggestions have been proposed to prevent the formation of antisocial behavior from the perspective of developmental psychology and reduce the juvenile delinquency rate from four aspects: parental, clinical, school, and judicial.

The Use of Crisis Services Following the Mass School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas: Quasi-Experimental Event Study.

Mass shootings result in widespread psychological trauma for survivors and members of the affected community. However, less is known about the broader effects of indirect exposure (eg, media) to mass shootings. Crisis lines offer a unique opportunity to examine real-time data on the widespread psychological effects of mass shootings. Crisis Text Line is a not-for-profit company that provides 24/7 confidential SMS text message-based mental health support and crisis intervention service. This study examines changes in the volume and composition of firearm-related conversations at Crisis Text Line before and after the mass school shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas. A quasi-experimental event study design was used to compare the actual volume of firearm-related conversations received by Crisis Text Line post shooting to forecasted firearm conversation volume under the counterfactual scenario that a shooting had not occurred. Conversations related to firearms were identified among all conversations using keyword searches. Firearm conversation volume was predicted using a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average model trained on the 3 months of data leading up to the shooting. Additionally, proportions of issue tags (topics coded post conversation by volunteer crisis counselors at Crisis Text Line after the exchange) were compared in the 4 days before (n=251) and after (n=417) the shooting to assess changes in conversation characteristics. The 4-day window was chosen to reflect the number of days conversation volume remained above forecasted levels. There was a significant increase in the number of conversations mentioning firearms following the shooting, with the largest spike (compared to forecasted numbers) occurring the day after the shooting (n=159) on May 25, 2022. By May 28, the volume reverted to within the 95% CI of the forecasted volume (n=77). Within firearm conversations, "grief" issue tags showed a significant increase in proportion in the week following the shooting, while "isolation/loneliness," "relationships," and "suicide" issue tags showed a significant decrease in proportions the week following the shooting. The results suggest that the Uvalde school shooting may have contributed to an increase in demand for crisis services, above what would be expected given historical trends. Additionally, we found that these firearm-related crises conversations immediately post event are more likely to be related to grief and less likely to be related to suicide, loneliness, and relationships. Our findings provide some of the first data showing the real-time repercussions for the broader population exposed to school shooting events. This work adds to a growing evidence base documenting and measuring the rippling effects of mass shootings outside of those directly impacted.

Can School Lockdowns Save Lives? An Assessment of Drills and Use in Real-World Events

ABSTRACT Mass shootings in schools raise important questions about how best to keep individuals safe and increase survivability in such situations. One of the most common techniques used is lockdown drills, which train individuals to build time and space between them and the threat. Despite their use in 95% of public K-12 schools nationwide, their efficacy is regularly called into question. The present two-pronged study examines the role of lockdowns both in practice (via drills) and in real-world events to answer this question. Findings indicate that continued training and drills builds and maintains skill mastery relative to correct deployment of the lockdown procedure, while the use of these tools in real-world events like mass school shootings can have a protective effect, leading to fewer injuries and deaths. Based on these findings, implications for policymakers and school administrators tasked with keeping students and staff safe are offered.

Do school shootings erode property values?

We examine how residential property values are impacted by school shootings, which are crimes that have a very low probability of being repeated in the same location. We exploit the exogenous timing of eleven mass shootings that took place between 1998 and 2014, and use a difference-in-differences framework to estimate the causal effect of these school shootings on property values in the affected school attendance area. We find that house prices decline by an average of around 2.4 percent over the four-year period after a mass school shooting. We also find that enrollment falls in the affected school district, suggesting that families subsequently avoid schools in areas that have experienced such events.

Mass murders involving firearms and other methods in school, college, and university settings: Findings from the Columbia Mass Murder Database.

While mass murders involving academic settings, especially using firearms, are of grave, growing public concern, identifying consistent patterns to aid prevention has proved challenging. Although some characteristics, such as male sex, have been routinely associated with these events, another hypothesized risk factor, severe mental illness, has been less reliably predictive. We isolated cases of mass murder perpetrated at least in part at schools, colleges, and universities from the Columbia Mass Murder Database (CMDD) and categorized them by location (within or outside of the US), and whether firearms were used. Demographic similarities and differences between groups were analyzed statistically wherever possible. We examined 82 incidents of mass murder, by any means, involving academic settings. Nearly half of all incidents (47.6%), and most involving firearms (63.2%), were U.S.-based, whereas those not involving firearms largely occurred elsewhere (88.0%). Consistent with previous reports, perpetrators of mass shootings involving academic settings are primarily Caucasian (66.7%) and male (100%). Severe mental illness (i.e., psychosis) was absent in the majority of perpetrators (firearms: 80.7%; nonfirearms: 68.0%). About half (45.6%) of mass school shootings ended with the perpetrator's suicide. When present, psychotic symptoms are more associated with mass murders in academic settings involving means other than firearms. The question of whether perpetrators of such incidents may perceive their actions as a kind of final act might enhance policy development and/or how law enforcement intervenes.

Changing Media Framings of School Shootings: A Case Study of the Parkland School Shooting

The Parkland school shooting that occurred on February 14, 2018, ranks among the deadliest high school shootings in recorded history with 17 injuries and 17 casualties. Like other mass school shootings, this event garnered extensive media coverage, but little research has been conducted to examine how media framing for this event compares with previous school shootings. This study examines the framing of the Parkland school shooting by location over time using the Social Coping Model, which describes how collectives cope with and heal from traumatic events. Specifically, this study compares frames of front-page news articles from three local news outlets and three national outlets across three time periods in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. The results indicate the coverage of the Parkland shooting was similar to previous shootings, but the results also suggest a shift in media coverage. The implications for this shift are explored in the context of a changing media landscape while also noting the importance of the Social Coping Model towards understanding the dynamic process of framing school shootings.

Mass School Shootings: Review of Mental Health Recommendations

Mass School Shootings: Review of Mental Health Recommendations

Contextualising mass school shootings in the United States

AbstractThe data from the K‐12 School Shooting Database (K‐12 SSDB) of 1,544 school shootings were used to explore patterns of mass school shootings in the United States, with particular focus on the interplay between relevant predictors of these tragic events. Through a conjunctive analysis of case configurations (CACC), results from the current study show that (1) mass school shootings are rare and cluster significantly among dominant situational profiles, defined by the unique combination of variables attributes; (2) mass school shootings are never pre‐planned and in no case involve hostages. Current findings are discussed in light of existing school shooting scholarship and recommendations for policy and future areas of research are offered.

Wild Child: Intensive Parenting and Posthumanist EthicsLegally Straight: Sexuality, Childhood, and the Cultural Value of Marriage

Wild Child: Intensive Parenting and Posthumanist EthicsLegally Straight: Sexuality, Childhood, and the Cultural Value of Marriage

Presence of Armed School Officials and Fatal and Nonfatal Gunshot Injuries During Mass School Shootings, United States, 1980-2019

Presence of Armed School Officials and Fatal and Nonfatal Gunshot Injuries During Mass School Shootings, United States, 1980-2019

Extreme School Violence and Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: (How) Do They Intersect?

Mass school shootings in America are undoubtedly among the most unsettling and tragic events that have occurred in modern history. Following such an event, questions often arise about characteristics of the perpetrator. Assertions and speculation regarding the mental health status or special education disability status, specifically related to emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), flood media outlets and popular news sources. However, there are no data to suggest that children or youth with EBD pose a greater risk of committing a mass school shooting than do others. In this paper, we discuss assumptions related to mass school shootings and students with EBD and consider efforts for prevention and intervention. We discuss detrimental effects of a zero-tolerance approach, especially for students with EBD, and the use of threat assessment as a more effective, research-based model of prevention. We highlight in particular the potential benefits of a threat assessment model for students with or at risk for EBD. Finally, we discuss the need for future research to critically examine the effectiveness and potential side effects of lockdown drills and limitations on federally funded firearm research.

Attributions as Anchors: How the Public Explains School Shootings and Why It Matters

From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the American public has repeatedly witnessed the carnage and tragic consequences of mass school shootings. Using a national survey of American adults (N = 1,100) conducted between May 30 and June 6, 2018 in the aftermath of the Parkland tragedy, this project explores public opinion on why these events occur. Informed by sociological scholarship on social movements and framing, the analysis shows that the public endorses both gun and non-gun attributional frames for school shootings. What appears to most strongly influence the resonance of both types of attributional frames, by affecting their narrative fidelity, is racial resentment, seeing the world as dangerous, and ideological beliefs. The attributional frames that respondents endorse, in turn, serve as “anchors” for their social action beliefs—or vocabularies of motive—with gun attributions increasing both confidence in and support for the #NeverAgain movement.

Monitoring Social Media and Technology Use to Prevent Youth Suicide and School Violence

With suicide as the second leading cause of death for individuals between the ages of 10 and 34 and with mass school shootings averaging once per year, schools are exploring ways to prevent this seemingly increase in youth suicide and other forms of youth violence. School-based prevention initiatives such as social/emotional learning curricula, school-based mental health services, and internal threat assessment protocols are becoming more prevalent. Along with these prevention efforts, increases in youth use of technology and social media have created a market for social media monitoring companies that use algorithms to analyze youth social media posts for threats of harm toward themselves or others. School districts contract with these social media monitoring companies for assistance in identifying youth who may be at risk for violence. The purpose of this article is to describe one school district’s experience using social media monitoring programs as part of their comprehensive school violence prevention and mental health promotion effort. The school district was alerted to many students who made suicidal and homicidal threats on social media and after identifying those students, the students were able to receive referrals for mental health support.

Mass School Shootings and the Short-Run Impacts on Use of School Security Measures and Practices: National Evidence from the Columbine Tragedy

ABSTRACTFollowing high-profile school shootings, policymakers and educators seek ways to prevent such shootings, but there has been little research on school-level responses in the immediate aftermath of such events. This study examines how school-level security measures and practices changed after the 1999 Columbine shooting using a nationally representative sample of elementary school principals from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (N = 810). Exploiting variation in the timing of survey completion relative to the Columbine shooting, we used regression analysis to examine the use of seven security measures and practices before and after Columbine. Elementary schools were 16 percentage points more likely to lock exits after Columbine and, over time, were more likely to use visitor sign in procedures. School racial/ethnic composition had a moderating effect in some models. Implications for policy and schools are discussed.

Mass School Shootings in the United States: A Novel Root Cause Analysis Using Lay Press Reports

School shootings comprise a small proportion of childhood deaths from firearms; however, these shootings receive a disproportionately large share of media attention. We conducted a root cause analysis of 2 recent school shootings in the United States using lay press reports. We reviewed 1760 and analyzed 282 articles from the 10 most trusted news sources. We identified 356 factors associated with the school shootings. Policy-level factors, including a paucity of adequate legislation controlling firearm purchase and ownership, were the most common contributing factors to school shootings. Mental illness was a commonly cited person-level factor, and access to firearms in the home and availability of large-capacity firearms were commonly cited environmental factors. Novel approaches, including root cause analyses using lay media, can identify factors contributing to mass shootings. The policy, person, and environmental factors associated with these school shootings should be addressed as part of a multipronged effort to prevent future mass shootings.

1.61 A Retrospective Chart Review Assessing Patients Making Violent Threats Toward School Surrounding Two Incidents of Mass School Shootings

Research is limited regarding the characteristics that may be common in children and adolescents who present for emergency evaluations after threats of mass casualty school violence. This study examines whether the number of children referred for such evaluations increases in the wake of a school shooting with heavy media attention. We hypothesize that these evaluations significantly increase after other school shootings and that specific patient characteristics are correlated with higher likelihood of hospital admissions.