School Violence Research Research Articles

Teachers’ Safety and Workplace Victimization: A Socioecological Analysis of Teachers’ Perspective

ABSTRACT School violence research has broadly overlooked violence directed at teachers. Despite recent growing acknowledgment of teachers’ workplace victimization and concerns regarding the potential costs of the problem worldwide, teachers’ perceptions of safety and risk of workplace victimization have not been sufficiently studied. To fill this gap, this study employed a socioecological approach using qualitative measures to study teachers’ perceptions of risk and protective factors associated with workplace victimization and safety. Thirty-six in-depth interviews with teachers revealed antecedents of workplace victimization and safety both inside and outside the school setting at the individual, organizational, communal, and societal levels. We highlight practice guidelines involving teachers, students, parents, school social and organizational climates, policy, and societal norms.

School Violence and Teacher Professional Engagement: A Cross-National Study.

School violence research has mainly focused on the impact on students. Very few studies, even fewer from a cross-cultural perspective, have examined the relationships between school violence and teacher professional engagement, and the role played by teacher self-efficacy and school climate related factors. The present study utilizes a SEM research methodology to analyze the 2013 TALIS data. The purpose is to understand and compare the relationships in four different cultural contexts; the U.S., England, South Korea, and Mexico. Results indicate, on average, that the significant and negative impacts of school violence on teacher professional engagement are partly mediated by teacher self-efficacy. The negativity of school violence is significantly alleviated by enhancing participation among school stakeholders and improving teacher–student relationships. The relationships among the factors apply across all four cultural systems, though, the effects of factors and variables vary to a degree. The paper also discusses other relevant issues and differences as well as their implications.

School Climate Counts: A Longitudinal Analysis of School Climate and Middle School Bullying Behaviors

The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether student perceptions of school climate were associated with traditional and cyber bullying participant behaviors over the course of a school year. Additionally, gender was explored as a moderator in the associations between school climate perceptions and bullying participant behaviors. Data were collected from 870 6th through 8th grade middle school students using the Bullying Participant Behaviors Questionnaire (BPBQ; Demaray et al. 2014), the Cyber Victimization Survey (CVS; Brown et al. Computers in Human Behavior, 35, 12–21, 2014), and the Safe and Responsive Schools Safe Schools Survey–Secondary Form (SRS; Skiba et al. School Violence Research, 3, 149–171, 2004). Results indicated students’ perceptions of school climate were significantly related to maladaptive bullying role behaviors (traditional and cyber bullying, traditional and cyber victimization, assisting in bullying, and outsider behaviors) but not adaptive role behaviors (defending). There were significant gender interactions with school climate, particularly with perceptions of delinquency/major safety at school. Implications concerning these findings are discussed.

Pick Your Poisson: A Tutorial on Analyzing Counts of Student Victimization Data

School violence research is often concerned with infrequently occurring events such as counts of the number of bullying incidents or fights a student may experience. Analyzing count data using ordinary least squares regression may produce improbable predicted values, and as a result of regression assumption violations, result in higher Type I errors. Count data are optimally analyzed using Poisson-based regression techniques such as Poisson or negative binomial regression. We apply these techniques to an example study of bullying in a statewide sample of 290 high schools and explain how Poisson-based analyses, although less familiar to many researchers, can produce findings that are more accurate and reliable, and are easier to interpret in real-world contexts.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Cultural Approaches to Understanding School Violence

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Cultural Approaches to Understanding School Violence

School violence: Evidence from the economics literature and related disciplines

School violence has become a serious public health issue during the last two decades. Consequently, researchers and policy makers have made substantial efforts to understand its causes and consequences and to identify effective methods to reduce its occurrence. While psychologists and other education researchers have long been active in school violence research, the topic has really been explored by economists only in recent years. This paper presents some evidence on this issue drawn from the growing economics literature and related disciplines. It shows that the phenomenon has an adverse effect on the level of educational attainment and labour market outcomes. Hence, reducing violence at schools not only eases life for many students who suffer because of it, but should also lead to more investment in human capital. Finally, some suggestions for future research are provided.

Is Immigrant Status Relevant in School Violence Research? An Analysis With Latino Students

The role of race and ethnicity is consistently found to be linked to the likelihood of students experiencing school violence-related outcomes; however, the findings are not always consistent. The variation of likelihood, as well as the type, of student-related school violence outcome among the Latino student population may be attributed to immigrant status. Drawing from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, this research investigates if the role of immigrant status and English proficiency are pertinent for 1457 nationally representative public school Latino students' experiences with school violence-related outcomes. Third-generation immigrant students were more likely than first- and second-generation students to be victimized while at school, as well as receive a formal disciplinary school sanction. On the other hand, first-generation immigrant children were less likely to be a victim of crime while at school and receive a formal disciplinary sanction in comparison to second- and third-generation immigrants. However, first-generation immigrant students were the most likely to feel unsafe at school. Additionally, nonnative English-speaking students were more likely to report being a victim of school violence in comparison to native English speakers. This study indicates that immigrant status-related variables should be included in school violence research. Furthering the investigation of school and local community characteristics of immigration and assimilation and their impact upon children's lives and their exposure to violence is essential for a growing immigrant population.

Issues in School Violence Research

Issues in School Violence Research

Environmental and Contextual Influences on School Violence and its Prevention

School violence has received unprecedented attention in recent years, particularly since the infamous events unfolded in Littleton, Colorado at Columbine High School. For many Americans, such events were not imagined possible while for others, they confirmed the need for urgent and careful examination of the nature and scope of school violence. It appears, however, that school violence research has been relegated to the individual level of analysis. In this introduction to the special issue about the environmental and contextual factors related to school violence, the authors examine what we know about school violence, how school violence has been addressed, and argue that environmental factors must be part of research and intervention in this area. Finally, the contributions of the articles included in this special issue are discussed.

Book Review: Issues in School Violence Research

Book Review: Issues in School Violence Research

The Effects of School Climate, Socioeconomics, and Cultural Factors on Student Victimization in Israel

The study reported in this article is based on a nationally representative sample of 10,400 students in grades 7 through 11 in 162 schools across Israel. The authors used hierarchical linear modeling to examine the differences between Jewish and Arab schools in the relationships between school-level variables—socioeconomic status (SES) of the school's neighborhood and students' families, school size and class size, school level (junior high and high), and school climate—and students' victimization reports (serious physical victimization, threats, moderate physical victimization, and verbal-social victimization). The results show that whereas school climate and school size seem to operate similarly across different cultural contexts, the SES of a school's neighborhood and students' families were associated with victimization for students in Arab schools only. Theoretical implications of these findings for school violence research in other cultures are discussed.

Issues in School Violence Research

(2004). Issues in School Violence Research. Journal of School Violence: Vol. 3, No. 2-3, pp. 1-3.

Using Office Referral Records in School Violence Research

SUMMARY Perhaps the most “naturally occurring” data on school misbehavior and aggression are school discipline data, including office referrals, suspensions, and expulsion data. These data constitute the most common markers of school discipline status available on school campuses. There is, however, very little information available in professional or research literature about the reliability and validity of office referrals. This article examines the sources of error that enter into the collection and use of office referrals. Despite these sources of errors, this article documents the importance of considering how office referral data provide information about how discipline systems are functioning on a school campus. Guidelines are provided for utilizing disciplinary data for school safety and school policy planning.

Methodological and Measurement Issues in School Violence Research

SUMMARY School violence became a topic of broad national concern in the United States in reaction to a series of tragic school shootings during the 1990s. Efforts to understand and prevent school shootings have stimulated the rapid development of a broader interest in school safety with an emerging multidisciplinary research agenda. The maturation and fulfillment of this research agenda require that researchers critically examine their research methods and measurement strategies. This article introduces a volume that examines fundamental methodological and measurement issues in the rapidly expanding body of research on school safety and violence. The authors hope to stimulate greater attention to methodological pitfalls and critical measurement issues that hinder research progress in several related areas, including the uncertain reliability and validity of self-report surveys used to measure high-risk behavior and bullying, the limitations of discipline referral databases as a source of information on school climate, and the overly narrow focus on relatively infrequent critical incidents of violence, often at the expense of a more comprehensive and multifactorial examination of the school environment.

The Conceptualization of Violence-Prone School Subcontexts

This article raises concerns about how context is conceptualized and researched in many current school violence inquiries. For example, research has shown that specific school subcontexts (e.g., hallways, cafeterias, and bathrooms) tend to be violence prone. Yet students’ and teachers’ understanding of violence in these school subcontexts remains an underresearched topic. Current school violence research often has a singular focus on either subjective assessments of violence as a “problem” or on the frequency and severity of violent events in schools. This body of research does not offer in-depth conceptual explanations as to why certain school subcontexts are consistently more violence prone. In this article, we also raise concerns about the lack of a philosophical discussion surrounding the meaning of school violence to school professionals, students, and society.

Introduction to Miniseries: School Violence and Safety in Perspective

VioLit summary: OBJECTIVE: The goal of this article by Furlong and Morrison was to summarize the major findings of research on school violence and school safety. METHODOLOGY: The authors employed a non-experimental research design in this study relying on data gathered in previous research. The data they used were gathered using three different research methodologies: surveys of school officials about the frequency and severity of different crimes on campus, victimization surveys of students, and surveys which aimed to assess the opinions of students, educators and the general public regarding school crime and violence. The authors recommended that any findings about school violence be examined critically due to the different methods used to gather this information. FINDINGS/DISCUSSION: It was found that violent crimes that occurred in school were less likely to be reported to police than those that occurred elsewhere. In 1989, 9% of students aged 12-19 reported being the victims of crime in or around school in and 2% reported being the victims of violence. It was argued that violence in school is becoming more lethal, just as violence elsewhere is. From 1987-1994, homicides committed with firearms among youth increased significantly, particularly among African-American males. There is no database to track homicides occurring on school campuses but an examination of media reports revealed that between 1986 and 1990, 65 students and 6 school staff members were killed with firearms on school property, and another 201 were seriously injured. Studies investigating the prevalence of bringing weapons to school indicated that between 1 and 4% of students carried guns to school and between 15-23% carried knives. It was found that students reported being less concerned about their safety in the 1990's than they were in the 1970's. A 1987 study revealed that students were more concerned about how they were doing in school and how they looked than about school violence. The authors noted that these findings may be a result of a growing desensitization to crime and violence and not an indicator of schools being safer. Certain students were more likely to feel unsafe in school than others. Specifically, those students who had been victimized before and those who went to schools where they believed drugs were available were more likely to report feeling unsafe in school than other students. The authors concluded that school psychologists should insist that their schools provide data about the frequency and severity of crime and violence on their campuses so that the problem may be effectively addressed. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado) Violence Causes School Violence Research Juvenile Offender Juvenile Violence Student Violence Violence Effects School Personnel School Mental Health School Psychologist 01-00