Threats of Violence in the Schools
Introduction
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School violence is a frightening phenomenon that concerns parents, educators, students, law enforcement personnel, and policymakers at all levels of government. While there is some evidence suggesting that the actual level and rate of school-based or centered violence is declining in the United States, even a ôlittle violenceö is ôtoo much.ö The purpose of this report is to examine the incidence and causes of school violence as well as the recommendations for preventing and intervening in cases of violence that have been forthcoming. It will be argued that controlling violence on campus is a necessary precondition for ensuring that American school students will have maximum opportunities to learn and to advance academically. Mike Kennedy (1) has stated that ôthe most critical role for schools and universities is to provide a setting conducive to learning.ö Unfortunately, the American school system has become the center of a wave of violence that ranges from the slaughter at ColoradoÆs Columbine High School to gang fights in inner city schools to bullying. Kennedy (1) reported that in 1992, violent crime victimization rates for students aged 12 to 18 years old were 48 incidents per 1,000 students, a figure that declined to 28 incidents per 1,000 students in 2001. Though this represents a promising trend, school violence remains a priority item on the agendas of many educators and policymakers in the United
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hool, and peer pressures. Several demographic factors are also linked to the likelihood that an individual student will bring a weapon to school. For example, males are more likely than females to carry weapons, older adolescents are more likely than younger adolescents to brig weapons to school, poor students seem more likely to bring weapons to school, and African-American and Hispanic students are more likely to carry weapons to school than white students.
There is, therefore, a very real linkage between a number of internal and external variables and violence of the potential for violence on public school campuses. Eitle and Eitle (589) suggest that persistent racial tensions in the American polity must be recognized as directly linked to school violence. Efforts to desegregate schools since the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education have only been partially successful. Many urban schools are breeding grounds for inter-racial tensions that exacerbate rather than reduce hostility between groups.
Eitle and Eitle (592) pointed out that the conventional wisdom holds that school violence ôis a reflection of violence in the broader social context, that is, violence imported into a school by the students
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Approximate Word count = 2239
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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