Factors Causing School Violence In this paper I will discuss and describe several factors leading to violence within the school system. The factors contributing to violence in schools such as environment, family, social activity, psychological problems, Internet and many others. Not having proper support from parents and growing up in single family environments are leading factors. Sometimes an older brother or sister are raising the family due to the parents having to work or working more than one job, as the children are not getting the home training they need.
I have personally observed many of these acts occurring in my school. Many youth feel they have to prove something making others afraid of them so they would feel superior. Robbery, gambling, and school relationships are other factors that cause violence. Jealousies over material possessions or popularity are some reasons I have seen my peers act out.
Defining school violence is not easy. Researchers suggest youth violence refers to harmful behaviors that may start early and continue into young adulthood. During the past seven years, 166 students killed in 109 separate incidents and average of 16.5 student homicides each year. Among the students who committed school-associated homicides, 20 percent known to have been victims of bullying and 12 percent known to have expressed suicidal thoughts or to have engaged in suicidal behavior.
Schools have changed a lot since the earlier days before weapons, gangs and drugs were not so prevalent in the community. Now day’s schools are more diverse. There are so many different cultures and behaviors brought together. Oftentimes children in their teens cannot understand why others are not like them with different attitudes and behaviors. This leads to violence and social cliques. The school systems, as well as, individual schools fail to teach student adequately about the varying cultures. More specifically, this failure does not target the specific cultural diversity of its own school.
A new thing that happened in the 1980’s within the school system was gang activity. Kids wanting to prove themselves in order to have acceptance by gang member, prospect would do cowardly acts of violence. Estimates in the 1990s on the number of weapons brought to school on a daily basis were staggering. The number of guns brought into schools on any given day ranged up to over 250,000 and the number of knives more than double that figure. There was also a time when the "Bloods and "Cripps" were recruiting nationwide via the internet and by way member migration to different cities.
“A 2006 study by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice reveals that public schools experiencing violent incidents increased from 71 to 81 percent over a five-year period (1999-2004). The same study reports that the percentage of students who reported gang presence at school increased from 21 percent in 2003 to 24 percent in 2005. Although no direct connection between gang activity and school violence can be established, the initiation of gang activity in neighborhoods and schools does frequently coincide with increased violence reports.”
School violence does not limit itself to the student population. Teachers say they are threatened on school grounds at least once a month. Two percent report physical attacked each year. The specific incidents of school-based fatalities are too numerous to list, there were 48 school-associated deaths in elementary and secondary schools in one year alone.
During the late 1980's and early 1990's, teen gun violence increased dramatically in the United States. More teens began to acquire and carry guns, leading to a sharp increase in gun deaths and injuries. In two recent academic years, 85 young people died violently in U.S. schools. Seventy-five percent of these incidents involved firearms.
Behavioral problems linked to a difficult personality, which leads to problems of interacting with others, impulsiveness, and the inability to conform. These children do not blend into school activities, ignored, and becoming rebellious. Some are depressed taking medications that manifest serious behavioral side effects. Broken family relationships are a major factor. Harshly treated children are more likely to behave violently now and later in life.
Being bullied or teased by others can often lead a troubled youth to violennce, revenge or retribution on others. This factor showed up repeatedly in the school shootings of the 1990s and beyond. It received the most attention from school administrators and others in the early twenty-first century.
Learning violent behavior can come from a dysfunctional or abnormal home life, perhaps involving domestic abuse or parents who do not respond well to authority figures such as the police. From this type of home environment, youth learn to react to authority, such as teachers or school officials with aggression. Some believe learned violent behavior also comes from repeated exposure to violence in the media such as music lyrics, Hollywood movies, television programs, video games, and 24-hour news stations broadcasting violent or graphic scenes.
Studies showed that youth exposed to an overwhelming amount of such material became more aggressive and no longer upset by violence and its consequences. These youth, have trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy. Researchers have found that discipline problems are associated with school enrollment size. Large schools tended to yield more discipline problems than small schools. Thirty-four percent of schools with 1,000 or more students reported student disrespect for or assaults on teachers at least once per week, compared with 21 percent of those at schools with 500-999 students, 17 percent of those at schools with 300-499 students, and 14 percent of those at schools with less than 300 students.
Middle School students are more than twice as likely as high school students, to be affected by school violence are seven percent of eighth graders stay home at least once a month to avoid a bully. The typical victim of an attack or robbery at school is a male in the seventh grade assaulted by a boy his own age. Studies suggest two reasons for the higher rates of middle school violence. First, early adolescence is a difficult age. Young teenagers are physically hyperactive. They have not learned acceptable social behavior. Secondly, many school students have come into contact for the first time with young people from different backgrounds and distant neighborhoods.
As with schools, families, and communities neglect children. If our communities are not responsive to the needs of families and their children, neglect can develop into school violence. After-school and summer programs are not always available. A child who starts acting violently will often do so during periods of unstructured and unsupervised time. Juvenile-justice statistics show that, lacking after-school supervision, youth violence rises to above average rates between 3 and 7 p.m.
School violence has also been linked to the change in communities. Constantly changing school demographics often reflect on violence in schools. Although our culture expects the family to deal with childhood problems, contemporary society makes it difficult for parents to meet all their children's needs. The current economy, for example, often demands that parents work; single parents including teenage mothers raise more children; some children subjected to their parents neglect or physical, sexual, and substance abuse. A child abused at home, they have a tendency to bring that anger into school and commit acts of violence on someone they think they can over power.
Ideally, good parents nurture and reinforce positive behavior. However, when parents fail to do so, children develop negative and often violent behavior patterns. In addition, neglectful or abusive family environments can inhibit the development of communication skills and self-esteem are severely damaged. In homes where positive behavior is not the norm, exposure to violence through popular culture has a more serious impact. Regardless of family and community dependence on schools to educate, shelter, and discipline their children, most schools have difficulty playing multiple roles as educators, surrogate parents, social service, or law-enforcement agencies. Parents must realize they if there are not part of the solution they are part of the problem.
In conclusion, it is critical that schools and communities recognize school violence an urgent need for, addressing. It is critical that they respect the hopes and rights of the majority of students. They are neither perpetrators nor victims of school violence and who want nothing more than to receive a good education in a safe environment. Most educators and education researchers and practitioners would agree that school violence arises from a layering of causes and risk factors including, but not limited to access to weapons, media violence, cyber abuse, the impact of schools, community, family environments, personal alienation, and much more.
After researching this issue, I have concluded that society and parents play a large role in school violence. Each entity must cooperate as a combined and unified entity offering there youth viable alternatives to violence. Yes, the child makes the decision to commit the act of violence but the majority of the time they lack the support or education from their parents to becoming a productive member of society. As young adults, we should be leaders and not followers. It can be hard not to act violently or commit violence around which you grow up. If adults would try to make a better environment for the youth or give them more constructive activities asides from hanging on corners, maybe the violence in schools will drop. I do believe that one day the rate of school violence can drop but it will take hard work from parents, society, teachers, and the students themselves.
Factors Causing School Violence
In this paper I will discuss and describe several factors leading to violence within the school system. The factors contributing to violence in schools such as environment, family, social activity, psychological problems, Internet and many others. Not having proper support from parents and growing up in single family environments are leading factors. Sometimes an older brother or sister are raising the family due to the parents having to work or working more than one job, as the children are not getting the home training they need.
I have personally observed many of these acts occurring in my school. Many youth feel they have to prove something making others afraid of them so they would feel superior. Robbery, gambling, and school relationships are other factors that cause violence. Jealousies over material possessions or popularity are some reasons I have seen my peers act out.
Defining school violence is not easy. Researchers suggest youth violence refers to harmful behaviors that may start early and continue into young adulthood. During the past seven years, 166 students killed in 109 separate incidents and average of 16.5 student homicides each year. Among the students who committed school-associated homicides, 20 percent known to have been victims of bullying and 12 percent known to have expressed suicidal thoughts or to have engaged in suicidal behavior.
Schools have changed a lot since the earlier days before weapons, gangs and drugs were not so prevalent in the community. Now day’s schools are more diverse. There are so many different cultures and behaviors brought together. Oftentimes children in their teens cannot understand why others are not like them with different attitudes and behaviors. This leads to violence and social cliques. The school systems, as well as, individual schools fail to teach student adequately about the varying cultures. More specifically, this failure does not target the specific cultural diversity of its own school.
A new thing that happened in the 1980’s within the school system was gang activity. Kids wanting to prove themselves in order to have acceptance by gang member, prospect would do cowardly acts of violence. Estimates in the 1990s on the number of weapons brought to school on a daily basis were staggering. The number of guns brought into schools on any given day ranged up to over 250,000 and the number of knives more than double that figure. There was also a time when the "Bloods and "Cripps" were recruiting nationwide via the internet and by way member migration to different cities.
“A 2006 study by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice reveals that public schools experiencing violent incidents increased from 71 to 81 percent over a five-year period (1999-2004). The same study reports that the percentage of students who reported gang presence at school increased from 21 percent in 2003 to 24 percent in 2005. Although no direct connection between gang activity and school violence can be established, the initiation of gang activity in neighborhoods and schools does frequently coincide with increased violence reports.”
School violence does not limit itself to the student population. Teachers say they are threatened on school grounds at least once a month. Two percent report physical attacked each year. The specific incidents of school-based fatalities are too numerous to list, there were 48 school-associated deaths in elementary and secondary schools in one year alone.
During the late 1980's and early 1990's, teen gun violence increased dramatically in the United States. More teens began to acquire and carry guns, leading to a sharp increase in gun deaths and injuries. In two recent academic years, 85 young people died violently in U.S. schools. Seventy-five percent of these incidents involved firearms.
Behavioral problems linked to a difficult personality, which leads to problems of interacting with others, impulsiveness, and the inability to conform. These children do not blend into school activities, ignored, and becoming rebellious. Some are depressed taking medications that manifest serious behavioral side effects. Broken family relationships are a major factor. Harshly treated children are more likely to behave violently now and later in life.
Being bullied or teased by others can often lead a troubled youth to violennce, revenge or retribution on others. This factor showed up repeatedly in the school shootings of the 1990s and beyond. It received the most attention from school administrators and others in the early twenty-first century.
Learning violent behavior can come from a dysfunctional or abnormal home life, perhaps involving domestic abuse or parents who do not respond well to authority figures such as the police. From this type of home environment, youth learn to react to authority, such as teachers or school officials with aggression. Some believe learned violent behavior also comes from repeated exposure to violence in the media such as music lyrics, Hollywood movies, television programs, video games, and 24-hour news stations broadcasting violent or graphic scenes.
Studies showed that youth exposed to an overwhelming amount of such material became more aggressive and no longer upset by violence and its consequences. These youth, have trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy. Researchers have found that discipline problems are associated with school enrollment size. Large schools tended to yield more discipline problems than small schools. Thirty-four percent of schools with 1,000 or more students reported student disrespect for or assaults on teachers at least once per week, compared with 21 percent of those at schools with 500-999 students, 17 percent of those at schools with 300-499 students, and 14 percent of those at schools with less than 300 students.
Middle School students are more than twice as likely as high school students, to be affected by school violence are seven percent of eighth graders stay home at least once a month to avoid a bully. The typical victim of an attack or robbery at school is a male in the seventh grade assaulted by a boy his own age. Studies suggest two reasons for the higher rates of middle school violence. First, early adolescence is a difficult age. Young teenagers are physically hyperactive. They have not learned acceptable social behavior. Secondly, many school students have come into contact for the first time with young people from different backgrounds and distant neighborhoods.
As with schools, families, and communities neglect children. If our communities are not responsive to the needs of families and their children, neglect can develop into school violence. After-school and summer programs are not always available. A child who starts acting violently will often do so during periods of unstructured and unsupervised time. Juvenile-justice statistics show that, lacking after-school supervision, youth violence rises to above average rates between 3 and 7 p.m.
School violence has also been linked to the change in communities. Constantly changing school demographics often reflect on violence in schools. Although our culture expects the family to deal with childhood problems, contemporary society makes it difficult for parents to meet all their children's needs. The current economy, for example, often demands that parents work; single parents including teenage mothers raise more children; some children subjected to their parents neglect or physical, sexual, and substance abuse. A child abused at home, they have a tendency to bring that anger into school and commit acts of violence on someone they think they can over power.
Ideally, good parents nurture and reinforce positive behavior. However, when parents fail to do so, children develop negative and often violent behavior patterns. In addition, neglectful or abusive family environments can inhibit the development of communication skills and self-esteem are severely damaged. In homes where positive behavior is not the norm, exposure to violence through popular culture has a more serious impact. Regardless of family and community dependence on schools to educate, shelter, and discipline their children, most schools have difficulty playing multiple roles as educators, surrogate parents, social service, or law-enforcement agencies. Parents must realize they if there are not part of the solution they are part of the problem.
In conclusion, it is critical that schools and communities recognize school violence an urgent need for, addressing. It is critical that they respect the hopes and rights of the majority of students. They are neither perpetrators nor victims of school violence and who want nothing more than to receive a good education in a safe environment. Most educators and education researchers and practitioners would agree that school violence arises from a layering of causes and risk factors including, but not limited to access to weapons, media violence, cyber abuse, the impact of schools, community, family environments, personal alienation, and much more.
After researching this issue, I have concluded that society and parents play a large role in school violence. Each entity must cooperate as a combined and unified entity offering there youth viable alternatives to violence. Yes, the child makes the decision to commit the act of violence but the majority of the time they lack the support or education from their parents to becoming a productive member of society. As young adults, we should be leaders and not followers. It can be hard not to act violently or commit violence around which you grow up. If adults would try to make a better environment for the youth or give them more constructive activities asides from hanging on corners, maybe the violence in schools will drop. I do believe that one day the rate of school violence can drop but it will take hard work from parents, society, teachers, and the students themselves.