Evaluating Social Process Theories Regarding School Rage Shootings
Dr. T. Douglas H.
33-year police officer, college professor, researcher, and author. Examination-determination of cold case homicides is my specialty.
Researched and Written by Dr. T. Douglas Hand
Abstract
Mass shooting in schools has been a predominant public health issue in the 21st century.? Society’s measures to protect our children from this repulsive violence has been steady and progressive, however, nothing less than the total elimination of this problem is acceptable. The influences on the lives of rage shooters that facilitate their actions can be complex.? Organic or psychological issues can certainly be underlying and contributory to this type of violence.? Also, the process of interactions between individuals and society, or interactionists’ perspectives, are extremely important in the shaping of behaviors, and are the primary route by which learning occurs.? The social process, especially in youth, has a very influential impact on future behaviors, attitudes, coping abilities, and emotional maturity.
Key words: Social process, learning, labeling, coping, school rage shooting?
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Evaluating Social Process Theories Regarding School Rage Shootings
Problem Formation
???????? The incidence of school rage shootings is by no doubt a horrendous occurrence.? When these events transpire, the media is quick to report, respond, and languish in their breaking news reporting style, as politicians offer their thoughts and prayers.? Although the frequency of these tragic events is often overestimated, nonetheless, they are a popular topic for discussion.? According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it was estimated that in 2017, one tenth of 1% of students aged 12 to 18, were victims of serious violence (May, 2018).? Of course this very small percent is not the perception of the public, however, this remains problematic, especially because this involves our children.
???????? Exactly how many school shootings occur is difficult to compute.? Definitions of these events vary with states and organizations that gather this data.? The Columbine High School shooting in 1999 seemed to become the inaugural rage shooting event of our recent history.? Since then, educational institutions have initiated safety protocols such as evacuation and active shooter drills, hardened the environmental designs of the campuses, and instituted security personnel.? Certainly schools and society have taken measures to identify problematic students, investigate, and take actions, but what has been done to research the core issues that may precipitate these most severe criminal actions by students?
????? The efficacy of social process theory is dependent upon the understanding and explanatory potentials of the interactions between individuals and society.? The fundamental principle of all of these like theories is that individuals learn behaviors from others, through interactions, and the socialization process that occurs as a product of these interactions, is the main proposition of the social learning process.? Three main theories of social process include the social control theory, social learning theory, and the labeling theory.
???????? In the discussion of school rage shootings, we limit the offenders by their classification of students.? Regardless of the venue, the school rage shootings are primarily carried out by students of adolescent or young adult age groups.? Certainly there have been exceptions to this limitation, but these incidents have been few, and to consider them would blur the central issue of effective student bonding and the mitigative efforts to recognize their individual control potentials.
Literature Review and Evaluation
???????? Libbey (2004), identified four factors in measuring students’ relationships to their school:? Attachment, bonding, connectedness, and engagement.? Libby then further demarcated these measurement factors into smaller concepts, specifically “involvement, satisfaction, identification with the school, and teacher support.”? Through her research, she found nine notable commonalities relating to student connectedness:? “Academic engagement, belonging, discipline fairness, extracurricular activities, liking school, having a student voice, peer relations, safety, and teacher support.”?According to her research results, all these commonalities were noticeable, whether they were measured specifically by participation and academic achievement, or through intuition, however, importantly these measurements were directly associated with student learning outcomes.
???????? The social control theory’s central focus is the relationship of the intensity of the bond that individuals apportion with others, as well as the institutions in association with them, and others.? Libby’s research identified nine such commonalities which measured the quality of the student’s relationships with schools, both measurably and intrinsically.?The mitigation of rage killings in schools can be somewhat predictable.? Watson, Fischer, Jasmina, and Smith (2004) conducted research into childhood aggression.? Contrary to somewhat ridged profiles of potential school shooters, Watson et al. found several variations.? Socially withdrawn children (non-assertive), who were introverted, inhibited, and shy were found to be less aggressive, but more prone to victimization; however, some inhibited children that experienced specific environmental experiences appeared to be predisposed to aggression.? These were believed to be more associated to defensive-like responses, than preconceived, aggressive-like actions.? The inhibited children would seek avoidance, become withdrawn, maintain low self-esteem, and subsequently be rejected by their peers.? Their social bonds to the people around them and their schools were weak.? According to Watson et al., these environmental variables, in combination with their inherent temperament, could lead to aggression.? These behavioral effects of their temperament management were contingent upon a variety of “socio-cultural” factors.? The practical application of these variables would necessitate an individual and tailored approach to individuals, according to Sugai, Sprauge, Horner, Walker, and Hill (2000), in their article regarding school recognition and disciplinary procedures of students.?
???????? In association with the social control theory’s central focus is the relationship of the intensity of the bond that individuals apportion with others, as well as the institutions in association with them, Fox and Harding (2005), assessed and contributed two of these incidents of school violence to the concept of organizational deviance, which they believe was manifested by the following unintentional-institutional causation factors:? The loose coupling (a loosely-linked-minimally dependent workforce), structural secrecy, and ambivalence; missing clues of problem students and not following through, referred to as institutional memory loss (some employees know a small amount of information about a troubled student, but no one knows it all); the various task segregation of employees; the lack of proper training of guidance counselors and the number available per school; the concept of protecting students’ misconduct information and subscribing to the “clean slate” mantra; and failure to identify troubled students, rather spending too many resources and time on the “squeaky wheels.”? Fox and Harding’s findings help illustrate the institutional factors that unintentionally obstruct students’ abilities for positive bonding with their social groups and educational institutions.
???????? School students that outwardly display problematic behaviors present challenges, but often those students that appear to be quiet and withdrawn are experiencing difficulties as well.? When adding inferences or factual histories of criminality as a labeling mechanism for school students, these actions can result in negative impacts.? As Durkheim viewed all humans as animals, that are all capable of criminal acts (Gibbs, 2003), Hirschi’s Social Bonding Theory model evolved this assumption further, stating that most individuals could be socialized to more traditional standards that tend to bond them to the general societal traditions.? Through this philosophy, Hirschi theorized that the stronger the social bond, the greater probability of resiliency, and the less probability of criminality.?
???????? Hirschi’s theory was composed of four elements:? Attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief (Cassino, and Rogers, 2016). ?Hirschi noted that attachment was of primary importance, as did Sigmund Freud (Billow, 2003).? This social bond of attachment, and especially early attachments, are contingent upon the future successful relationships that individuals form and maintain with others, and the remaining elements are co-dependent upon this primary element.? Hirschi’s element of commitment is defined as an individual’s perceived investment in the conventionality of their society, whether pursuant to other individuals or families, communities, and/or organization, perhaps schools.? According to Hirschi, this investment in the conventionality of society results in greater conformity to norms and laws, which could regulate criminal behaviors.? Involvement by Hirschi, plainly states that idle individuals have a greater tendency to partake in criminal acts, and belief gauges the extent to which the individual regards the importance of following the rules of society, versus violating such, at the cost of abandoning the importance of being a good citizen (Sims, 2002).? Those individuals that fail to create these bonds, or have unsubstantial bond development, may have greater tendencies to commit crime, based on anemic bonding and/or innate self-indulgence. The capability to create these bonds in the school violence scheme for students can additionally apply to teachers.? Those educators that have not fully developed such traits in their own lives, could be deficient in their abilities to assist in generating and perceiving similar problems with their students.
???????? Labeling theory can play an important role in the development and the materialization of school rage shootings.? Students possessing certain traits can become targets of peer bullying.? The formal labeling theory dwells upon the impact of the criminal justice system’s sanctioning on individuals, specifically the results of the administration of justice, as a future cause of crime.? Formal labeling as theorized, sometimes together with differential associations, produces secondary deviance, however, informal labeling is a byproduct of formal labeling.? Informal labeling is affected by non-formal groups, such a friends, acquaintances, family, and individual members of society.? Informal labeling occurs in schools, and can be based on the youth’s socioeconomic status, appearance, academic performance, history, and a multitude of other rationales.? This informal labeling in the school venue can result in withdrawal, low self-esteem, bullying, and aggression.? The labeling of youth in schools, by their peers, can turn the victim into the aggressor, in some cases as a means of survival.? The body of research regarding the impact of formal labeling is extensive.? The formal labeling transpires when the individual violated societal laws, as a formal, sanctioned response.? The formal labeling process may be publicly known, and the official sanction may negatively influence the individual’s capacity to succeed.?Dependent upon many factors, the individual may not have the capability to overcome this stigma and return to criminal behaviors.?
???????? In schools, particularly K-12, informal labeling by peers can become insurmountable by those individuals that are deprived of coping abilities.? In these scenarios, resentment and anger can germinate into aggression, although (fortunately) rarely, shooting incidents.? Farr (2018), attributed school rage shooting (in part) to failing masculinity performances by already troubled boys.? Although the research was declared to support this proposition, the theory had no other research support.? Watts, Province, and Toohy (2018), produced data that stated the “relationship between negative mental health states and delinquency at school, specifically measured as depressive symptoms and gun carrying at school, wherein both of these variables are partly shaped by school attachment.”? Twemlow, Fonagy, Sacco, and Vernberg (2002), discussed the psychoanalytic assessments of adolescents, who threaten to commit homicides in schools.? Although the main thrust of this article is related to psychiatry, the authors have noted that five aspects of the youth environment that repeatedly emerged which related to long-term antisocial behavioral problems:? Poor supervision; erratic and harsh discipline; parental disharmony; rejection of the child; and low parental involvement in the youth’s activities.? These factors, all socially related, help to illustrate the importance of social bonding at the family level, and the valuable part that it plays in the youth’s successful future. ???
???????? According to Watson, Fischer, Jasmina, and Smith (2004), in their research for the determination of aggression pathways in children and adolescents, they utilized two different approaches in their assessment of risk factors.? Both pathways were not mutually exclusive, and the research results demonstrated that both had the propensity to foster various degrees of aggression among youth.? The study concluded that the manifest forecaster of aggression near the merge between adolescence and adulthood, was the individual’s history of the same, as a child.? The causation factor(s) for the aggression are situational, and Watson et al. described this approach as severe risk.? The secondary approach, cumulative, assumes that so many challenges for some individual children undercut normal functioning, which manifests various types of psychopathy, sometimes in the form of aggression.? ??
?? ?????????Under the severe risk approach, inhibited childhood temperament, together with victimization (actual or perceived), from parents and/or peers possibly creates aggression in youth.? Restated, the possibility exists that docile or submissive youth, who become victimized by bullying, can transform into aggressive victims.? The accumulation of these sequences of victimizations can have a negative behavioral response, resulting in aggression.? Although not exclusively, this biographical theme occurs in the characterizations of some school rage shooters.?
Batanova and Loukas (2014), examined associations between different components of empathy and aggression and utilized sound family relationships and school connectedness as moderating roles in early adolescent aggression.? They utilized the social development model, introduced by researchers Catalano and Hawkins, in 1996.? According to this model, the degree of aggression development in students can be demonstrated by their involvement within a socializing unit, such as school or family.? Catalano and Hawkins’ social development model notes a key role in bonding.? The model hypotheses’ that an individual’s behaviors (pro or antisocial) are dependent upon the prevailing norms, behaviors, and values of the individuals and/or institutions to which they are bonded (Catalano, Haggerty, Oesterle, Flemings, and Hawkins, 2004).? The Batanova and Loukas research produced results that indicated that school connectedness played an inhibitory role in boys’ overt aggression.
Analysis
???????? Social process theories play an important explanatory role in the investigation of causation factors in school rage shootings.? Research by Tannenbaum (1938), Sutherland (1939), Reckless and Lemert in the 1950s, Glaser, Goffman, and Becker, and Burgess and Akers in the 1960s, Kaplan in the 1970s, as well as Gottfredson, Tittle, and Braithwaite in the 1990s, all built upon each other propositions.? All the aforementioned theories have marked differences, however they also share the common element of the social process, as the manifest rationale of why individuals commit crimes.? In the realm of social process theories, the learning theories conclude that individuals learn criminality.? The control theories base their propositions on the belief that individuals are predisposed-inherently, to commit crimes, and must learn from others to be good citizens.
???????? In regard to school rage shootings, from the research by Libby, Watson et al., Fox and Harding, Watts et al., Twemlow et al., and Batanova and Loukas, the common findings have indicated that the social bonding process, especially at a young age, is prominent in building balance and coping skills in youth, for the future.? Future research efforts should be focused on the effects of the informal labeling of school age youth, not regarding criminality, but peculiarity and the general poverty of emotional and communicative abilities.? The school environment can be especially harsh for those that cannot cope with bullying and perineal victimhood.? Research emphasis should be towards suburban and rural schools and their students.? Urban areas are not historically susceptible to rage shootings. Most of the student social dynamics are attended to away from schools in urban areas, while suburban and rural schools are more central to student social actions, largely because of geographic concerns.
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