Social rejection and bullying as causes of school violence

School Violence: Cause and Effect

Leary el al. (2003) have noted that, "Case studies were conducted of 15 school shootings between 1995 and 2001 to examine the possible role of social rejection in school violence. Acute or chronic rejection -- in the form of ostracism, bullying, and/or romantic rejection -- was present in all but two of the incidents." This study drew extremely clear connections between incidents of social ostracism, bulling, and social rejection and incidents of school violence, including shootings. For example, incidents of school violence frequently occur as a direct result of negative interaction between members of a peer group. Researchers such as Leary et al. have provided conclusive evidence of this link. School violence prevention must, therefore, focus on ways in which school communities can mitigate these negative and potentially harmful social interactions and issues. In this sense, the cause of school violence is bullying and negative social experiences that often occur in school settings. The effect is that schools must carefully consider their school's social and disciplinary climate in order to effectively prevent incidents of interpersonal violence (Leary el al, 2003).

The Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA summarizes the issue of school violence with the statement, "Individuals suffering from true internal pathology represent a relatively small segment of the population. A caring society tries to provide the best services for such individuals; doing so includes taking great care not to misdiagnose others whose "symptoms" may be similar, but are caused by factors other than internal pathology." In this perspective, the cause of school violence is a direct product of pathological conduct disorders and anti-social behaviors. The guidelines created by the Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA note that some students may display dysfunctional behavior and may not have any true pathology. In other words, a student may act out due to stressful or alienating situations, but if those stressors are alleviated the student may return to normal functioning. In this model professionals must take care to determine the exact cause and effect of violent behaviors. If the underlying cause of the behavior is, in fact, a dysfunctional pathology that student may require in-depth treatment and ongoing support. If, however, a student does not have any clinically pathological behaviors his disruption or violence may be resolved by decreasing stressors.