School Violence and the Culture

¶ … School Violence and the Culture of Honor," Ryan P. Brown, Lindsey L. Osterman, and Collin D. Barnes of the University of Oklahoma test their hypothesis that the sociocultural variable called "culture of honor" is a significant predictor of school violence. This particular study derives from the increasing concern and interest in school violence due to the horrific attacks at Columbine High School and the University of Virginia in recent years. Instances of violence such as these have practitioners wondering if there are possible precursors with regard to gun-related aggression amongst today's youth.

Until now, such studies have used a case-by-case analysis. While individual case analyses highlight situational and dispositional variables that may have an impact on school shootings, this particular study seeks to conduct an analysis on a broader, cultural level and by doing so, these researchers hope to uncover additional insights regarding what motivates young people to kill. In particular, Brown, Osterman, and Barnes postulated that culture of honor may be a risk factor for school violence similar to how it has been a risk factor amongst violent crimes committed by adults. They term this the "culture of honor hypothesis."

In societies with a culture of honor, there is a focus upon strength and social regard vis-a-vis one's "person, family, reputation, and property." In these cultures, people are more aggressive and possess attitudes supportive of violence in the name of maintaining or regaining an individual's reputation, family, or property; moreover, violence is socially and legally allowed as sport and entertainment. In the United States, the Western and Southern states correlate more with culture-of-honor perspectives than the Eastern and Northern states. In the Western and Southern States which are deemed culture-of-honor states, there are basic demographic differences which might also account for an increase in school violence: they are hotter, poorer, and more socially unstable. The study by these researchers seeks more than just a correlation; they seek to link the actual indices of school violence with the percentage of high school students who reported having brought a weapon to school in the month and to examine that actual rates of shootings in the past twenty years.

Prior to embarking upon the study of the data for the past twenty years, the researchers put together a database on school violence, culture of honor and variables which they deemed as covariants with the culture of honor. The first study focused upon the percentage of highs school students who reported having brought a weapon to school at least once in the past month and charted this data along with demographic information collected from 1995 to 2005. Following a principal-components factor analysis of the six environmental-insecurity measures, the analysis revealed that approximately 68% of the total variance was due to two factors: economic insecurity and social insecurity. These two factors then became the control variables in their study.

The findings revealed that a higher percentage of high school students in culture-of-honor states than in non-culture-of-honor states reported bringing a weapon to school at least one time in the previous month. The researchers then make the following hasty generalization based thereon: Since the deadly violence is done with weapons, the association between the culture and the bringing of weapons to school then supports the hypothesis that school violence might be greater in culture-of-honor states. In order to obtain a violence indicator that does not rely on self-reported behaviors, they conducted another study: Study 2.