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...

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…