The Social Roots of School Shootings - Essay Sample

Introduction

The book I chose is “Reaction to Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings.” Katherine S. Newman, Cybelle Fox, David Harding, Jal Mehta, and Wendy Roth wrote the book. Over the years, the issue of school shootings has terrified children, teachers, and parents, and decimated societies. Even the families who are very friendly have been affected. These tragedies confirm the acts of disconnected teens even though the authors argue that violent sources are from the communities. The book challenges the school violence loner theory.

The authors conducted about 163 interviews for town residents where most notorious shootings took place in the 90s (Newman et al., 2004, p.20). I chose the book because there have been issues of school shootings in the United States even recently. Therefore, I am seeking to know the reasons behind the school shootings. According to the sociological theory, a school is a central social institution contributing to social values internalization. It means that school shooting is part of masculine social reproduction and internalization dynamic. My paper examines the reasons behind school shootings in the United States and recommendations for reducing them. Specifically, the rampage conditions that will help explain school shootings include the perception of the shooter, psychological problems, surveillance system failure, cultural scripts, and availability of guns (Newman et al., 2004).

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Five Significant Conditions for Rampage

Being marginalized is a common thing in the school setting. Students are usually marginalized based on their race and social class. Marginalization usually makes one have self-esteem. For instance, when I joined a particular school, I could not pronounce some words correctly. The students would laugh at me, which made me have low status among my peers’ hierarchy. I would spend most of my time alone as no one wanted to be associated with me. From the book, some of the victims who resolved to school shootings were ridicule and bullying victims. It also makes this kind of students to feel desperate, resentful, and socially isolated. Apart from school shooters, workplace shooters also suffer from hurting marginalization (Newman et al., 2004, p.58). They feel that they are the odd ones out in the office because they are making fun behind their backs (Newman et al., 2004, p.58). Therefore, it is evident that both school and workplace shootings have unfortunate and profound similarities. They represent the individuals who feel marginalized, threatened, and ostracized, making them react through murderous violence.

Psychosocial Problems

The school shooters suffer from psychosocial problems magnifying the marginality impacts. According to Newman et al. (2004, p.54), psychological problems are responsible for the shootings because the source of youth violence commences at a tender age with neglect, rejection, plus other forms of abuse (Newman et al., 2004, p.58). The issues are supported by having a toxic social environment. For instance, in the book, one of the parents said that the son had psychological problems (Newman et al., 2004, p.382). The mother admitted that his son was depressed, although noting seem unusual as they dealt with teenage stuff and inadequacies. Besides, he was obsessed with the Colombian massacre, talked concerning having revenge, and threatened to shoot his classmates (Newman et al., 2004, p.382). Some of the psychosocial problems that might affect an individual include abuse, severe depression, mental illness, and other associated vulnerabilities (Newman et al., 2004, p.229).

Although children may look young and think that they are not disturbed compared to the adults, I think parents and teachers should start paying attention to them. While in high school, we had a classmate who would sit most of the time by himself. However, when students noticed something unusual with him, they reported it to the teacher, and he got help. He was having some family issues that even affected his performance at school. When one is psychosocially disturbed, then it becomes difficult for him or her to cope with the issue of social exclusion (Newman et al., 2004, p.230). Furthermore, it becomes difficult for even the students who enjoy acceptance as they consider themselves rejected, dislikes, and alone (Newman et al., 2004, p.230).

Cultural Scripts

In cultural scripts, behavior prescriptions should lead to an armed attack (Newman et al., 2004, p.230). The cultural scripts offer a model that can help in solving a problem. First, the shooter should believe that attacking the teachers or students would help resolve his or her dilemma. In the films, when we see films that feature villains or heroes shooting their way to higher notoriety, we look for cultural scripts traces linking public respect and manhood with violence (Newman et al., 2004, p.230). The script usually offers an image of the shooters’ needs and an action template linking the method to the goal. The explanations help explain the reasons behind the rampage school shooters unleashing their hopelessness and anger outward instead of inwards (Newman et al., 2004, p.230). Therefore, for cultural scripts, violence is linked to masculinity, which should not be the case for a school setting or any other setting. Acting violently in any form of setting is not a confirmation that an individual is masculine.

Cultural scripts provide the tools individuals have at their disposal while trying to resolve the problems affecting them in their daily activities (Newman et al., 2004, p.148). In most cases, individuals argue that teenagers have limited repertoire strategies of action that they can utilize in resolving social issues (Newman et al., 2004, p.148). The adolescent cultural script requires them to show independence when dealing with pressures, failures, and disputes (Newman et al., 2004, p.149). I have realized that the male individuals proving that they are masculine usually do most of the shootings. Only a few of the school rampage shootings have women involved. Even at the workplace, I have witnessed that most people become violent on even small issues that can be resolved in a friendly way because they believe it is a masculinity show.

Failure of Surveillance Systems

The common school security procedures include adult supervision, security staff, and electronic surveillance (Newman et al., 2004, p.286). The surveillance systems put in the school institutions have failed to identify the teens who are troubled before the issues turn out to be extreme (Newman et al., 2004, p.230). The school shooters are under the radar range since they show behavioral issues linked with troubled kids or potentially violent (Newman et al., 2004, p.230). In most cases, peers do not report threats when approached in advance. I think the purpose of surveillance systems in school should be to monitor their activities. If institutions are keen on their surveillance systems, it will be easy to know if one of the students has a problem and can take the necessary actions to resolve it. For instance, in my former high school, the school’s surveillance system helped prevent one of the students who wanted to commit suicide since his parents had divorced. In the past, the remote surveillance system has failed to recognize troubled students. There is a gap in the surveillance system for most towns, making it difficult for parents and the community to protect their children from danger (Newman et al., 2004, p.125). Adult monitory is not efficient in disciplining a child. From the book, there is the case of Andrew Golden, whom the neighbors were aware that he was a threat, violent, and bullied (Newman et al., 2004, p.125).

Although the school’s surveillance system might fail to notice the troubled students, in some cases, the students do not give a signal that they are troubled (Newman et al., 2004, p.253). For instance, in the case of Michael, Andrew, and Mitchell, as provided in the textbook, indicate that they did not give any signal to the school authorities (Newman et al., 2004, p.253). At first, there were some signals, but management dismissed them due to frequent apologies and good behavior (Newman et al., 2004, p.253). Besides, the surveillance system could not perform decoding the students’ broadcasts because it was a complex job. Therefore, it was difficult for the institution officials to detect that the students were troubled through the school’s surveillance system.

Gun Availability

A school shooting cannot occur if a youth does not attain unsupervised access to a gun (Newman et al., 2004, p.230). Gun availability is mainly concerned with young men laying their hands on a gun. Before giving a child access to a gun, it is important to consider their temper. For highly tempered students, if an issue occurs, they will be quick to remove their guns and shoot. However, for some youths who can control their tempers, they only use them to protect themselves if they face danger. Unfortunately, it is difficult for schools to detect if any of its students is a gun holder because they get them from relatives or home while others purchase them by registering through friends or themselves (Newman et al., 2004, p.259). From the CDC data, it is just in two instances that a student stole a gun and, in one instance, a shooter looked beyond relatives for a gun (Newman et al., 2004, p.259-260).

Conclusion

Even though it is difficult to know the children who will turn to be shooters, it is essential to focus on the children showing broadcast or disturbance signs (Newman et al., 2004, p.278). Achieving the strategy is by maintaining disciplinary, counseling, and academic records in the bureaucratic boundaries in separating different schools and grades in the same district (Newman et al., 2004, p.278). The strategy will help in looking at the life of the students more closely. Every week, social workers and guidance counselors meet the principal in discussing the troubled students (Newman et al., 2004, p.259-280). I propose that all schools adopt the strategy because it will help the school management resolve the issue before it gets out of hand.