NCJ Number
191555
Journal
Systemic Practice and Action Research Volume: 13 Issue: 3 Dated: 2000 Pages: 279-296
Date Published
June 2000
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This article offers an alternative to common analyses of school violence by describing the underlying systemic, cyclic nature of violence and by examining the implications of a systemic intervention model.
Abstract
Recent media coverage regarding school violence has resulted in a variety of desperate approaches aimed at preventing such events from recurring. However, most of these approaches derive from reductionist cultural scripts that affix blame and various preceding events and do not systemically explore the underlying problems. The resulting interventions are often short-term, simplistic fixes that have subsequent unpredictable consequences of their own. In contrast, a deconstruction process asks what preceded a violent event rather than what caused it, because it is the interaction, timing, and intensity of these factors that lead to violent events. The factors provide the potential for violent acts, but they are not always predictive of violent acts. The cycle from the violent events goes back to crucial triggering situations, membership in deviant peer groups, social alienation, emotional disturbances due to early trauma, genetic predisposition, dysfunctional family systems, and a violent cultural context. Control or regulation of crucial factors is impossible, but the nature of participation in events influences their outcomes. Ideas that deserve further discussion and study include amplifying and dampening cycles, recognition that people learn controls in context, the need for intervention early and often, experiencing power and responsibility, and the need for relentless awareness and intervention. The analysis concludes that a systems approach is useful to examining and dealing with school violence and that unlike most popular political solutions, this approach requires recognition of the complexity of systems, the propensity of systems to perpetuate themselves, and the ability of systems to change when tweaked expertly at the right time and in the right place. 57 references (Author abstract modified)