Research Article School Violence and the Culture

ABSTRACT—We investigated the hypothesis that a socio-cultural variable known as the culture of honor would be uniquely predictive of school-violence indicators. Con-trolling for demographic characteristics associated in previous studies with violent crime among adults, we found that high-school students in culture-of-honor states were significantly more likely than high-school students in non-culture-of-honor states to report having brought a weapon to school in the past month. Using data aggregated over a 20-year period, we also found that culture-of-honor states had more than twice as many school shootings per capita as non-culture-of-honor states. The data revealed impor-tant differences between school violence and general pat-terns of homicide and are consistent with the view that many acts of school violence reflect retaliatory aggression springing from intensely experienced social-identity threats. From the coordinated attack at Columbine High School in Colorado, to the one-man massacre at Virginia Tech, violence in schools has become a topic of increasing concern in recent years and has prompted a flurry of studies on possible precursors to gun-related aggression among youth. To date, most of these studies have utilized a focused, case-based approach, largely because of the low frequency of school shootings. This case-study approach has yielded valuable insights into certain commonalities among shooters (e.g., they tend to be interested in violent media, often have mood disorders or suicidal ideations, and are commonly the victims of taunting or rejection; Fei