Culture and Masculinity in American School Shootings: Reviewing Evidence from Multi-Victim School Shootings

American school shootings have received a lot of media, public and academic attention within the last two decades. Still, reasons behind the shocking events lie undiscovered. Although individual factors have been widely examined, researchers are yet to find commonalities. This thesis reviewed evidence of macro-sociological explanations for American school shootings and attempted to identify the roles of culture, cultural marginalisation and masculinity in American multi-victim school shootings using seven case studies from 1999-2018. Results identified cultural marginalisation as a key factor in all of the cases, whereas hegemonic and violent masculinities received some support. In addition, interconnectedness and relationships between anomie, culture, cultural marginalisation, masculinity and school shootings were discussed in more detail. Finally, future suggestions were made, and conclusions were drawn