Abstract
An exploration of the phenomenology and global prevalence of school shootings, also serving as an introduction outlining the conceptual framework of the volume. The central approaches and terminology of school rampage research are introduced. An empirical survey of global prevalence reveals international trends and fundamental characteristics of perpetrators and attacks. The findings show that school shootings are a historically growing phenomenon occurring predominantly in modern Western societies, committed overwhelmingly by male adolescents at secondary schools. The chapter concludes with an overview of the contributions in the volume outlining the specific perspectives of each author.
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Notes
- 1.
Schülein (1998, p. 96, translated) identifies a number of central requirements for interdisciplinary cooperation that appear exceptionally relevant in this connection: “Interdisciplinarity demands the capability to transcend boundaries and to tolerate transgressions. In other words, to accept that there are other ways of seeing the world and that others may relativize that which is central to one’s own perspective.” Such dialog is worthwhile and potentially extremely fruitful because innovative ideas and research activities can arise specifically out of controversy and interdisciplinary exchange (Dornes 2007). This observation can also be regarded as the motto for this book, which brings together authors from different countries, professions, and scientific disciplines to present their specific perspectives and findings for discussion.
- 2.
Interestingly, more recent empirical research shows that (rampage) school shootings frequently mingle individual motives (such as personal revenge for experiences of humiliation) with ideological and political motivations, creating a complex set of motives that is not always clear-cut (Larkin 2009; Böckler and Seeger 2010; Muschert and Ragnedda 2010).
- 3.
Note that this criterion excludes incidents committed by individuals who are not current or former students of the institution. Such cases are classified as general “classical rampage” (or, if the perpetrator is a teacher or other member of school staff, as “workplace violence”).
- 4.
“Rampage” derives from the verb “to ramp,” meaning “rage, storm, rush about” (Pocket Oxford Dictionary, 1978). Similarly the German term for rampage attack, “Amok,” originates etymologically from the Malay “amuk” meaning “frenzied” or “attacking furiously” (also the origin of the English term “to run amok”). The related Malay verb “mengamuk” designates a spontaneous violent attack on random victims (Faust 2007).
- 5.
A serious methodological problem of data collection arises here. In many cases, the perpetrator’s exact motives are almost impossible to reconstruct reliably from media reports, making scientific quality criteria of reliability and validity hard to fulfill.
- 6.
One central weakness of this operationalization is certainly its broad focus, encompassing cases that were long planned and involved a large number of victims (such as Columbine, Erfurt, or Blacksburg) alongside incidents of violence that occurred in affect and more or less spontaneously with a significantly smaller number of victims (e.g., Pinellas Park or the Campbell County High School shooting). To what extent these different constellations are based on similar socio- and psycho-dynamics is a matter for further research.
- 7.
The following sources also turned out to be very useful: the National School Safety Center’s school-associated deaths database (United States; lists only cases since 1992), the privately-run website www.columbine-angels.com, and the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Information from the latter two sources was included only if confirmed elsewhere (newspaper reports, etc.).
- 8.
2000s: Figures for 2001–2010.
- 9.
Placing the number of school shootings in relation to the total student population further relativizes the findings and shows them in a more realistic light. For example, there were about 11.7 million students at general and vocational schools in Germany in 2009/2010 (Statistisches Bundesamt 2010), and two recorded school rampage attacks in 2009, putting the percentage of perpetrators in the school population at 0.07%.
- 10.
Muschert and Peguero (2010, p. 119) refer to a “Columbine effect”: “a term that refers to how school rampage shootings change the way we think about school violence and security.”
- 11.
Nevertheless, the probability of a child or adolescent being killed in a school shooting remains minuscule. In the United States, as the country with by far the largest number of cases, less than 1% of murders of young people aged between 5 and 18 years occur in the school context (Modzeleski et al. 2008).
- 12.
This underlines the absence of a specific profile of attack or perpetrator (O’Toole 1999; Vossekuil et al. 2002; Borum et al. 2010). Instead, cases must be regarded as heterogeneous and subjected to accordingly differentiated analysis (Hoffmann 2007; Scheithauer and Bondü 2011). Using the empirical data, it may prove possible to develop subtypes or a typology of incidents and perpetrators (see also Langman in this volume).
- 13.
Three of the 120 recorded incidents involved two perpetrators.
- 14.
The age of 7 of the 123 perpetrators could not be ascertained. One was just 11 years old.
- 15.
Empirical findings to date suggest that most school shooters were academically good or very good at school. According to Vossekuil et al. (2002), only 5% were failing in advance of their attacks. This says nothing, however, about subjective experience of pressure to achieve that perpetrators may have found stressful or burdensome. Heitmeyer (2002) points out that adolescents from prosperous and achievement-orientated backgrounds are often under considerable parental pressure to at least maintain the social status of their family (see also Heitmeyer et al. 1998). School shooters generally come from white middle-class families that are lacking in support and emotional recognition (McGee and DeBernardo 1999; O’Toole 1999; Fast 2008). These observations suggest that further research on perpetrators’ family relationships would also be worthwhile.
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Böckler, N., Seeger, T., Sitzer, P., Heitmeyer, W. (2013). School Shootings: Conceptual Framework and International Empirical Trends. In: Böckler, N., Seeger, T., Sitzer, P., Heitmeyer, W. (eds) School Shootings. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5526-4_1
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