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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this article by Fitzclarence was to discuss school violence as evolving within a greater social context that currently emphasized rational thinking over the emotional aspects of life. The rational was said to have also overshadowed the emotional when it came to current styles of teaching and education. Implications were discussed.
METHODOLOGY:
The author provided a non-experimental review of the pertinent literature.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The author stated that school violence may be expressed passively or directly. It was argued that teachers were trained to emphasize the cognitive, rational processes of learning. However, the author contended that the processes of emotion such as anger, fear and anxiety were also a necessary part of education. The author believed that social violence was a pervasive problem and that to better understand this phenomenon it was necessary to attend to the greater social context, to what is learned socially, and to combat it by teaching the emotional aspects of life at school.
The author obtained statistics on the social context of violence in Australia from the National Committee on Violence (1990). These included the facts that: 1) Australia is a less violent society today than it was before Federation, however, it is more violent than it was between Federation and world war two; 2) there has been a rapid increase in rates of assault, sexual assault and robbery; and 3) violent offenders have been mostly male, aged between 18-30, and have come from working-class backgrounds. These statistics were used to make the point that it has been mostly males who have been included in violent activity, and to generate interest that previous experiences of violence contribute to current rates of aggression. The author also argued that to understand school violence, one needed to consider the types of learning that occur outside the school context.
The issue of interpreting violence was also explored. The author quoted the way in which violence has often been defined as "the behavior which leads to physical injury or damage, since historically it is the only aspect of violence that we are able to observe and record" (Newman, 1979, as cited by the author). The author argued that such a definition robbed the concept of violence of its contextual elements and made it relevant to those events that were directly observable only. The author contended that such a definition almost begs a conservative response to violence by the community (e.g., increased control of violent individuals). It was stated that the problem with this response was that it focused on the maintenance of social control, and blaming the individual, rather than focusing on the social factors that also contribute to violence.
The author stated that an alternative approach to social violence focused on the macro-level of violent behavior. The problem with this approach was said to be its inability to specifically identify the factors associated with violence. Such abstract conceptions of violence reportedly led to small possibilities of meaningful intervention.
The political ramifications of each approach were also considered. The author argued that when violence was considered within the social control paradigm, intervention on the micro-level was advocated. When violence was viewed as the deterioration of social support mechanisms, intervention at a macro-level towards structural economic organization was supported. The author contended that, because of this political either/or view of violence, current educational theory was constrained to the above limited conceptualizations. This also impacted the application of violence prevention and intervention programs. It was argued that these limitations could be overcome by dealing with micro-level problems, separately, within a macro-developmental framework. The external factors often hidden from view would then be revealed and highlighted. The author further argued that by utilizing this strategy, educators could examine the indirect ways in which the problem of violence was produced, and maintained, within the context of social factors. The author contended that since most violence was committed by males reacting to a loss of their culturally defined masculinity, and since schools were a part of the perpetuation of masculine identities, violence at school needed to be considered within this context also.
The author discussed two cultural considerations of social violence and education. These were 1) change (hyper-rationality) and 2) continuity (age/entitlement).
1) Change (hyper-rationality) was described as the escalating dominance of "rational" organizations, technology, science and many other social processes. The author asserted that "smart thinking" has been advocated a valued form of rational, constructive, social behavior. However, as stated by the author, the result of this type of rationality has been structural unemployment, and schools have been a part of the tension created by this trend of rationality. High school retention rates were said to be strongly associated with the destruction of employment. The author argued that conservative policy makers' have responded to structural unemployment by recommending the need to find ways in which to utilize redundant or surplus energy more constructively. The author stated that a more critical analysis of this process would reveal, however, that hyper-rationality and an educational emphasis on rational teaching methods (e.g., of math, science and information technology), results in the progressive marginalization and repression of the emotional aspects of being human. Social violence was seen as evolving from the repression of human emotion. The author advocated the reintroduction of the emotional dimension of life into the mainstream school curriculum.
2) Continuity (age/entitlement) was described as a process of social violence also. It was suggested that while adult generations provided care to the younger generations, they were also in a position of power. It was articulated that this type of power relationship may be transformed into a feeling of entitlement which, in turn, may result in violence against the weaker. Jenkins (1990, as cited by the author) was said to have highlighted the notion that there has been a powerful ideology that privileges rationality. Rationality was often viewed as an adult attribute and emotion was often seen as childish. It was argued that as a consequence, the emotional aspects of humanness have been repressed because they have not been given privilege. The author contended that the concept of age and entitlement affected education. It was argued that adults, as a part of a rational society, increasingly expect children to excel and compete against others for employment in a society which is not capable of providing these things. These, it was explained, were the ingredients for violence against the self and others. The author asserted that Jenkins' analysis was important to an understanding of social violence. The author stated also, however, that because of the increasing emphasis on rationality in our society, suggesting the need to teach about the emotional aspects of life would be met with resistance by those in power.
The author concluded that the current dominant and conservative style of education had problems with managing, both theoretically and practically, the emotional aspects of children's lives. The author stated that, as a result, it was not surprising that educators' responses to violence remained limited.
AUTHOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS:
The author suggested that there was a need to challenge the hegemony of the current form of education and competitive curriculums in schools. It was suggested that in order to stop social violence the emotional dimension of life needed to be taught and learned in our schools. Social changes in child rearing, the structure of employment, mass media images, and new educational practices, were also advocated as further means for reducing social violence.
(CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
Australia
Countries Other Than USA
School Violence
Juvenile Offender
Juvenile Violence
Student Violence
Sociocultural Factors
Violence Causes
Educational Factors
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