This document presents public testimony given at the town hall meeting held by California State Senator Teresa P. Hughes in Hawthorne, California in the state's 25th senatorial district on September 23, 1996. The meeting examined school safety programs that had been successful. A panel of elected officials, policy makers, researchers, and…

This paper presents findings from a district-wide survey of 7th grade students in a semi-rural school district where 23% of the students are Latino. Participating students completed the California School Climate and Safety Survey which assesses student perceptions regarding general school climate and personal safety-related experiences.…

Factors that influence principals in decisions related to violence in schools were studied through semi-structured interviews with 12 junior high school principals in a large western Canadian school district. Participants were selected on the basis of their known involvement in school violence prevention initiatives. Several decision-making…

Reviews and critiques some of the more prominent school-safety databases. Develops a framework for collecting safe-schools indicators by merging the safe-school framework of the National Education Association with a social-indicators model. Provides recommendations for annual data collection, publication, and dissemination. (SLD)

More than one third of Americans think that reducing school violence is the top challenge facing public schools. The challenge posed by National Education Goal 7 is that, by the year 2000, schools will be free of violence. Despite increased concern about school violence and pursuit of this lofty national goal, this paper presents the argument that…

Although school violence has been a concern in the United States for over two decades, the topic has only recently generated serious study in Canada. Central to the development of effective violence-mitigation policies is an understanding of how and why student victims, perpetrators, and observers respond to the school-based violence they…

This study explored the role of the media in the formation and preservation of optimistic bias. It also sought to link optimistic bias and third-person perception, bridging a gap between communication studies and health psychology. The intersection of the two literatures may be especially beneficial in understanding how adolescents process and…

This study is the first of its kind to study third-person perception within the context of school violence. Linkages to the health psychology literature (optimistic bias) provide the basis for further understanding of adolescents' perceptions of school violence and the influence of media violence in their lives. Results from a survey of 1,500…

In this literature review on school violence, over 4,000 sources were found in government reports, journal articles, editorials, and texts. This review is offered as a reference, with the implication that it represents only a cursory overview of this field of study. The paper begins by quoting articles that define school violence and theories as…

The purposes of this study were to devise and provide validity and reliability data for scores on an instrument measuring attitudes toward school violence and to develop importance ratings of the items based on data from teachers in a high school that had experienced a highly publicized violent episode. Two independent samples were used. Based on…

To analyze perceptions of what constitutes a safe school. different perceptions of what constitutes a safe school, an assessment of the first 4 years of North Carolina's Annual Report on School Violence (ARSV) is reported here. The ARSV is a collection of data on specific acts of violence occurring on school property. Data on acts of violence were…

This study examined the incidences of bullying behaviors among male and female 9th and 10th graders in rural Nebraska and suburban Texas schools. Nebraska students were predominantly Caucasion, and Texas students were African American, Hispanic American, and Caucasion. Student surveys examined such issues as how often bullying occurred, where it…

Dealing with the impact of crisis on school children and staff is not the primary mission of schools. Therefore, many schools remain unprepared to respond to a crisis affecting students and staff. Too often they respond to each successive crisis in a reflexive manner with little preplanned coordination or structure. This workshop provides an…

Interviews with 78 high school students and 22 teachers in five high schools suggest that violence occurs at predictable locations and times in and around the school building. The locations were generally undefined public space not supervised by any teacher. Discusses implications for the prevention of school violence. Contains 98 references. (SLD)

Unsafe conditions in schools impede student learning. This paper describes how an effective conflict-management program can help to create a safe school environment. Such a program should be considered essential to an overall school-safety plan, not regarded as an adjunct to the plan. An effective conflict-management program gives students a…