Unearthing the perspectives students bring with them in their college-level education coursework is especially important as education instructors are tasked with interrupting the unexamined proliferation of dominant ideologies among future educational professionals. The introduction to education course serves as an important site for this…

This study examined the factors that influence support for campus carry laws among a sample of approximately 2,700 faculty/administrators, staff, and students at a large, public university in Georgia. Although previous research suggests that support for campus carry may differ across groups on campus, there have been no studies that have examined…

In this qualitative case study, I examine pre-service teachers' experiences with school shooting policy. Analysis of individual interviews, group discussions and reflective memos with preservice teachers (n=7) in seven Massachusetts districts shows that pre-service teachers, while deeply concerned about the possibility of school shootings, viewed…

Campus carry laws have allowed civilians to legally bring their concealed firearms onto college and university campuses in several states in the U.S. over the past decade. Previous studies have addressed the policy's legal grounds, arguments for and against it, impacts on campus safety, and faculty and students' attitudes toward it. This paper…

My dissertation studies the relationship between counseling and violence within U.S. schools. Much of the research on school security and school safety tends to lean heavily on routine activities theory and other opportunity theories, which limits the study of other factors critically relevant to this topic such as school climate. This…

On August 3rd, 2019, a racially-charged mass shooting occurred at Walmart in El Paso, TX that killed 23 people and injured another 23. Following the Walmart shooting, students in this borderland region wrote essays related to their experiences. We used the themes we identified to inform implications for teaching writing and composition for middle…

Objective: This study assessed whether college students felt less safe or were less likely to work with another student when they thought the person they would work with was carrying a handgun than when they did not. Participants: Seventy participants were recruited from a public US university where campus carry was legal. Methods: Participants…

This study examined attitudes toward campus carry -- a policy that would permit individuals to carry concealed firearms on a university's grounds if they possess a permit. Survey data were collected from a sample of 1,380 members of a campus community -- undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and staff -- at a medium-sized public…

Although fatal shootings on U.S. college campuses are statistically rare, students are routinely confronted with information suggesting that shootings are rampant and unavoidable. Pre-crisis interventions should address the threat of deceptive claims and restore beliefs that universities are capable of protecting students from violence. This…

This exploratory study used data collected from a representative sample of 522 Pennsylvania residents and 238 Pennsylvania college students to measure attitudes toward four different types of campus carry (CC) -- student, faculty, staff, and universal carry. Findings indicated that a slight majority of both samples believed that armed staff and…

This study assessed the prevalence of weapon-related behaviors and experiences in secondary schools in California, their intercorrelations, and predictors at the individual and school levels. This study is based on a representative sample of 889,726 secondary school students in California based on the California Healthy Kids Survey. Prevalence…

Objective: Examine the sociodemographic and gun possession factors associated with gun policy attitudes among undergraduates. Methods: Undergraduates at a west coast university (N = 1,474) completed a questionnaire with measures of country of birth, political ideology, gender identity, gun possession at one's own residence, friends' and family's…

School safety is a key feature of the learning environment. Research suggests if students perceive their environment as unsafe they will face a myriad of possible detrimental consequences. Using qualitative interviews, we explore the factors most consistently identified by students as important in their feelings of safety. We examine whether the…

Although school violence statistics indicate that schools are safe places, anxiety over school shootings continues to influence school safety reform to the extent that security measures in American public schools include the arming of schoolteachers. Furthermore, not only have youths' perceptions of school security been relatively unexplored,…

This study explores misperceptions about peer norms in support of telling authorities about weapons at school and whether perceptions predict personal support for telling authorities. Anonymous surveys were conducted among youth in 30 schools (Grades 5-12) in six states (n = 12,903) between 2006 and 2014. Personal support for telling principals,…