Dear esteemed colleague:
This letter alerts you to studies pertinent to our research on school
violence. This author used the Jerry Falwell Library to search for empirical
peer-reviewed journal articles using three keywords: school, violence, and
shooting. The search netted two articles of interest, and this author
summarizes those articles below.
In the first journal article, David Pina Lopez (2022) published a study in
the International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology comparing
attitudes toward violence and violent behavior. Lopez (2022) engaged in
this research to discover if attitudes toward violence correlated to violent
behavior in school.
Using a meta-analysis research method, Lopez (2022) reviewed 26
independent sample studies with a sample participant size of 20,284.
Lopez's (2022) meta-analysis variables of interest were attitudes toward
violence and violent behavior in school. It appears that Lopez (2022) used
Pearson's coefficient of correlation (r=.368
(95%CI[.323, .412],p< .0001)) to the magnitude and direction of the
correlation. Lopez (2022) concluded that attitudes toward violence and
violent school behavior correlated significantly.
The second journal article addressed whether or not gun ownership was
related to school shootings. A group of researchers led by Paul M.
Reeping, Louis Klarevas, Sonali Rejan (2022) compared 232 school
shootings to a restrictiveness-permissiveness scale of state gun laws.
They attempted to answer the question: do certain states experience
school shootings because of permissive gun laws? The researchers used
regression analysis to analyze the variables of gun laws and school
shootings. The researchers concluded that states with less restrictive gun
laws and more gun owners had higher school shootings rates (Reeping, et
al., 2022).
These two articles support my interest in the factors that contribute to
school violence and school shootings. School shootings have risen in
recent years and only saw a slight reduction during the pandemic
(Reeping, et al., 2022). Both articles strengthened my understanding of
school violence by using statistical analysis to describe and predict school
violence. This author was interested in the researchers' suggestion of new
resources. For example, Reeping et al. (2022) found that one of my
predicted school shootings will occur in states with permissive gun laws
and suggest further research is needed to understand the relationship
between gun laws and the onset of the rise in school shootings. This
author is interested in how public policy has influenced school violence, so
this area of research is compelling and worth additional inquiry.
López. (2022). Association Between Attitudes Toward Violence and Violent
Behavior in the School Context: A Systematic Review and Correlational
Meta-Analysis. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology :
IJCHP., 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2021.100278
Paul M. Reeping, Louis Klarevas, Sonali Rajan, Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, Justin
Heinze, April M. Zeoli, Monika K. Goyal, Marc A. Zimmerman & Charles C.
Branas (2022): State Firearm Laws, Gun Ownership, and K-12 School
Shootings: Implications for School Safety, Journal of School Violence, DOI:
10.1080/15388220.2021.2018332
