Vandalistic Behavior,Bullying and Violence on Campus Essay Example

Vandalistic Behavior,Bullying and Violence on Campus Essay Example Vandalistic Behavior,Bullying and Violence on Campus Essay Vandalistic Behavior,Bullying and Violence on Campus Essay Abstract American Campus was and is usually idealized to be a sanctum for academic study. However, beneath the semblance of peaceful ivory tower, American campus nowadays is on and off plagued by an alloy of miscellaneous violence which has increasingly become a serous social problem. On the one hand, violence is taking place on American campus on a more frequent basis, and on the other hand, the way the violence is committed tends to be crueler, more violent and traumatically hurtful. In view of the increasingly worsening situation, it would be of enormous significance o look into the nature and scope of current violence on American campus and reveal the root causes for campus violence. This thesis presents the vandalistic behavior, bullying, sexual violence, hate violence, and mass murder as the typical violence typology on campus. According to the social learning theory, violence is interpreted as an outcome of students appropriating from their environments and popular culture aggressive behavior. Drawing upon the social learning theory, this thesis looks into a complex set of social factors that give rise to campus violence in the U. S. including the violence cult, gun ownership, and social tension factors such as racism, sexism and religious conflicts. Despite decades- long efforts taken by American society to combat violence, the adverse trend has not yet been reversed, or is likely to be in the foreseeable future. The underlying reason in that respect lies in some cultural, political and social forces deep-rooted in the American culture, which make the campus violence disease determinedly intractable, or even ineradicable. In this sense, to understand campus violence is in fact to understand American culture and society. Key words: Campus Violence, Social Learning Theory, American Society, Causes and Typology Behaviors. Shooting. ? Campus Violence.. . 16 2. 2. 2 Violence on Mass Media. Campus. Tension.. ? RootsContents American Campus Violence: an Overview. 5 1 1 1 Chapter One . 5 1. 2 Campus Violence .. 7 1. 2. 1 Vandalistic .. 8 1. 2. 2 .. 8 1. 2. sexual .. 9 1. 2. 4 Hate .. 10 1. 2. 5 Mass Murder/ .. 11 1. 3 Summary .. 12 Chapter Two Causes of 14 2. 1 The Theories on .. 14 2. 2 Violence . 16 2. 2. 1 Violence Cult in American .. 18 2. 2. 3 Violence cult on .. 20 2. 3 social .. 22 2. 3. 1 .. 252. 3. 3 .. 27 2. 4 Easy Access to . . 29 Chapter Three The Intractable Nature Gun.. of Campus Violence.. 33 3. 1 Cultural Legacy: Radical Individualism. 33 3. 2 Political Clout: Pro-Gun Interest Group. 6 3. 3 Social Institution: Escalated Social Conclusion. Bibliography. ? .. 421 Introduction For many years, c ollege campuses have been viewed as an ivory tower that is insulated from violence. In actual fact, however, the notion of the campus as a crime- free oasis is a myth, as in the case of the United States. Not only does violence or crime at large affect schools and colleges themselves in America, but in some respects its campuses have become fertile ground for violent or criminal behaviors that permeate beyond campus. The sharp escalation of youth violence from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s led to the descriptions of it as unprecedented (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1992), as epidemic (Tolmas, 1998: 483-492; U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001), and ubiquitous (Tolan, 2001), respectively. In 2005, the FBI declared 2,712 known violent crimes in the universities and colleges across all states. According to the estimates by the Department of Justice, the number of Juveniles arrested for violent crimes will double by the year 2010(Snyder Sickmund, 2006: 1 11). With the escalation of campus violence, many scholars have made great efforts to study the problem from different perspectives. Deanna C. Linville, for example, examines how extracurricular activities, such as participation in non-school clubs, religious activities, exercise frequency and number of sports team memberships relate to rural youth violence (2005: 483-492). Ann Bellotti attributes the etiology of violence in the college and university setting to beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors which may predispose, enable, and reinforce violence (1995: 105-123). Thomas W. Farmer and Elizabeth M. Z. Farmer suggest that aggression and school violence involve the contributions of both school social dynamics and the evelopmental histories of youth who are at risk for involvement in antisocial behavior (2004: 377-396). In these earlier studies on campus violence, there is a tendency to define the scope of the problem of campus violence narrowly, and this is likely to impede the understanding of the phenomenon and its dimensions, and compromises efforts to respond to it. In reaction to such limitation in previous studies, this thesis puts forward an integrated definition of campus violence by encompassing2 not only the violence resulting in physical harm but also the psychological or emotional trauma caused by it. Apart from putting forth an expanded definition to guide a comprehensive recognition of the problem of campus violence, this thesis draws upon the social learning theory to examine and analyze campus violence in the United States from the social, historical and cultural perspectives. In Chapter One, the author points out the conventional definition of campus violence which focuses on the visible physical harm produced by violence but neglects the psychological harm. Moreover, the usual definition ignores the thesis puts forth a more integrated definition of campus violence, and based on the efinition, presents hate and sexual violence that are driven by racism and sexism in society. Apart from that, campus bullying and mass shooting are two types of campus violence that have come to the forefront of the publics attention. Chapter Two proceeds to probe into the social factors that give rise to campus violence. Drawing upon the social learning theory, the thesis emphasizes that the social and cultural environment where a person is exposed to plays an influencing part in a persons behavior. Campus is a microcosm of society at large and the violence cult of America constitutes the fundamental cause of American campus violence. In At Zero Tolerance, Ronnie Casella concluded the cause of violence as follows: The United States has yet to view violence as an outcome of a national history that has been violent, of an economic system that creates the social isolation and hopelessness that causes some violence, and a culture that has come to accept and even prosper from everyday forms of aggression against the less powerful in the world. Unfortunately, this context of violence is not even recognized until it is the white and middle-class kids who become embroiled in the mayhem (2001:37). 3 However, the origins of violence lie in a complex set of influence. No single factor can provide the definitive answer to the question of why students commit violence so often and so casually. In addition to the violence cult, other social factors contributing campus violence need to be taken into account. A sample of 222 African American, Mexican American, or European American undergraduate students completed questionnaires as sessing lifetime exposure to interpersonal violence and current levels of psychological distress. The frequency of interpersonal violence was high: 39. 2% of the students reported direct exposure to at least one violent, nonsexual life event and 43. % reported at least one violent sexual experience. 14% of the participants had lifetime diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder, with the highest reported rate occurring for the African Americans, who also reported more violent sexual and nonsexual experiences and higher levels of psychological distress. Women reported more direct sexual experiences whereas men reported more nonsexual violent events (Satcher, 2001 : 7). Given that the respondents who had been victimized all came from minority groups, and that the female respondents were the easy targets of sexual violence, this sample indicates that racism and sexism are still irectly or indirectly causing campus violence. Moreover, the campus simply reflects the greater problem in society, where firearms are used in 60% of homicides, 41 % of robberies, 23 % of aggravated assaults, and 10 % of rapes (Espelage Swearer, 2003: 365-383). The easy access to gun is another factor that facilitates the prevalence of campus violence. Chapter Three looks into the forces deep-rooted in American society that makes the eradication of violence on campus difficult or even impossible. This is approached from three aspects: cultural, political and social. First, the thesis argues that ndividualism, as a highly lauded cultural legacy of the nation, bestows excessive freedom to the individuals. Secondly, with the gun interest group pursuing lucrative profits and backing up the gun ownership, gun acquisition wont be restricted within a short time soon. Finally, as the social tension resulting from the racial, sexual as to remain unchanged in a foreseeable future. As campus violence worsens off, it is worth attention and serious research work by related scholars and campus authority. This paper is a tentative attempt in this direction, intended to shed some light on the study of American campus violence. Chapter One American Campus Violence: an Overview 1. 1 Definition Campus violence has been present on American campus ever since the existence of campus and it has become one of the trickiest and the most serious issues in American society. Each year the boundaries of violence extend. Many scholars have studied the subject and formulated their own versions of definition for campus violence. The concept of violence literally means physical force used to inflict injury or damage. It connotes an intense manifestation of strength, usually involving some severe physical effects. As Gerald Priestland says, he essence of violence is that physical power is deliberately employed, with the ultimate sanction of physical pain, and little choice but surrender or physical resistance(1974: 19). And the archetypal act of violencethe image that we are likely to have of it-is something like punching someone on the nose, or stabbing them, or beating them. Accordingly, campus violence is conventionally defined as the use of force, often extreme physical force, by a student toward other people or himself/herself that results in harm. Berg defined violence in the campus setting as the use or threat of physical force with the ntent of causing physical injury, damage or intimidation of another person (2000:18). However, this kind of definition omits two critical elements of harm. First, it excludes the emotional and psychological pain that results from dominance of some over others. Violence on todays campus is more insidious, invisible, and psychologically harmful and can be done in a more explicitly civilized manner. Without sustaining actual physical force, one can still fall easy prey to violence, such as the tacit violence, discriminatory trauma and psychological abuse; second, the said definition ignores the violence of social process that produces ystematic social injury, such as that perpetuated through institutionalized racism and sexism. According to the theory of social learning initiated by Albert Bandura, individuals imitate as well as interpret and6 interact with the message of society. [P]eople are not simply reactors to external influences; they select, organize, and transform the stimuli that impinge upon them(1977: 89). In the case of campus violence, people living in an environment that prescribes certain violence standards or practice as normative will be nurtured to accept and come to terms with these acquiesced practices of violence. It should be noted that both racial and sexual violence are not rare across American campus. The implicitly rampant racism, sexism and religious discrimination in society result in hate violence with regard to race, sexuality and religion. The hate violence tends to exert on individuals or groups adverse psychological or mental impact, which might be more harmful than physical harms. For example, gender discrimination has been shown to create harmful effects on female students learning experience. When a teacher favors male students over females, because of the formers seemingly extroverted classroom participation, they eelings of inadequacy, anger, and long-term depression. As a result, the conventional definition of campus violence neglects harmful institutionalized social and educational processes, including acts and processes of institutionalized racism or sexism, other discrimination, labeling and tracking, sexual harassment, and predation (Henry, 1999: 18). Based on this analysis, when enumerating the concrete violent acts on campus, it is not adequate to assume that physical violence such as shoving, pinching, hitting, fghting, or aggravated assault cover the whole spectrum of ampus violence to the neglect of such hidden violence as verbal and psychological abuse, racially, sexually and religiously driven hate crimes that produce psychological harms other than physical injuries. Moreover, it should be noted that the exercise of the power to harm, as mentioned earlier, can also be accomplished by such factors as sexism, ageism and racism. The overlook of these broader dimensions of campus violence causes the missing of much of the content and many causes of violence on campus. In order to have a7 more accurate concept of campus violence, a more integrated definition of campus iolence is necessary. A more accurate and integrated definition should first of all replace the term force with power and by suggesting that violence is the use of power to harm another, whatever form that takes. So, the key point here is the use of power and the harm it causes when applied in a wrong way. Power is easy to understand. When broadly defined, it means the capacity to bring about change. It takes many forms, comes from many places and is measured in many ways. What is more difficult is how to define harm. What is harm? Harm, when narrowly conceived, is physical pain and suffering. But an expansive view says harm can also occur along many dimensions, beyond the physical, to include psychological or emotional; material or economic; social or identity; moral or ethical. For example, physical harms produce bodily pain or loss; material harms remove some of the persons economic standing; psychological harms have destructive effects on the human mind and weaken a persons emotional or mental functioning; social and symbolic harms lower a persons social status; moral or ethical harms corrupt standards of concern for the well-being of others (as in hate, pressure to cheat, and the like). With the inclusion of ocial practices as factors contributing to violence and the expansion on the resultant harm from violence, this thesis defines campus violence as the intentional use of power, threatened or actual, by some individual, or social process, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development, or deprivation. Based on this definition, the next section will put forward the representative typology of campus violence that merit attention by campus authority and U. S. government. 8 1. 2 Campus Violence Typology Based on the more integrated definition of campus violence as stated above, we can distinguish five modes in which violence may be inflicted: Vandalistic Behavior; Bullying; Hate Crime; Sexual Violence; Mass Murder/Shooting. 1. 2. 1 Vandalistic Behaviors Vandalistic behavior refers to the willful or malicious damage to school grounds and produce either explicit or implicit physical violence, bloody scene or violent confrontation between the youth, it is likely to cause psychological trauma on the targets. Specific examples for school vandalism include glass breakage, graffiti, and general property destruction. In the U. S. , these behaviors might be the external embodiment of anti-Semitism, one of the main motivations for the vandalistic behavior on campus. Nazi-related graffiti, such as the swastika, are more often than not found painted on the campus property to remind the Jews of the painful past. There has also been defacement done to numerous campus areas, such as the bobcat face, newly paved sidewalks and commuters cars. In other case of vandalism, it is found that students smear petroleum Jelly on the schools windows, throw birdseed and flour against the windows, dump paper in a courtyard and shot the uilding with paintballs. Arson also qualifies as vandalistic behavior due to its intention. According to the U. S. Department of Education (n. d. ), there were 1,098 cases of campus arson reported in 2002 Ooetta L. Carr, 2005: 9). Over the past two decades, concerns about school violence, weapons, drugs, and gangs have eclipsed apprehension and discussion about school vandalism, its causes, and possible responses. However, the alarming fact is that vandalistic behavior continues to occur regularly and to affect a significant proportion of U. S. campus. 1. 2. 2 sullytngg Bullying refers to unprovoked physical or psychological abuse of an individual by one or a group of students over time to create an ongoing pattern of harassment and abuse (Batsche Knoff, 1994:165-174; Hoover, Oliver, Thomson, 1993; Olweus, 1991:143-150). It is among the largely neglected aspect of low-level American campus violence. Not only does bullying produce physical harm, it also results in psychological detriments. Bullying usually takes place when there is an imbalance of power between aggressor and victim, and moreover, the aggressive acts are deliberate and repeated (Farrington 1993; Olweus, 1993; Smith Sharp, 1994). Although bullying is largely neglected, its occurrence frequency and coverage are both higher than other high-level campus violence. Bullying victimization is estimated to affect 15% to 20% of the U. S. tudent population, with verbal teasing and intimidation being the most common form and boys are reported to be victims at a higher rate than girls (Furlong, Chung, Bates, Morrison, 1995:289-298). Students grow up and leave school-including those mean kids of long ago, but in a certain sense the bully never actually grows up; he or she still bullies, harasses, and intimidates others. Little has changed over the years in this regard, with the possible exception that things may have gotten i mmeasurably worse-especially within the context of schooling. The gang is a cause that leads to campus bullying. Like any group of people who engage in socially disruptive or criminal behavior, gangs on campus create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. To a certain extent, the campus has become a breeding ground for gang, and the Juvenile and young adults associate together to victimize, bully and intimidate school members, carry out antisocial activities, such as omb-making, satanic websites visiting. The presence of the gang on campus undermines the campus climate to a great extent and accordingly, exerts negative 1. 2. Sexual Violence10 The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women defines violence against women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. Kilmartin observes, [R]ape and other par tner iolence are the worst symptom of a larger problem: a continuum of disrespect toward women. This continuum includes mens display of negative attitudes through misogynist Jokes, demeaning pornography nd runs to the most extreme form of violence: gender motivated murder. Such an analysis also emphasizes power imbalances between the sexes and the social forces that create and maintain these imbalances. (2007: 23) In a country like the United States which finds sexism so prevailing in peoples mentality, sexual violence is not rare on American campus. It mainly includes sexual assault, stalking and dating violence. College campuses host large concentrations of young women who are at greater risk for rape and other forms of sexual assault than women in the general population or in a comparable age group. Stalking is particularly prevalent on college campuses; in fact, more than half of all stalking victims are between 18-29 years old, and 13% of college women have been stalked. In 1981 , Makepeace published the first report on dating violence, revealing that one in five college couples are involved in violent relationships. Recent studies show that as many as one in three college couples will be involved in at least one incident of iolence during the course of their dating relationship (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000; Lewis Fremouw, 2001:8(:)-84). 1. 2. Hate Violence Hate violence and its resultant victimization are becoming more prominent on Americas college campuses. Also known as bias-motivated violence, hate violence occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her membership in al 1 certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, or political affiliation and a s a result, it is evealed that sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-lslamism and homosexuality have all induced and would continue to trigger off the occurrence of hate crime, which can take many forms. Incidents may involve physical assault, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse or insults, or offensive graffiti or letters. They occur at virtually every type of college and university and in every part of the nation. Perpetrators of these incidents include current and former students and non- students. According to criminologist Dr. Jack McDevitt, hate crime is different from ther crimes in that the offender is sending a message to members of a certain group that they are unwelcome in a particular neighborhood, community, school, or workplace. By far the largest determinant of hate crimes is racial bias, with the group of African Americans at greatest risk. Apart from the hate crime against the Black Americans, there are ones committed against Hispanics, because of their immigration status. 1. 2. 5 Mass Murder/Shooting The April 2007 massacre of 32 victims on the otherwise bucolic campus of Virginia America. Not only was it the most devastating violent episode ever to occur at an nstitution of higher learning, it was the largest mass shooting of any kind in the nations history. Gun violence is the lethal form of campus violence. According to a recent national survey of 26,000 college students on 61 campuses, 7% of the students carried a gun or knife on the previous days. The study indicated that 11% of the men and 4% women surveyed carried weapons. Extrapolated, this means that approximately 1 million (to be exact, 980,000) students carry weapons on campus. 18% of high school students now carry a knife, razor, firearm, or other weapon on a regular basis, and 9% of them take a weapon to school. According to a national survey of 26,000 college students on 61 campuses in 1992, 7% of students carried a12 gun or knife. The outcome of such a heavily armed students group has been severe. In 1992, for example, 5,262 young people died from gunshot wounds, and an estimated 23,167 students suffered nonfatal firearm injuries that were treated in hospital emergency rooms from June 1992 through May 1993 dames Mercy Mark Rosenberg, 1998). 1. 3 Summary As demonstrated above, the most common campus violence takes forms of Vandalistic Behavior; Bullying; Hate Crime; Sexual Violence; Mass Murder/Shooting. Violence accounts for much of the morbidity and mortality among adolescents in the United States (National Center for Health Statistics, 2003). All the five types of violence are pervasive on American campuses. It was estimated that bullying victimization is calculated to affect 15% to 20% of the U. S. student population, with verbal teasing and intimidation being the most common form and boys reported to be victims at a higher rate than girls (Furlong, Chung, Bates, Morrison, 1995: 289-298). In the year of 1995, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a study specific to the problem of hate crimes on the college campus. The study included 450 higher education institutions from 40 states. Of the 450 institutions surveyed, 222 or 49% reported an incident of a hate crime. It has been estimated that almost one million college students experience racially or ethnically motivated violence annually. In a study of 1 ,012 racially, ethnically, and socio-economically diverse students enrolled in various campus in Los Angeles, OKeefe found that violence in dating relationships was a frequent occurrence: 43% of the females and 39% of the males reported that they had inflicted some form of physical aggression on their dating partners at least nce (1997: 546-568). Unfortunately, current epidemiological reports suggest that this form of violence is on the rise. Between 1994 and 1999, there were 220 school- associated violent events resulting in 253 deaths?74. 5% of these involved firearms. Handguns caused almost 60% of these deaths. Oournal of American Medical Association, December 2001). 13 Such pervasive violence on campus brings about detrimental consequences. School violence has been reported as one of the most important and devastating social problems facing school children and their parents, to the extent that students erceive their school context as an unsafe environment (Astor and Meyer, 2001 : 374-399). It is recognized that disruptive behaviors on campus interferes with not only teaching, but also diminishes ability to focus on academic pursuits. The fears experience psychological reactions that interfere with the learning process (American Association of University Women, 2001)14 Chapter Two Causes of Campus Violence In the previous one, this thesis puts forth a more integrated definition of campus violence vis-? ¤-vis the conventional definition that ignores the psychological facet. Based on such a broader definition, Chapter Two will adopt corresponding theories and probe into the social factors that give rise to the campus violence in American society. 2. 1 The Theories on Violence There are as many theories of violence as there are forms of violence, and these theories have been discussed in exhaustive detail in a number of books and articles. Briefly speaking, theories of violence fall into several categories. 1) Social learning theory interprets violence as learned behavior, an outcome of students appropriating from their environments and popular culture aggressive behavior and hen considering violence as norm which they replicate in their own interaction with others (David Johnson Roger Johnson, 1995). (2) Rational choice theories identifies poor reasoning skills as the cause of violence, in which case, individuals weigh the consequences of a violent crime against the possible benefits and make the rational choice to be violent-in a sense, individuals det ermine that crime pays( Jeffrey Fagan Deanna L. Wilkinson, 1998). 3) Structural theories of violence that focuses on social and environmental conditions such as poverty. Here, violence is viewed as a systemic roblem having to do with inequities in the world and a general breakdown of relations between people, which leads to social isolation, frustration, and aggression (Frederic Thrasher, 1927). (4) Biological theories focus on medical conditions and biolol gical traits of violent offenders and have roots in eugenic explanations of criminal behavior, where criminal tendencies are identified in peoples physical and psychological stigmata ?essentially, in a persons natural makeup (David Green, 1985). 5) Interactionist theory incorporates some combination of social learning and tructural theories and view violence in connection to how peoplel 5 make sense and interpret their experiences and circumstances (Brandley Levinson, Douglas Foley, Dorothy Holland, 1996). Although these theori es on violence make sense in one way or another, social learning theory has been at the forefront of explaining how external influences affect the way people behave and cited as one of the most relevant and plausible theories regarding the acquisition of violence tendency. According to the social learning theory, people learn through modeling and imitation. Albert Bandura, who is often considered as the forefather of the theory, explained that most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasion this coded information serves as a guide for action. Social learning theory has been at the forefront of explaining how influences such as media affect young children. In his book, Social Learning and Personality Development, Bandura and his colleague, Richard Walters, concluded that imitation plays an important role in the acquisition of deviant, as well as of conforming, behavior. They reiterated in their own work the basic explanation put forth several decades earlier by the them to do, but rather what they see adults dd'(Gladys Reichard, 1938: 409-86). In probing into the causes of campus violence, attention must be given to the experiences of young people and how those experiences are interpreted by them. These experiences should include those in the community and school and with others but also experiences that students have with their popular culture, with the military (including JROTC organizations in high schools), and their knowledge of easy ccess to weapons. Cultures are created in neighborhoods, families, and states, and within a national context. What is easily accepted in the United States, what is produced and used, how individuals view themselves in relation to others, all add up to define what U. S. ulture is like and who Americans are as a people. If U. S. society continues to support militarism, to tolerate the mass manufacturing and distribution of weapons16 that have caused what health experts call a national health crisis in the country, and to patronize needless violence in the media, then, those who take art in such activities continue to produce a culture that is partly defined by violence. This violence may, if other factors fall into place, lead to youth and scho ol violence. Campus violence is Just one part of violence in the rest of society. According to the influence argument, it can be inferred that Americas violence cult, the dissemination of violence via mass media, and the institutionalized sexism, racism in society all exert influences on the person who is exposed to the context. 2. 2 Violence Cult Revolving around the social learning theory, the following section will discuss the iolence cult America practices historically and militarily, how the institutionalized sexism and racism still take foothold in contemporary America, including on American campus, and how these factors contribute to the happening of violence on campus. Violence is a defining characteristic of U. S. culture. Just like Ronnie Casella said in At Zero Tolerance: U. S. has benefited from violence. Through violence, the country has sustained economic and political might abroad, has bolstered domestic and international expansions, and has served international interventions. Violence is so ervasive in America that it symbolizes freedom, masculinity, dominance, and power. To understand Americas cult on violence, it is necessary to look at it from the historical perspective, as violence is historically consistent and it has been woven into the very fabric of American personality. The