Rampage : The Social Roots of School Shootings

by Newman, Katherine S.; Fox, Cybelle; Roth, Wendy; Mehta, Jal; Harding, David J.

• ISBN13: 9780465051038
• ISBN10: 0465051030
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-02-01
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

In the last decade, school shootings have decimated communities and terrified parents, teachers, and children in even the most "family friendly" American towns and suburbs. These tragedies appear to be the spontaneous acts of troubled, disconnected teens, but this important book argues that the roots of violence are deeply entwined in the communities themselves. Rampage challenges the "loner theory" of school violence, and shows why so many adults and students miss the warning signs that could prevent it.Drawing on more than 200 interviews with town residents, distinguished sociologist Katherine Newman and her co-authors take the reader inside two of the most notorious school shootings of the 1990s, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Paducah, Kentucky. In a powerful and original analysis, she demonstrates that the organizational structure of schools "loses" information about troubled kids, and the very closeness of these small rural towns restrained neighbors and friends from communicating what they knew about their problems. Her conclusions shed light on the ties that bind in small-town America.

Author Biography

Katherine S. Newman is the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Urban Studies at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Dean of Scoial Science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Explosions	p. 3
The Shooters	p. 22
Explaining Rampage School Shootings	p. 47
Under the Radar	p. 77
The Underbelly of Social Capital	p. 111
The Stranglehold of Adolescent Culture	p. 126
Why Kids Don't Tell	p. 155
Blame and Forgiveness	p. 179
Picking Up the Pieces	p. 207
Testing the Theory	p. 229
Prevention, Intervention, and Coping with School Shootings	p. 271
Epilogue: What Became of the Shooters	p. 299
Data Table for Chapter 10	p. 307
Qualitative Research Design	p. 319
Quantitative Data and Methods	p. 329
Notes	p. 335
Index	p. 389
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