Examining the Racial Composition and Population Density in Areas in which School Shootings

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Abstract

This paper takes a qualitative and quantitative approach to understanding school shootings and the neighborhoods in which they happen using a multifactoral approach. Newman (2005) describes five factors that are necessary but not sufficient conditions for mass shootings:the presence of psychosocial problems that increase the feelings and impact of marginality; “cultural scripts” seen as a way to resolve specific problems in the shooter’s life; failure to identify troubled teens early enough to prevent severe and dangerous consequences from happening; and gun availability. I add two spatial-demographic factors that are suggested from Newman’s original five: the population density and the percentage of white residents in the areas in which the school shootings take place. Data gathered from six school mass shootings is compared to data averaged from a list of all reported school shootings from 1979-2011. It was found that there was no significant correlation between the percentage of white residents and population density at the Census Tract level between mass and non-mass shootings, but that the population density was substantially lower at the county level in mass shootings as compared to non-mass shootings (258.95 people per square mile to 1853.71 people per square mile). It was also found that locations with significantly higher percentages of white residents also had significantly lower population densities, showing that the shootings that happen in more rural areas tend to be more populated by white residents while the shootings in more urban areas tend to be more populated by non-white residents.

Author

• Katherine Lorena Linder