College Students, Weapons, and Social Identity

• In Event: Roundtable: Individual-Level Explanations of Crime

Abstract

This paper looks at the different lines of research that might be incorporated into a study of weapons and social identity among college students.Theoretical traditions that will be considered include Critical, Conflict, and Feminist. Social-psychological theories will also be examined. Research that privileges survey methods will be emphasized, though I will discuss other qualitative and interpretive approaches to study. Work that spans studies of social identity within the context of school violence, authoritarianism, gender and violence, economic anxiety/job loss and violence, religion and violence, and aggression will be looked at as part of a preliminary effort to assess variables for analysis and how they might be incorporated into a survey at a large public university. Additionally, I evaluate predictive policing research to examine the potential value of its models for adaptation to a study of college students.

Author

• Sandra Trappen, Penn State University