Schools as Sites of Violence

• In Event: Education for Peacebuilding: Tensions and Opportunities for Future Research

Proposal

Schools are often portrayed as safe havens, places where students learn and grow to reach their full potential. When we do discuss violence in schools it often focuses on the violent school shooting or attack. However, we frequently overlook how schools are sites of violence in many different forms: physical, structural, and symbolic (Harber, 2004). This is especially challenging because the research demonstrates that safety is essential to successful learning (Edmondson, 2004). The integrative literature review will focus on the intersection of violence and formal schooling, specifically how violence in schools is understood as a problem in modern society, and how the role of teachers in schools is framed in the literature from 2017 to 2024.

To identify items for this literature review, the researcher began by using Google Scholar and ERIC to search for articles published between 2017 and 2024 based on the phrases “violence formal schooling teacher” which turned up 17,300 results on Google Scholar and 107 results on ERIC, “violence schools” which turned up 230,000 results on Google Scholar and 904 results on ERIC and “teacher role schooling” which turned up 21,200 results on Google Scholar and 262 results on ERIC databases as well. The researcher will select items for inclusion based on the number of citations, quick reading of title and abstract. Key themes, tensions and gaps in the literature will be identified, and suggestions for areas of future research and analysis. While the literature review is comparative international, the focus for analysis will be on applying findings to address violence in schools in the US.

Author

• Kathlyn Elliott, Boston Children's Hospital