School Violence around the World: A Social Phenomenon

Recently, world leaders expressed shock and horror upon hearing of the school shooting that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. The main purpose of this article is to gain a better understanding of this new phenomenon and, more specifically, to find answers to two research questions: “Who are the school shooters?” and “What are their motives?” To conduct this study, the “Ecological Framework for Human Development” has been used to study 160 school shootings that occurred worldwide and a custom database was created. Three distinct categories of school shooters have been identified: (i) the “Lost in the Downward Spiral” student; (ii) the “Perfect Student”, and; (iii) the “Social Injustice Collector”. The article presents the first two categories of school shooters and discusses the explanatory power of various theories of aggression.