The background against which school shootings occur is characterised by great ambivalences relating to loss of control. Adolescents growing up in today’s society lose control over their own lives under the influence of social pressure and structural insecurity about the possibility of realising their life plans. This process is based in social dynamics of integration and disintegration: the thwarted desire for recognition generates an addiction to recognition, and this addiction fosters a desire to exercise control over others. Violence is a means of exercising control.
There are also dynamics of escalation that are almost impossible to control systematically – in other words, they cannot be limited or causally repressed. Empirical findings suggest that school shootings represent the expression of a double loss of control on the following levels:
- On the level of the individual in the loss of control of adolescent perpetrators over their own lives because the agents of socialisation (family, school, peer group) make it impossible to achieve an adequate degree of social integration with a positive recognition balance
- On the level of society in a diffuse understanding of the causes underlying the violence. This makes it almost impossible to develop effective methods of prevention and intervention – in other words, to control this form of violence.
The primary and essential priority is to improve recognition and the general climate in the student body and among the teaching staff of schools and colleges. As a fundamental prerequisite, it is necessary to strive for a new culture of recognition and mutual watchfulness both in schools and in the general social context. Such a culture would prevent adolescents from experiencing social disintegration, losing control over their own lives, and taking refuge in extreme violence as an escape from their dramatic situation in order to achieve an illusory immortality.
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School Shootings: International Research, Case Studies, and Concepts for Prevention
Columbine 