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Crisis Management in School Shooting Situations: The School—A Forgotten Factor in the Equation

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School Shootings

Abstract

A study of the first stage of the crisis management process (prevention and preparation) in school shooting situations, presenting and explaining the root causes and dynamic pressures that increase vulnerability of schools to hazards of extreme violence, as well as the main deficiencies in crisis preparedness. The contribution describes a comprehensive set of measures aimed at enabling schools to prevent such a crisis from occurring, and to prepare themselves to deal with one. Ten school shooting incidents in six countries are examined using an explanatory research strategy to analyze the internal environment of each school prior to the crisis, the crisis management approach adopted by school administrators, and the lessons learned.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The total number of perpetrators is greater than the total number of school shootings because some attacks involved two perpetrators.

  2. 2.

    Jefferson Country Sherriff’s Office, JC 001-025923–026859.

  3. 3.

    The terms exclusion and expulsion are used interchangeably in many countries. However, in some countries (e.g., Australia), expulsion denotes the suspension of a student for a period of time (many years or indefinitely) that is longer than that implied by an exclusion (up to 1 year).

  4. 4.

    The term “homogenous” is not meant to denote homogenous societies and cultures, but instead refers to universities that, through formal and informal rules, rally their staff and student population around a common vision and a set of shared values such as competition and performance-related values.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business Science, University of Quebec, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Camélia Dumitriu

Authors
  1. Camélia Dumitriu
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Correspondence to Camélia Dumitriu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Bielefeld, Universitaetsstrasse 25, Bielefeld, 33615, Germany

    Nils Böckler

  2. Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Bielefeld, Universitaetsstrasse 25, Bielefeld, 33615, Germany

    Thorsten Seeger

  3. University of Bielefeld, Universitätsstraße 25, Bielefeld, 33501, Germany

    Peter Sitzer

  4. Inst. Interdisziplinäre Konflikt- und, Gewaltforschung, University of Bielefeld, Universitätsstr. 25, Bielefeld, 33615, Germany

    Wilhelm Heitmeyer

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Dumitriu, C. (2013). Crisis Management in School Shooting Situations: The School—A Forgotten Factor in the Equation. In: Böckler, N., Seeger, T., Sitzer, P., Heitmeyer, W. (eds) School Shootings. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5526-4_20

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