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Beyond Scripted Blame: A Systems Approach for Understanding School Violence

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Abstract

Recent media coverage regarding school violence has resulted in a variety of desperate measures aimed at preventing such events from reoccurring. However, most of these measures derive from reductionist cultural scripts that affix blame on various preceding events. Since the underlying problems of school violence are not being systemically explored, these resulting interventions are often short-term, simplistic fixes with subsequent unpredictable consequences of their own. This article offers an alternative examination of school violence by describing the underlying systemic, cyclic nature of violence and by examining the implications of a systemic intervention model.

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Rigoni, D., Swenson, D.X. Beyond Scripted Blame: A Systems Approach for Understanding School Violence. Systemic Practice and Action Research 13, 279–296 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009506925897

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