The Interaction of Hegemonic Masculinity and Social Power Structures in American School Shootings

Over the past few decades, concern over the issue of school shootings has increased in the United States of America. Although these events are rare in comparison to other violent crime statistics, they have a huge impact on the communities they occur in and the nation in general. Many causes have been suggested and studied, including gun availability, violent video games, changing communities, bullying, and a number of others. In 2004, a new, more generalized focus began to appear in these studies. Several academics started to focus on hegemonic masculinity as the main cause behind the previously studied causes. This theoretical approach examines prior research regarding the nature and cause of school shootings. This paper focuses primarily on the works of Katherine Newman, Peter Langman, and Jessie Klein looking for common findings across disciplines. The common finding between all three studies was that hegemonic masculinity has an impact on school shootings. Additionally, their definitions of masculinity revealed the pursuit of social power is the underlying purpose of masculinity, as well as other suggested causes for school shootings. Struggles for social power are ingrained in American culture can be correlated to other forms of violent crime. Viewing school shootings through "social power theory" perspective allows school shootings to be compared to other violent crimes. This new theory also reveals how embedded the issue of school shootings is in American culture.