Should schools be strict or be supportive? Our study of 294 Virginia high schools found that the combination of strict discipline (high structure) and a supportive climate (high support) was associated with the lowest levels of bullying and victimization. More information.

Are students really safer in smaller schools? We found that students and teachers may perceive more bullying and threatening behavior in larger schools simply because there are more students, but the actual rate of victimization is not different. Some school demographics do influence victimization rates, but in our analysis of 290 high schools, size did not matter. More information.

What is threat assessment? Threat assessment is a problem-solving approach to violence prevention that is an alternative to zero tolerance. We have trained school teams to use our Guidelines in schools throughout Virginia and across the U.S. A recent study found lower rates of student victimization, fewer school suspensions, and a more positive learning environment in schools that adopted our guidelines.

Information on threat assessment in K-12 schools
Information on college settings

What is the state of school safety research? School safety is an essential condition for learning, and a surprisingly old problem in the history of education, but a relatively new field of study. We co-edited and contributed to a special issue of Educational Researcher devoted to school safety. See the overview article, an article on school shootings, and the entire special issue with additional articles on bullying, discipline practices, measurement issues, and research methods.

How safe are our schools? What caused so many youth to go on rampage shootings at their schools? Does television violence really make children more aggressive? What kinds of school policies would make our schools safer? The answers to these questions can be found in School Violence: Facts Versus Fears.

How safe are our colleges? High profile crimes can create an exaggerated impression of college safety. In fact, college campuses are much safer than the general community; however, colleges must be prepared to respond proactively to reduce threats of violence. We have developed college threat assessment guidelines for college use. More information.

How can we measure school climate? We have developed a student survey that measures the level of bullying and teasing at school as well as other key features of school climate, such as how willing students are to seek help for a threat of violence. These scales are reliable across gender and age groups, and are predictive of several indicators of school disorder. More information.

Virginia Youth Violence Project

Effective methods for youth violence prevention and school safety

Effective methods for youth violence prevention
and school safety