A national assessment of secondary school principals' perceptions of violence in schools

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the perceptions of secondary school principals regarding violence and weapons in public and private schools in the United States. Student weapon carrying was most often reported in larger schools, schools with higher levels of violence in the school's neighborhood, and in schools with a higher percentage of low-socioeconomic (SES) students. Perceived as major etiological factors of violence were lack of parental supervision at home, lack of family involvement with school, and exposure to violence in the mass media. Perceived as the major reasons students in the principals' own school committed acts of violence were the student was provoked by others or was jealous of a girlfriend/boyfriend. Just over one-third of schools had already implemented some type of violence prevention program, and another reported they were planning to implement some type of violence prevention program. The most common barriers reported by the remaining principals were believing there was no need for a program in their school, being unsure which programs were needed, and being unsure of which programs were best.