School safety and school violence: Trends

This special issue on School Safety and School Violence includes two "lead papers": A clinical-research summary of current understandings about school safety/violence trends as well as individual, instructional and school-wide prevention/health promotion recommendations; and a case study of a school threat situation and the resulting clinical process of understanding and addressing this school violence threat. The ensuing seven papers focus on a range of ecologically informed school violence and safety-related perspectives as well as commenting-appreciatively and critically-on the two lead papers. Although physical violence in schools is ebbing, social-emotional violence continues to be pervasive and profoundly toxic phenomena in K-12 schools around the world. The articles in this special issue address understanding and school violence prevention as well as promoting school safety from multiple vantage points.