Research

Community violence intervention & prevention strategies

Mitigating variations in school and neighborhood violence

Quick Summary

  • K-12 urban public schools are uniquely positioned to challenge and alter the pervasive structural violence that impacts Black and brown students. Schools can actively dismantle systemic barriers by integrating community violence intervention.

Abstract

Overt forms of interpersonal, physical, and gun violence have dominated mainstream narratives regarding violence in schools. However, covert and hegemonic forms of violence propagated daily throughout K-12 urban public schools often persist unnoticed and thus unchallenged. The perceived equalizing nature of public education often labels schools as safe, race-neutral landscapes capable of buffering students from outside harm. However, schools are porous community organizations where many students’ experiences reflect the hyper-surveillance and insecurity they navigate daily in their neighborhoods. Contemporary K-12 urban public schools with large populations of Black and brown students and where educators’ agency is limited often perpetuate structural violence by utilizing Eurocentric curricula. Eurocentric curricula are epistemically racist as they lack humanizing reflections of Black and brown people and their legacies while centering histories of people of European descent. Structural violence in these schools is also inflicted through zero-tolerance policies that systematically exclude Black and brown students from their educational experience. This piece argues that schools can simultaneously address structural harms and cultivate safer, more just learning and living communities by adopting values of community-based violence intervention and prevention (CVIP), a holistic public health approach that attempts to transform the social and structural conditions underlying violence. Schools that employ CVIP’s socio-structural approach to violence intervention and prevention have the potential to uproot harmful practices and policies grounded in structural racism and white supremacy, which contribute to poorer academic achievement and have negative implications for student and community safety, health, and well-being. Where many urban public schools rely on conformity, punishment, and exclusion, CVIP strategies offer a transformative alternative. By prioritizing interventions tailored to meet individual needs, incorporating restorative justice practices, and fostering liberatory community-building, CVIP strategies promote a holistic approach to violence reduction. Integrating these strategies into K-12 urban public schools can significantly reduce and prevent violence, while cultivating healthier and safer learning environments where students can thrive.

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