From Noncompliance to Columbine: Capturing Student Perspectives to Understand Noncompliance and Violence in Public Schools

The paper reviews a number of ethnographic studies of students in U.S. secondary schools to help understand the causes of a range of student behaviors from minor non-compliance to lethal violence. Based on these studies, as well personal experience, the authors suggest that educators and educational researchers approach and understand student perspectives on school life. Such perspectives often reveal the logic of non-compliance, and show that aspects of school structure and practice can exacerbate or contribute to violence. Student non-compliance and alienation can escalate into violence if the student view is not regularly consulted in schools.