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J Youth Adolescence (2013) 42:16301632 DOI 10.1007/s10964-013-0001-y
BOOK REVIEW
Jessie Klein: The Bully Society: School Shootings and the Crisis of Bullying in Americas Schools
The New York University Press, New York, NY, 2012, 307 pp, ISBN: 978-0-8147-48886
Dawn Maynen
Received: 8 August 2013 / Accepted: 10 August 2013 / Published online: 27 August 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
In The bully society, Jessie Klein presents one of the most comprehensive analyses of the reports of 166 school shootings over three decades. Despite the broad time period the book encompasses, the reports present many similarities. The perpetrators in these school violence incidents targeted other students who have called them names or rejected them; or they have retaliated for the perceived injustices related to discipline or academic assessments done to them. Commonly known as bullying, Klein attempts to share the stories of those who have been bullied or have witnessed bullying incidents to highlight the bullying issue that is facing todays youth. Klein frames bullying as one of the most signicant concerns among children today, and ultimately a predictor in school shootings.
Chapter 1 describes how children learn that status is everything and although race and class are typical indicators of power, conforming to gender expectations is vital. The chapter describes how students become the gender police and how the actions cause issues with status and power in schools (Klein 2012). A key point the author makes from this chapter is the perception of status is passed down from parents to the children. For example, in an adult society, higher socioeconomic groups associate with similar groups to maintain their high status and is mirrored in high schools where cliques prevent lower socioeconomic groups from associating with more afuent groups (Klein 2012, p. 20). Both of these examples perpetuate a closed society, but it affects students more in the high schools. It is to be expected that youth within these closed groups would nd it easier to bully outsiders. Chapter 2 focuses on
masculinity, white supremacy, and the relevance of the different types of masculinity to school shootings and violence. Boys are expected to be powerful and dominant and anything less or a weakness, sadness, or forms of dependence would provoke teasing and/or being attacked....