The issue of social violence has received increasing attention by policy makers and commentators on public matters. The dominant approach to interpreting social violence emphasises individual pathological behaviour. Educators facing the reality of violent behaviour in schools are offered only limited approaches for coming to terms with both the reality and the interpretation of this social trend. The paper offers a critical cultural analysis, one that opens the way to a consideration of several factors at the centre of the violence phenomenon. In particular, it considers the construction of certain forms of masculine identity that are a result of tension between the contradictions inherent in the imperative of hyper-rationality, on the one hand, and the deep cultural logic which privileges adult status over that of the younger generation, on the other. The analysis of these trends includes some specific curriculum considerations.
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