Abstract
In The Bully Society: School Shootings and the Crisis of Bullying in America’s Schools, Jessie Klein shines a light on the relationship between school violence and a society that values competition, aggression, economic attainment, social status, and power. Klein draws upon interviews, statistical data, and her own personal experiences to uncover how rigid gender expectations create oppressive social hierarchies and school cultures defined by aggression and hypermasculinity. She contends that “there are inextricable connections between school shooting outbursts, the ‘everyday’ violence of bullying, and the destructive gender pressures and social demands created by the larger culture and endured by virtually all children in our schools” (p. 3). Although not explicitly written from a feminist perspective, Klein’s analysis is clearly informed by feminist theory, as the intersectionalities of race, class, sexuality, and gender guide her examination of the roots of school violence.
Various accounts of school shootings across the United States underscore the key themes put forth in this book, namely, how gender policing, a masculine imperative, and normalized bullying play a crucial role in the development of situations of extreme violence. The book is divided into 10 chapters and begins with an examination of the social and economic trends that contribute to the development of a “bully economy.” Firsthand interviews and research from numerous studies provide insights into how the values associated with extreme capitalism have helped “institutionalize masculinity prescriptions (i.e., aggression and dominance) and intensified gender policing in multiple forms” (p. 5). The following chapters examine how rigid social structures built on symbolic, economic, and social sources of capital create school cultures that support, condone, and even encourage violence. Klein also presents theories of masculinity that provide a framework for examining how school shootings and other forms of violence are linked to increasing pressures associated with gender norms and narrowly held gender expectations. She addresses how the sexist and heterosexist values and behaviors in our larger society transcend school cultures and create environments in which sexual harassment, dating violence, cyberbullying, and gay bashing become the norm. The final chapters compare the bully economy in the United States to the more compassionate and community-oriented economies of many European countries. Klein challenges schools to transform systems based on competition, aggression, and punishment to caring communities that emphasize connection and relationship. She reviews several promising programs that challenge schools to create cultures of acceptance and move beyond the gender, economic, social, and cultural divides that plague our current systems. These chapters are of particular interest to social workers who may find themselves in the position to inform antibullying policies and practices in schools.
Klein presents an engaging and thought-provoking analysis of the factors that contribute to a bully society. Her focus on the larger contextual forces that influence school violence not only situates this work within the social–ecological framework that is emerging in research on bullying but affirms the values and principles that are central to social work practice.