Beyond Mass School Shootings
Open Access DepositedModeling a Masculine Ideology of Justified Violence
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The devastation of mass school shootings in the United States has naturally been met with varied efforts to understand and thus prevent these tragedies from reoccurring. Much has been written about the perpetrators’ individual circumstances and psychologies, yet few explanations address key trends
increased incidence frequency, perpetrator demographics, and perpetrators’ shared ideologies. The present study closes this analytical gap by framing mass school shootings as a product of a masculine ideology of justified violence, notably expanding beyond the sole analysis of school shooters. Using data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) 2020 Times Series Study, hierarchical OLS regression analyses demonstrate the effect of prejudicial ideologies, including misogynous beliefs, racial resentment, xenophobia, and homophobia, on attitudes toward violence. The findings support critiques of individualistic explanations of mass violence, cementing prejudicial ideology as a strong predictor of support for violence in pursuit of political goals. This suggests that scholars should consider shifting how mass violence is explained and understood in future research by expanding empirical testing on the influence of gender ideology on attitudes toward violence. This study calls for a paradigm shift in how mass violence is understood, urging future scholars to reexamine traditional preventative policy approaches by considering a perspective that attributes mass violence to the masculine ideologies pervasive in patriarchal societies.
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