Creating Safe Schools and Communities ((3 Credits))

Catalog description

This course will explore school and community safety from a multidisciplinary approach. Drawing on research and theoretical perspectives from the fields of Education, Psychology, Social Work, and Criminology, students will explore both current and historical approaches to the prevention of violence in schools and communities in the United States. With billions of dollars being spent annually in the U.S. to make schools and communities safe, what prevention efforts are actually effective? Students will analyze different strategies that school districts and communities across the country currently utilize to prevent bullying and harassment, physical fights, weapon carrying, gang activity, firearm violence, suicide, and hate speech/crimes. Special attention will be paid to the factors that make violence such a pervasive and persistent issue in the Unites States. Best practices and research-based model programs, from what teachers can do in their individual classrooms to broader community level preventive efforts, will be integrated throughout the course.