Date of Award

Spring 2025

Project Type

Thesis

Program or Major

Sociology

Degree Name

Master of Arts

First Advisor

Ryan Gibson

Second Advisor

Joshua Davis

Third Advisor

Lawrence Hamilton

Abstract

Increasingly fatal school shootings present an urgent challenge for researchers. Apart from issues surrounding firearms, factors that can reduce outcomes from school shootings events are increasingly sought after. Student-teacher ratios are associated with outcomes of school based juvenile delinquency and deviance, where more ideal ratios are linked to lower outcomes and less ideal ratios are linked to higher outcomes. Using this background knowledge, this paper tests for associations between student-teacher ratios and the outcomes, in terms of both casualties and fatalities, of school shooting events. Two different theoretical frameworks are tested to determine which better predicts results: social disorganization theory or collective efficacy. Results from Poisson regression analyses suggest that the student-teacher ratio significantly impacts casualty outcomes: as the number of students per teacher increases, the number of predicted casualties, defined as the total deaths and injuries, also increases. Other factors, like educational level, school resource officer presence, and shooter demographics were also associated with differing and high outcome numbers. Further research is needed to explore the reasons and possible policy implications of these statistical results.

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