GSE Publications
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
2-2010
Abstract
School anti-violence programs are united in their radical condemnation of aggression, generally equated with violence. The programs advocate its elimination by priming children's emotional and cognitive controls. What goes unrecognized is the embeddedness of aggression in human beings, as well its positive psychological and moral functions. In attempting to eradicate aggression, schools increase the risk of student disaffection while stifling the goods associated with it: status, power, dominance, agency, mastery, pride, social-affiliation, social-approval, loyalty, self-respect, and self-confidence. It is argued that the distribution to students of power and authority, plausible substitutes for aggression, would enable them to express aggression in a legitimated manner and simultaneously encourage their attachment to school. A vibrant anti-violence program that attracts children will find a way for caring, amiability, sympathy, and kindness to live in tandem with competition, power, assertiveness, and anger tamed by institutional constraints.
Date Posted: 19 July 2011
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
Suggested Citation:
Goodman, J.F. and Kitzmiller, E. (2010). Suppression of the aggressive impulse: Conceptual difficulties in anti-violence programs. Ethics and Education. Vol. 5(2). 117-134.
This is an electronic version of an article published in Ethics and Education.. Ethics and Education. is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449641003794165