Comparative Analysis

Comparative Analysis

Part One: Task A

Question 1

Three Approaches to promote school safety in USA and Canada While there are few issues on which most Canadians agree, the public distaste for bullying behavior in school certainly seems to be one. Public opinion polls continue to indicate that Canadians believe bullying is a serious issue. A 2012 Angus Reid poll found that 84 percent of Canadians believe bullying behavior should be criminalized. While certain bullying behavior contravenes the criminal code and Youth Criminal Justice Act, the ability of the law to regulate school yard relationships should be questioned. Laws cannot be a substitute for the community level involvement needed to address bullying. Current legislation introduced in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia amends education legislation but does not address the criminal code. The common elements of legislation in both the US and Canada include the responsibilities of school boards to enact codes of conduct, anti-bullying policies, awareness campaigns, bullying response policies and the empowering of teachers and principals to use suspensions and expulsions. Most laws have some component requiring school boards to report progress in implementing anti-bullying policies if not reporting the number of bullying incidents. In the US, school boards have expanded their policies beyond state requirements. However, the US Department of Education study cautioned that they did not evaluate the actual implementation of policies and that policy implementation might be inhibited by available resources. Therefore, these are three approaches followed by the American and Canadian educational institutes to promote school safety at their place (Davies, 1995).

Three main approaches implemented to promote school safety

There are three main approaches which are quite important to promote school safety are 1) zero tolerance 2) violence prevention and 3) progressive discipline approach. Zero tolerance approach is usually related to the use of illegal substance such as drugs and alcohol in the educational institutes. This particular approach is adopted in order to keep the children safe and help them in not indulging themselves in a dangerous activity. This approach is necessary in both countries USA and Canada. The reason is the similarity in the overall education structure in both these countries. There have been some incidents related to the usage of drugs and alcohol in colleges and universities. In fact, both State and the authorities of the educational institutes have taken strict measures to prevent the occurrence of this activity in the future. Therefore, zero tolerance approach is the best policy under such circumstances (McDonald, 1993).

The second approach that is the violence prevention also carries a lot of value for the educational institutes. The violence prevention approach is followed by many schools and colleges because of several incidents in the past. One of the most frequent violent incidents that have taken place in the past is the shooting incident that claimed the lives of several people. The authorities are making every possible effort to reduce the number of violent incidents in the educational institutes in USA and Canada. The third approach is the progressive ...