Colloquium Info

Ron Avi Astor holds joint appointments in the USC School of Social Work and USC Rossier School of Education. His work examines the role of the physical, social-organizational and cultural contexts in schools related to different kinds of school violence (e.g., sexual harassment, bullying, school fights, emotional abuse, weapon use, teacher/child violence). His quantitative studies have included over 75,000 students, teacher, parents and administrators. Over the past 10 years, findings from these studies have been published in more than 90 scholarly manuscripts.

This work has documented the ecological influences of the family, community, school and culture on different forms of school violence. His book, School Violence in Context: Culture, Neighborhood, Family, School, and Gender, which was published in 2005 by Oxford University Press along with his close colleague Rami Benbenishty from Hebrew University, has been described by leading scholars in psychology, social work and education as the most comprehensive theoretically and empirically sound study of school violence conducted to date. The American Psychological Association recognized the contribution of the book with the William James Book Award in 2006, followed by the American Educational Research Association awarding Dr. Astor and his colleagues a Distinguished Research Award in Human Development.

Dr. Astor has also developed a school mapping and local monitoring procedure that can be used with students and teachers to generate "grassroots" solutions to safety problems. The mapping procedure has received several international awards including the American Educational Research Association's prestigious Palmer O. Johnson Award for best research article in 2000. The mapping and monitoring procedure is used in schools across the globe including Los Angeles and Tel Aviv. Along with colleagues at Hebrew University, Dr. Astor continues to conduct studies on the epidemiology of school violence in different cultures, the effects of stereotyping on the approval of violence across development in different cultures and democracy-oriented intervention studies that promote student and teacher participation to achieve school safety. The findings of these studies have been widely cited in the international media in the United States and Israel.

In addition, Dr. Astor conducts social psychological research on how children's reasoning about justice in family, school and peer contexts affects their approval of violent behavior. In his work with children, he proposes that more aggressive students have detailed and consistent personal-social theories that justify, in their own minds, why they are being aggressive. Some of these justifications come from cultural, historical and interpersonal experiences that are often described by the child. His research indicates that highly aggressive students commonly believe they are perpetual victims of social injustices and that they are morally right to correct injustices through violent acts aimed at specific individuals or groups connected to the social injustices. Most children are quite sophisticated in their thinking and condemn violent retribution, basically ignoring stereotypes of the "other" group when reasoning about the retribution.

His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, H.F. Guggenheim Foundation, National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Israeli Ministry of Education, a Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship, University of Michigan, USC and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Rami Benbenishty is the Gordon Brown Professor of Social Work and the head of the Research Group: Mental Health and Well Being in Childhood and Adolescence at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He is interested in a range of issues in child welfare. With his colleague, Ron Avi Astor from USC, he is studying multiple aspects of school victimization. He has conducted a series of studies that examined school violence from an ecological perspective. In these studies he has investigated the experiences of more than 100,000 students, teachers and principals. The insights gained from this work contributed to an ecological theory of school violence. Furthermore, a series of large scale national studies conducted with his colleagues is having a major impact on Israel's educational policy for the prevention of school violence.

Benbenishty is developing a conceptual, methodological and technological framework for monitoring processes and outcomes in human services. This framework was implemented in foster care services in the US and is being utilized to monitor school violence in schools, districts and the national level in Israel.

Along with colleagues, he is studying children and youth at risk and in out of home placements. He investigates and tries to improve the decision processes that lead to referral to protective services, removal of children from their biological families and their reunification thereafter. In addition, his research addresses the situation of children in residential and foster care and the unique situation of youth that age out of care. He is currently conducting large scale national studies on the independent living skills and needs of adolescents in out of home care and their status after leaving care.

Benbenishty is an advocate for children's rights. He has served on numerous public committee that addressed children's needs and rights. He consults regularly with government agencies and appears on national media to speak for Jewish and Arab children in Israel.

Roxana Marachi joined the Department of K-8 Teacher Education at San Jose State University in the fall of 2006 after spending three years as faculty at CSU Northridge.  She earned her doctorate in Education and Psychology from University of Michigan in 2003 with a research focus on School Climate and School Violence Prevention.  Dr. Marachi currently serves as Co-Chair of the Safe Schools and Communities Special Interest Group for the American Educational Research Association.  She has presented at numerous national conferences and the International Society for Research on Aggression. Her publications include chapters in the Handbook of School Violence and School Safety: From Research to Practice and the School Services Sourcebook: A Guide for School-Based Professionals as well as research articles in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, The Journal of School Violence, and School Psychology International.

Dr. Marachi’s research interests focus on the interpersonal dynamics among teachers and students, school climate, and how elements of control are related to student violence and victimization. She also has an emerging interest in the intersection of Biology, Psychology, and Education in connections between psycho-physiological aspects of emotion-regulation/coping strategies, and effects on student cognition, motivation, school climate, and behavior.  She teaches the Psychological Foundations in Education courses to credential candidates in the Multiple Subjects Credential program and supervises students in the Middle Level Emphasis Program. Dr. Marachi has also recently been elected to serve on the Board of Directors for the National Challenge Day/Be The Change Organization which provides interactive, engaging, transformative workshops to enhance interpersonal climates in schools.  She looks forward to sharing her knowledge and passion about development/behavior in efforts to enhance school climates for safety and engaged learning.