Sisters in Arms: The Gendered Process of Identification with Columbine

Since the Columbine attack, school shootings along with their perpetrators have had significant impact on later occurrences. Research has shown that school shootings are primarily a male phenomenon aimed at an assertion of and reowning of masculinity. However, female school assailants provide an interesting target for research that has been poorly understood up to now. The purpose of the current study is to analyze the biographical backgrounds, motivation, and the behavioral orientation of female school shooters from the perspective of socialization theory. Two attempts of school rampages in Germany, which were committed by female perpetrators, will be analyzed by qualitative comparative analysis of individual cases. A methodological approach has been chosen that enables the reconstruction of subjective perspectives of female perpetrators as well as the latent meaning of their behavior. The empirical basis is the personal testimonies of the perpetrators as well as judicial and investigational materials. The analysis shows that each female perpetrator appropriated a cultural script of school shootings, but since one of the perpetrators identified with the Columbine attackers as did her male predecessors, the other young woman added a new element to the already existing script, that is, a concept of violent femininity. Since the present comparative case analysis aims at a deep understanding of cases, the generalizability of the study is limited. Complementary methodological approaches are finally discussed.