As a new school year begins, it is understandable that students, parents, teachers and the community at large experience both excitement and apprehension. Excitement about a new year of in-person learning, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, but apprehension about the safety of the school environment. The possibility of school violence occupies the minds of many. While the risk of mass shootings in schools remains exceedingly low, it is essential that we draw on the best data and research available to prevent such events and mitigate all manner of threats to school and student safety.

As the directors of two federal agencies tasked with collecting crime and justice data and advancing scientific research to enhance public safety and the administration of justice, we want to highlight some of what we know about school safety and mass shootings.

Gun control legislation almost never passes Congress, even when there is widespread public support for action in the wake of mass shootings such as those in Buffalo and Uvalde. That’s why we did not expect that on June 25, 2022, President Joe Biden would sign into law a bill containing a set of gun reform provisions known as the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.” Based on our expertise studying public opinion and the U.S. Congress, here are four reasons we believe some gun control measures got enacted this time around.

Read the full article on The Conversation.

Every day across the United States, more than 120 people die from firearm injuries. Tragic mass shootings in schools, grocery stores and places of worship, with increasing frequency, have highlighted the risk of firearm injury in every community. At the same time, daily tragedy plays out in events of interpersonal conflict that escalates between friends, intimate partners and in the form of suicide by firearm that often does not rise to the level of local news.

I have devoted the past 25 years of my career to researching this crisis. There are many facts that are known as we assess these tragedies.

We know that firearm injuries surpassed motor vehicle crash deaths in 2017 for the first time in over a generation, with firearms responsible for more than 45,000 fatalities in 2020. It is certain that firearms are now the leading cause of death among our children and teens, and that black Americans are disproportionately harmed by firearms, with data finding they are twice as likely to die by firearm than white Americans. We also know that suicide is a leading cause of death among adults over the age of 65, with 70 percent of suicides resulting from firearms. Firearm suicides also are particularly prevalent among veterans and active-duty military members with a suicide rate 1.5 times higher than the general population.

Do you ever wish you had a parenting handbook for raising your children? A guide to navigating a disagreement with your partner? A better understanding of your relationship with your in-laws?

For many of us, family is the cornerstone of our lives. Our family can also help us learn to navigate relationships and manage life’s challenges. Simply being in a family, however, does not mean we intrinsically know everything about building and maintaining healthy, well-functioning families.

Family science — the scientific study of families and close interpersonal relationships — helps us to understand all types of families and how family relationships affect us, our families, and society. Family science research shows us strategies to build strong relationships and marriages, ways to parent effectively, and so much more to support families’ well-being, which creates a better society for everyone.

Scientists across a wide range of disciplines agree that climate change is one of the biggest challenges currently facing our world. Climate change is now recognized as a dire threat to global public health, with a growing awareness of the mental health impacts. The discipline of psychology can contribute in multiple ways to the response to climate change, as described in the American Psychological Association’s recent report Addressing the Climate Crisis: An Action Plan for Psychologists. In this report, APA calls on psychologists to bring their expertise and experience to the fight against climate change and to collaborate with other disciplines and professions to magnify the impact of psychologists’ efforts. Psychologists have roles to play in helping society to mitigate climate change and adapt to it, as well as in building public understanding and attitudes and encouraging social action.

Mitigation, which is aimed at preventing further climate change, may involve the development of new technologies, alternative energy sources, and methods for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (e.g., large-scale tree planting, carbon dioxide filtering devices) along with new ways of living and working. New mitigation strategies also present untapped possibilities for incorporating psychological science, including the development of energy-saving smart home technologies that are sensitive and intuitive, ensuring ethical deployments of artificial intelligence, and identifying and breaking down the mental barriers to electric vehicle adoption. Psychologists will be essential to rethinking our world, from aiding the transition to remote work, to reshaping communities to encourage more emission free transportation, to helping people transition to plant-based diets. More broadly, psychologists can contribute to policy development and decision-making about climate change to facilitate acceptance and adoption of new technologies, environments, and routines.

The COVID-19 pandemic is being experienced by people—and without insights into individual and group experiences, real solutions are not possible.

Take, for instance, the selection of “Warp Speed” to describe the vaccine development initiative. A common fear in relation to medicine, including vaccines, is that anything developed quickly may not be safe. The use of “Warp Speed” exacerbated this. Had social scientists been consulted during the naming process, a more culturally acceptable title might have been chosen. Additionally social scientists could have advocated for a better explanation of the approval process—including the fact that all pharmaceuticals could be brought to market more quickly if the bureaucratic maze was cleared for them, as it was for the COVID-19 vaccine developers.

If you're reading this, you've probably already encountered transgender linguistic activism. When people introduce themselves, for example, it's increasingly common to share pronouns and ask what others use, instead of assuming the best way to refer to them based on appearance. Making self-identification an everyday practice is one of trans activism's most visible recent victories, particularly on campuses, and language is at the center of that change.

As linguists, we are particularly well placed to support the ongoing movement for trans rights. This is a brief survey of some current linguistics research that engages with transgender activism. There are all kinds of interactions between academia and activism: some document trans linguistic activism, others draw on linguistic expertise to inform activist discourse, and still others apply linguistics to develop practical interventions. Many also engage with trans activism to advance the state of linguistic knowledge. From syntax to sociolinguistics, and corpus linguistics to phonetics, scholars draw on trans discourse and experience to challenge our understanding of how language works.

Why introduce the social sciences into engineering education and practice? The intent of engineers is to “do good” – to improve the quality and security of life. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out this way, often because of a lack of appreciation by engineers of how technology affects and is used by people. For example, a new technology might promise and deliver great benefit to portions of society but harm certain groups. We call such results “unintended consequences.”

Examples of unintended consequences abound. Social media connect people and cultures, but they are also weaponized to marginalize individuals based on race, culture, and personal attributes and to spread false information. Remote learning and teleworking, essential in the age of Covid-19, have widened the gulf between the haves and have-nots. The potential benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) to society will be blunted if human biases find their way into coding. In designing urban infrastructure, economic and technical criteria should be balanced against social impacts, such as the isolation of underprivileged neighborhoods after the construction of a new highway or transit system. Good engineering cannot be separated from social awareness and deliberate consideration.