Introduction. The massacres in schools and colleges committed by their students are initially associated with the United States, but in recent decades the phenomenon has spread to other countries including Russia. Such tragedies affecting children and adolescents are of particular interest to politicians, general public and professionals.

The Objective of this research is to summarize the foreign literature accounts of the phenomenon of mass school murders, the structure of this phenomenon, the stages of its development and factors that cause it.

Procedure. Research methodology included search and generalization of conclusions from scientific and applied publications on the issue. The search was carried out using bibliographic systems and scientific networks Web of Knowledge, Scopus, ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Academia.edu, Mendeley. He author selected 55 scientific publications on specific cases and meta-analysis of data aimed at addressing socio-psychological factors of school shootings and prevention.

Findings. The main methodological approaches to the analysis of school shootings are described, the theories offering a systematic understanding of this phenomenon are presented, the stages of both social and personal predictors of school shootings are defined.

Conclusion. The analysis of the literature allows interpreting massacres in schools as an independent phenomenon, to reconstruct the events, to determine the main mechanisms and development stages, to offer effective ways to detect and prevent threats.