They are of Asian descent. Her great-grandparents left Japan for Peru at the end of the 19th century. She grew up in Argentina and her two daughters were born here, in a Buenos Aires sanatorium. She requests that her identity be withheld, because she says that she does not want to add “one more grain of sand to a situation that is already quite uncomfortable.” But as the mother of two girls who go to a private school, and bilingual, she suffered every time one of her little ones came to her house crying.
“Our eyes continue to attract attention. Saying Chinese in a derogatory way is something that is still valid. It happened to me and also to my daughters. In addition, other very hurtful qualifying adjectives are added to Chinese or Chinese. It is not something constant , but when the boys fight they can be very cruel with these types of comments,” says Florencia, who asks for the protection of her last name.
Bullying in schools is a recurring theme. Nationwide, more than half of the students acknowledge that episodes of bullying take place in the classroom. discrimination due to physical appearance (75.4%), due to personal or family characteristics –such as religion, nationality, gender, disability– (67.7%) and threats or aggressions between colleagues (54.5%). However, less than 10% of boys and girls consider that these episodes “always” happen.
The data comes from the report How do secondary school students and principals perceive school coexistence?, prepared by the Observatory of Argentines for Education, authored by Alejandro Castro Santander (Observatory of School Coexistence, from the Catholic University of Cuyo), Martín Nistal and Eugenia Orlicki (from the Argentine Observatory for Education). The document uses the information collected in the complementary questionnaires that answered students y directors of high schools across the country in the Learn 2019 operation, which is the last available for that level. These questionnaires, among other questions, investigated the perceptions of students and authorities about the problems in school life.
How do you get along with your schoolmates?
While 65.4% of students perceive a good school environment, three out of ten students in their last year of secondary school say they agree “not at all” or “little” with that statement. When asked if they get along with each other, 65.1% said yes. Meanwhile, 34.9% disagreed with this perception. On the other hand, when the directors are asked about the problems of coexistence between boys and girls, only 2.8% consider that this is “a serious problem”. 17% believe that it is a “moderate problem”, and 41.2% see it as “a minor problem”. For 4 out of 10 directors (39%), coexistence between students, directly, is not a problem.
“To face the violence in general and the bullying in particular, the actions must be complex and be managed at different levels: school, classroom, teachers, students, families and environment. Violence, as a generally learned behavior in different areas, can be prevented and even unlearned. The school needs, with some urgency, to become a living example that it is possible to learn and teach in spaces of well-being and respect,” says Alejandro Castro Santander, co-author of the report.
The vision of students about the school context.
For Paola Zabala, director of Comunidad Anti Bullying Argentina, to the extent that students perceive a favorable climate in the classroom, feel listened to and respected by their peers and teachers, they will be able to develop intellectually. “And only in a safe environment will they be able to build a healthy self-esteem, achieve autonomy, confidence, and learn to interact with others effectively. We must not concentrate our efforts only on the academic aspect of education without take the commitment to train students in values such as respect and solidarity“, says the specialist.
The Finnish method against bullying
A few years ago, the KiVa anti-bullying program, a success in Finland that is applied in almost 20 European countries and that also began to be implemented in Latin America, in countries such as Chile, Colombia and Peru. The experiences in our country are few, but in Finland and after a few years of having implemented the method, created in 2007 by a group of researchers from the University of Turku, a study was carried out in 234 educational institutions and 30,000 students between seven and 15 years. The results found that cases of bullying had disappeared in 79% of schools and had been reduced in another 20%.
What is this method about? In a limited summary, it could be explained that KiVa has universal actions, which are prevention, and other focused actions, which are intervention. The universal ones are addressed to all the students of the school, and are intended to influence the rules of coexistence in the group, reinforce values and teach the children to behave constructively. But targeted actions are what make the difference. Because? According to the experts, and contrary to other methods that focus on the victim and the harasser when intervening, KiVa tries to change the rules that govern the group.
Within the group, one of the keys is in those boys who are not the harassers, but who are witnesses. On the one hand, there are those who observe, on the other, those who laugh and thus reinforce the bully’s action, and also those who disagree but remain silent. The Finnish program is giving guidelines for engage those other peers to change their attitude. The goal, experts explain, is not to ask the victim to change. But if the one who laughs stops doing it, “it’s a big step.” If the one who remains silent is encouraged to intervene or ask an adult for help, it is a positive change. Something important, warns KiVa, is that they work with students from the possibility, and not from the imposition.
Bullying, a public health problem
“Bullying and violence at school, insofar as they are problems that have proven consequences on the mental health of those who receive and exercise them, constitute a public health problem. It is essential to have accurate data on what the specific situation of our schools and our students is. There is a lot of work to be done and a long way to go,” says Candelaria Irazusta, co-founder and executive director of the Argentina Anti-Bullying Team.
Discrimination and aggression at school, according to the students surveyed.
As the founder of Let’s Talk About Bullying, Pablo Mainer adds that surveys, data and statistics are extremely important. “They come to confirm and to debate the perception that exists on this problem by the educative community. At the time of our interventions, we see that at first there is a denial or minimization of the problem, as well as the belief that it is about isolated events, when in reality when developing programs, in most cases, it is observed that It’s a systemic problem that needs to be addressed that way.”
Focus on social networks
According to the perception of the authorities of educational institutions, the frequency of episodes of discrimination and threats at school is lower than that perceived by students. However, unlike the students, principals perceive that aggressions between students in social networks they happen much more often than young people realize.
If the problem is analyzed by region, the three jurisdictions with the highest proportion of students who perceive coexistence difficulties are Jujuy (43.4%), La Rioja (43.1%) and Catamarca (41.2%). While at the other extreme are CABA (25.8%), La Pampa (28.3%) and Misiones (31.7%).
