The UAB School of Culture of Peace presents a report with proposals to end school bullying
The increase in bullying and sexual harassment cases at school force the community to urgently rethink the rules of coexistence applied in schools. The School of Culture of Peace (ECP) at the UAB has published a report on the dangers of not acting entitled Assetjament escolar: Què passarà si no canviem res? to provide a set of recommendations in these situations.
Cases of bullying in education centres are not prevented due to lack of knowledge, insufficient implementation and inadequate conditions. For this reason, the ECP makes different proposals to prioritise the coexistence and well-being of people in educational institutions through structural and invisible measures. According to the ECP, in order to improve the situation, it is necessary to change day-to-day habits and to foresee measures to avoid the accumulation of small discomforts that, in the long run, bring great suffering and some misfortunes.
According to the ECP, visible and structural measures are essential, since people respond to the structure in which they find themselves and, if this structure is not prepared to solve a problem, it is very difficult to act well as an individual and as a community. The recommendations are to establish institutional mechanisms to detect harassment or other forms of violence (mailboxes, complaints, etc.), to emphasise being able to act as educators by providing them with action plans to prevent bullying and other forms of violence, offer training for teachers in conflict management, increase the number of figures with a socio-emotional support profile and attention to diversity, have professionals prepared to attend to and deal with serious situations, create a dynamic team with recognition and time to act efficiently, implement an explicit and consensual school plan and, finally, collect data and evaluate coexistence measures in order to make more efficient plans that can be updated.
Moreover, as invisible and personal measures, the ECP proposes cultural changes such as maintaining consistent attitudes and behaviours that set an example, listening to and observing students carefully, emphasising conflict prevention, establishing classroom rules for conflict prevention, or changing the classroom and school culture to deal with conflicts without complexes: recognising and setting limits is very important.
The UAB, with Sustainable Development Goals
Good health and well-being
Quality education
Sustainable cities and communities