Violence and bullying: a global issue

All over the globe news about violent students are headlines in the most important newspapers and magazines.

In Argentina, according to a study made by the Instituto Gino Germani (de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de La Universidad de Buenos Aires) to 4971 public high school students, 52% of teens, suffered or used violence against their classmates; 17% chose physical aggressions, and 16.9% said they had been victims of verbal violence, such as discrimination or insults. The highest levels of violence were present in the norwest of our country.

Kids are discriminated because of their physical looks, their beliefs, the places where they live or were born, and also for their groups of friends. Discrimination, plus insults, joking and punches, are the most popular bullying methods used by teens.

Unfortunately, this also happens in Europe and in North America. In the USA, attacks to schools or universities by students, brought huge numbers of victims. In Germany 10% of all students suffered from the violence of their classmates; in France 13% of teenagers were attacked by their equals. The country which has the highest number of kids bullied, with 21% is Britain. The authorities are experimenting with different solutions to deal with school violence: there are seminars to help kids and teachers how to be prepared in case they have to deal with this problem, they have found ways to make students be aware of this issue and to teach them how to act in case of being bullied.

In Argentina, bullies are expelled and forced to go to therapy, in the worst cases. If the situation is not that terrible, let’s say a student hits another, but he is alright, the bully remains in the school, even if the aggressions continue. Because of this, many parents decide to take their kids out of school, as the school’s authorities can’t or won’t do much to improve the situation.

The root of this problem, in many cases, is that students have to face violence in their own homes, so they see violence as a normal way of expression and, sometimes, as the only way to handle a discussion. In other cases, it has to do with teenagers search for their own identity. They use violence to show or prove themselves as strong, fearless and superior; because they are full of fear and are not confident enough, so they act the other way around not to show their “weakness”.

75% of teens believe the only way out a quarrel is to solve the problem with physical and verbal violence, so it is common to witness fights outside night clubs and parties in Argentina; and it is very important to point out that the people involved are both boys and girls.

It doesn’t matter what social status kids have, violence is present in every social class. Although the students interviewed attend public schools, violence is present in private schools as well. We usually hear about bullying, and violence in general, among teenagers in the lower classes, but in high classes, bullies do exist. In these establishments violence, verbal violence in general, can be even worse than in public schools; because the sense of superiority is always present.

A calm atmosphere, according to the researchers, communication between teachers and students, and respect are essential to avoid fights and verbal violence in schools. Students should also count with the help they need, like talking with experts, so that they can learn how to solve their problems talking, instead of using violence. The school should be an institution that makes sure students are safe, instead of creating problems. If there were problems, teenagers can get these negative things, affect their lives; for example they may change their study habits, their self esteem can be affected and they may find it hard trusting people, or worse, quit school.

Parents should also pay attention to their children’s behavior in case they are having awful times at school, according to experts. Kids who are bullied tend to isolate from the world, because they are afraid they may continue being bullied by everybody. So to be aware of children’s school situation is very important to keep a good dialogue with them once, so that in any case, the situation can be improved.

From Argentina’s government, after several bullying episodes, nowadays there are measurements being taken so that the situation can be improved and this problem can be solved, by applying more severe discipline measurements, such as suspensions for verbal and physical violence.