Authored by Milcíades Vizcaíno G
Abstract
In Colombia, aggression between elementary and secondary school
students has recently been the subject of research. This article aims to
show
the effect of bullying on students. It is hypothesized that aggression
has reached a phase of chronic anomie that is dependent on the armed
conflict
that has contaminated the society and its educational institutions. This
article’s hypothetico-deductive methodology defines indicators in terms
of
frequency and impact on academic performance, emotional stability,
organizational climate, coexistence, and training in democracy. A
literature
review has detected 48 research products in the form of peer-reviewed
journal articles, theses, and research reports located on the Web
(Scielo,
Publindex and Redalyc) after searching using keywords such as matoneo,
bullying, and harassment in Colombia. The conclusion is that chronic
anomie should be counteracted with an all-encompassing policy including
early detection, collective therapeutic treatment, and intensified
training
in student-life coexistence and active citizenship.
Keywords: Bullying; Aggressions; Educational institutions; Chronic anomie; Colombia
Aggression Among Schoolchildren in Colombia as an Indicator
of Chronic Anomie. Aggression, bullying, intimidation, harassment
and similar practices in Colombian educational institutions are a
problem that is increasingly seen as having profound implications for
society. This article’s primary thesis is that various manifestations
suggest a process of chronic anomie. Various studies reported in the
mass media have demonstrated this anomie. The aim is to describe
a well-founded thesis that presents some conclusions aimed at
revising behaviors that express chronic anomie and therefore
conflict with the nature of educational institutions.
This article’s objectives are to revive the investigative tradition
in Colombia and to obtain solutions that stop or prevent violence
in schools, in the case that it has not yet been established in the
institutional space. The presentation sequence begins with a
literature review of formal investigations. Next, the frequency and
the impacts on children and adolescents are discussed. Suggestions
that could be implemented by the education community are
discussed in the conclusion. The methodology employed is
hypothetical-deductive: a hypothesis is formulated, and empirical
evidence is sought through indicators in the research conducted on
the subject in Colombia during the last 10 years. The exploration of
the literature found 48 research products represented by articles
published in journals, theses and research reports. The selection
strategy consisted of two approaches: the first phase included
publications that were consulted directly; and the second phase
involved the use of those publications’ references to find other
documents (for example, on the Web and in Scielo, Publindex and
Redalyc) using keywords that related to aggression, intimidation,
bullying and school harassment in Colombia.
The main hypothesis states that aggression among
schoolchildren, with its various denominations, has reached a stage
of chronic anomie. Anomie is a dependent variable in the national
context that has developed and supports the longest-lasting armed
conflict in the world. With respect to violence among schoolchildren,
one researcher stated, “Studies have shown how a great number
of boys and girls who present violent behaviors, or live in violent
contexts, reproduced those behaviors in their interpersonal
relations” [1]. The Colombian conflict has contaminated both state
and society, pervading educational institutions; it has generated
distortions in the justice and law-creation processes, in public
control and in the response to the urgent needs of the citizens who
have given power to the State. In this respect, the Colombian State is
characterized as having reached a state of chronic anomie [2-7],
which provides a space to study the relationship between the macrosocial
context and harassment situations in the school context as
micro-social phenomena. It should be considered that eradicating,
stopping or containing either of these conflicts is more difficult
when they have reached a chronic stage of anomie compared to the
initial stages; thus, institutional efforts are higher for educational
communities that include students, parents, teachers and school
management. The reason is that these practices have been
anchored in the institutional culture in such a way that they are
allowed or tolerated because they are part of that culture. When
containment is attempted, eradication is not achieved because
the conditions for its continuity are established, legitimizing the
asymmetry in the relationship between perpetrators and their
victims with the individual, group and institutional implications of
the deterioration of the organizational climate. Studies in Colombia
have characterized the phenomenon, have made suggestions, have
developed action plans, and have incorporated remedial practices,
but these behaviors go beyond the restrictive power of coexistence
manuals and institutional authorities’ short-term decisions [8-10].
The Ministry of Education has recently issued two regulations that
seek to ensure that the phenomenon is countered from the national
level to the regional level to the educational institutions. The
1620/2013 Law (15 March) seeks to create “a national system of
school life and training for the exercise of human rights, education
on sexuality and the prevention and mitigation of school violence.”
Its 1965/2013 Regulatory Decree (11 September), “regulates Law
1620/2013.” Containment of the bullying phenomenon has not
been effective in the short term and requires interventions with
more compelling procedures and results.
The research tradition in Colombia on facts regarding school
violence, aggression, intimidation, bullying and similar proceedings
is recent. It comes from universities and research centers that find
that those facts make it difficult to fulfill educational objectives. The
general notion of aggression used in this article refers to at least
two connotations that are important to emphasize. First, aggression
involves a relationship between people, one of whom exercises
power over the other, inflicting verbal, emotional, psychological
or physical violence that significantly affects his or her student,
social and family life; Second, aggression involves an intent to harm
others who are also students (either children or adolescents), peers
in an institution who are there to complete their educations. The
aggressor and the assaulted are on the scene either alone or in
groups. Around them, as observers or witnesses, are other students
with active, permissive or passive attitudes and behaviors, who in
any case participate in a privileged manner in violent encounters
against one or more students [11].
These students are actors in the aggression that occurs outside
official legitimacy but that, because it is anchored in everyday life,
has achieved recognition to vent conflicts among children and
adolescents. While researching the implications of aggression for
students and educational institutions, the research tradition in
Colombia becomes of great relevance, particularly if one considers
that “growing up in a violent environment, whether it involves
political or everyday violence, can promote the development of
aggressive behavior in children” [1]. The results displayed below
come from a review of the literature in the “relatively recent field
of school violence studies” [12]. The first section concentrates on
the research findings, and the second chapter concentrates on
the thesis regarding the development of chronic anomie, not only
explaining the occurrence of aggression but also demonstrating the
forcefulness of its effects.
Studies have covered a wide range of topics and solutions
that include not only the narration of events, actors, and time/
place/manner circumstances but also the role of institutions,
the consequences of actions and the impact on students and the
organizational climate. The pioneering 1979 study by Rodrigo
Parra Sandoval and Juan Carlos Tedesco, “School and urban
marginality,” examines the middle and upper classes’ stereotypes
of marginalized communities, those that “global society attaches
to marginality: violence, unemployment, crime, family disruption,
prostitution” [13]. The dominant trend studies violence from the
outside to the inside, considering schools as a scenario-product
that received environmental influences. Nevertheless, it refers to
the individualized violence incarnated in some subjects whose
control pertains to teacher responsibility [13].
This finding was corroborated by Chaux, who finds that “the
cycle of violence begins in the family, school and community
context in which children grow up” [1]. Moreover, García SBY,
Guerrero BJ [12] find connectors between global or post-industrial
capitalism and its effects on the population, particularly regarding
violent relations in interpersonal relationships within families,
communities and neighborhoods in the poorest sectors. Since
the early 1990s, two modalities of school violence have been
considered: traditional violence and new violence. Traditional
violence involves physical and verbal violence in teacher-student
relationships; violent pedagogy (usually denied by teachers) that
consists of taking a dominant stand in the decision about what, how
and why to study; an emphasis on the distribution of knowledge and
the concealment of the creation of knowledge because “the result
of thought processes rather than the thinking itself, the product
and not the process have been privileged, leading teachers to be
authoritarian, memorizers and dull, thus giving great importance
to control, discipline and punishment in the school culture” [14].
Institutions and researchers have designed containment and
improvement proposals that are reflected in numerous studies
[1,15-25]. The purpose of this article is not to present the totality
of the studies or the whole of the diagnostics; appealing to them
enables this article to illustrate the problem and formulate solutions.
In this article, five aspects are analyzed in detail: frequency,
academic performance, emotional stability, organizational climate,
coexistence and training in democracy in a globalized context of
modernity.
Frequency
The frequency of confrontations among students involves
victims and victimizers engaged in a violence cycle of reactive
and instrumental forms of aggression. Latin America is the world
region with the highest average number of bullying cases. Studies
show that 70 percent of children are directly or indirectly affected
by bullying or harassment in school, i.e., children who have been
harassed or have witnessed harassment [26]. Colombia presents
manifestations of this phenomenon that are higher than those
of developed countries [1,16-18]. There is a high frequency of
aggression in Colombia because, aggressive manifestations in
children are the product of a world of complex relationships taking
place in their surroundings. These relationships build an aggressive
personality that through socialization spreads little by little and
expands in a minimum amount of time throughout human space. It
is a whole social identity: the aggressive identity [27].
This investigation suggested the hypotheses to be verified in
the Ataco and Planadas schools in the department of Tolima and
used the accounts of students, parents and other educational agents
such as educational mass media. Aggression is part of the culture of
tradition that is taught from one generation to another, ultimately
reaching the schools. Therefore, “on many occasions, in their
personal relationships with classmates, force and verbal aggression
is used to defend themselves or to provoke others because that is
the usual style in which daily relationships take place” [27]. In 2006,
Cambio magazine shed light on the fact that studies had barely
begun in Colombia. That notwithstanding, they presented some
figures. The topic was studied using the ICFES Saber test, which was
applied to nearly one million public- and private-school students in
the 5th and 9th grades. Twenty-eight percent of 5th-grade students
claimed to have been victims of bullying in the months prior to the
test, 21% stated that they had bullied their classmates, and 51%
stated that had witnessed bullying. In the 9th grade, 14% were
victims, 19% were victimizers, and 56% were eyewitnesses [28].
A study in all of the departments in Colombia found that “29% of
students in fifth grade and 15% in ninth grade had been bullied in
the past two months by classmates” [29]. In Cali, other researchers
found that “24% of students in sixth, seventh and eighth grade had
suffered several attacks in a month” [23]. In the same study, it was
observed that “46% of the students surveyed referred to having
assaulted someone and 43% reported having been victims of
aggressions” [23,30]. Similarly, DANE conducted a study in schools
in Bogota, through the survey of school life and circumstances that
affect it (ECECA). These studies present highly frequent events in
which students are involved in various aggressive acts [17,31].
To most students, good grades and good relations with both
teachers and other students is an appealing ideal. The school’s
mission is to provide the means to ensure that its educational
objectives are fully met. Violent acts are an obstacle to achieve
those objectives because such acts mediate between the desired
behaviors related to academic performance and the aggressive
actions that affect all of the individuals involved in them, especially
the victims, who present performance deterioration, school
absenteeism, dyslexia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD), which they did not present before the attacks, at least not
to the same degree [30]. Their motivation to study decreases, and
this lack of motivation negatively affects the results obtained in the
TIMSS (International Study of Trends in Mathematics and Science)
international tests and in Colombia’s Saber11 test [18], as shown by
the evidence. Low academic performance must be considered as an
indicator of aggression among students, especially when they are
victims. Prior and subsequent factors must always be considered in
the sequence of school violence.
Research shows that aggression has many effects: school
phobia, stress, return-to-school syndrome, depression, adaptation
difficulties, manic-depressive traits or cyclothymia, frequent
changes in personality, neurosis, generalized anxiety disorders,
panic attacks, low self-esteem, social skills deficits and suicides
[18,32-35]. Victims change their behavior: they become aloof, sad,
insecure and have low self-esteem. In the midst of this scenario,
some researchers have concluded that “what is worrying is that the
phenomenon is starting too soon, as the psychologist and lawyer
Claudia Rey de Varón states. In the first grades of primary school,
we have already detected bullies and victims” [28]. In extreme
cases, there have been instances in which victims have reacted with
extreme vengeance against their bullies; in less extreme events,
suffering and anxiety accompany the victims for a long time.
Longitudinal studies have shown that at least 60% of victimizers
in school had a criminal record before the age of 24. Furthermore,
bullies’ own children are affected, as [18] documents.
If aggression appears early in an individual’s school life, its
consequences will continue to affect that individual for as long
as he or she remains there. In addition to the effects mentioned,
“behavior disturbances including crying, tantrums, or staying in bed
without wanting to go to school... Somatization, including vomiting,
diarrhea, abdominal pain and muscle are also among its symptoms.
At the cognitive level, irrational fear to being exposed at school
begins to show. Another related pathology is depression, which
consists of a sad mood, irritability, difficulty in enjoying what used
to be enjoyable, easy crying, social withdrawal, feelings of rejection,
changes in sleep and food patterns, motor activity alterations by
excess or deficit, and suicidal ideation. Other pathologies that can
affect victims are Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), attempted
suicide or suicide itself” [30]. These manifestations, which alter
both academic performance and emotional stability, are neither
temporary nor transient. Academic performance and emotional
stability go together: although their separate enumeration responds
to presentation, in victims’ everyday life, they are combined [36].
The initial process of becoming a victim has been established
in different research studies. For example, it has been shown that
children and teenagers who feel lonely and sad and have learning
difficulties are on the threshold of victimization risk because
potential victimizers discover their vulnerability. Therefore, they
need urgent help before being victimized [33]. Other traits such
as being obese or effeminate; having a physical, mental or sensory
deficiency; being shy and anxious; having difficulties making
friends; having low self-esteem and underestimating oneself; and
being weak and introverted are other features that contribute to the
voracious search of those who enjoy showing off their superiority
through aggression.
Other potential or trained victimizers satisfy their urge to
discriminate when they encounter classmates from a different level
of their ethnic group, who belong to an ethnic group or race with
little representation in the institution or who are newcomers [33].
It is clear from the foregoing that the victims are targeted by their
physical, social, cultural or psychological condition. Because these
features are not directly under their control, overcoming them is not
an easy task; they require in-depth support by school management
and their own classmates, usually through coexistence agreements
[37].
Similarly, studies have identified the profile of those with a
tendency to become victimizers and exercise their asymmetric
power over the weakest by features such as a tendency to engage in
violence and dominate peers by force, uncontrollable impulsivity,
poor social skills, low tolerance for frustration, an interior need
to break the rules, resorting to cheating and cunning to achieve
their purposes and hostile relations with others, whether they are
teachers or other students [33,38,39]. The assault process shows
that negative stigmas associated with the manifestations described
are structured and consolidated in both victims and victimizers.
Stigma, understood as the situation of a person who cannot
attain full social acceptance, is linked to preconceived ideas
regarding victims, viewing them as weak, lazy, fragile, unintelligent
and unable to make their own decisions. This stigma is closely
related to a social identity based on stereotypes and translated into
a language of relationships [40]. It is presumed that victimizers
tend to interact aggressively and to react negatively because they
experience a neutralization of social skills, including coexistence.
Growing research evidence of the deterioration of mental health
has contributed to highlighting the studied phenomenon within
educational institutions [41]. The mere recognition of these effects
is a significant step forward that drives substantive decisions to
overcome the urgent problems addressed by these investigations.
Schools should be the most adequate environment for
students with similar interests to meet because they belong to the
same generation and seek to prepare for life challenges during
their personal and social development. The skills associated
with education, as described in the school’s regulations and
mission, require an environment consistent with those skills.
However, aggressions displace that expectation of Eunomia and
transform schools into hostile, undesirable spaces that muddy
the organizational climate and may even transform it into “a
genuine school of torture” [33]. The high frequency and depth of
the impacts presented in this paper show that the school does not
appear to be an appropriate place to respond to the dictum of rules,
the statements of rulers and the expectations of families when they
send their children to an institution to find recognition spaces and
solid training. Obviously, this work does not intend to generalize
about all schools or students; instead, it analyzes the negative
actions caused by aggression that impair coexistence between
peers [36].
A school’s mission is to create spaces for children and
adolescents to learn to live and coexist with other human beings,
including peers who share their age and interests, teachers,
administrative staff and school management, along with parents,
siblings and other people who constitute their social core. When
discussing the issue of coexistence, people tend to refer to the
tradition in which children are not considered because this topic is
considered to concern only adults, who are trained and experienced
in life. Above all, because children cannot raise their voices and
express their existential anguish [42], they are in a state of social
subordination. However, if the space of childhood and adolescence
has been socially constructed, it can be reconstructed in the same
way, becoming a new scenario in current modernity in which
they occupy a preferential space [43]. School is a privileged place
for children and adolescents to learn to live with others. At this
historical moment, democracy is a consensual system with social,
cultural, economic and political spaces in which people can fulfill
themselves as participants in a community of interests and create
a future.
Research findings reveal the profound impact of aggression
in fundamental dimensions of children’s personalities, not only
as victims but also as perpetrators and witnesses. This evidence
constitutes the basis on which alternatives to action are built
based on the recognition of a chronic level of anomie. The research
findings referenced are enough to illustrate the central thesis,
which states that schools undergo a violent phenomenon that
transforms them into places of risk for tranquility, recreation,
learning and even life itself. Some become counter examples
of Eunomia, which are large spaces in which one can realize
initiatives, be creative, control emotions, channel potentials and,
ultimately, learn to live in society. Children and adolescents yearn
to go there because they meet their friends and, together, they build
their own identity, consolidating their individual and social selves.
When encountering situations that are contrary to these ideals
and especially when these events are closer to the opposite end of
Eunomia, we find ourselves in a state of anomie associated with the
previous demonstrations of aggression, intimidation, bullying and
similar actions in educational institutions. Theoretically, anomie
has become a “pan-explanatory notion” [44]. This concept allows us to
explore, sometimes indistinctly, phenomena such as people’s
inability to achieve socially valued goals, societal constraints on
development, the imbalances found in big cities and the promotion
of factors of structural and functional imbalances in social spaces.
Emilio Durkheim’s thesis includes the concept of anomie, defined
as “a moral problem related to the deterioration or breakdown
of social ties and the decay of solidarity, also associated with
the transformation of collective representations and with the
issue regarding the regulation of expectations and desires” [41].
Similarly, anomie is “linked to integration and regulation issues in
fractured societies”) [45]. Consequently, the construct anomie is
polysemic and has acquired a range of meanings that have provided
the concept with a “liquid” character, according to [46,47]. The
original meaning conveyed by Durkheim has been transformed to
find multiple applications [48-51].
Historically, Latin American countries have been formed
during local or regional confrontations and therefore “never
came to be more than second-class powers in the international
context” [5]. They wasted their energy fighting for power instead
of generating stability and welfare. If this happened in the region
generally, it happened a fortiori in Colombia, in view of its longestlasting
internal conflict, which had its greatest implications both
for the country and for the region. Although this is not a negative
position, experts on the phenomenon have concluded that “the
crisis of authority and legitimacy of the state has been getting
worse periodically, causing a genuine dissolution of the State” [3]. A
French analyst came to a similar conclusion: Perhaps this will help
us understand that “the recent war has resulted in preserving the
social and political status quo, exacerbating both inequality and the
absence of citizenship” [52]. The greatest impact of chronic anomie
on the State lies in the fact that the greater the anomie, the lower
the capacity to control and legitimize State actions against those
who have delegated their power, i.e., citizens [4-6].
Both the facts submitted and the multiple impacts on children
and adolescents show the crudeness of aggressiveness among
schoolchildren and how chronic anomie has spread throughout
educational institutions, not only reflecting the external
environment but pervading everyday life. When a school supports
or hides anomie indicators, anomie tends to spread in an infectious
manner because the institution gives students room to externalize
their repressed intimidation tendencies. Unfortunately, institutions
have few tools to counter anomie, despite the State’s issuance of
rules (Decree 1965 of 2013; Law 1620 of 2013). A destructive
phenomenon has arrived and installed itself without asking
permission. A patient and continued process of dissemination,
socialization and subjectivation of rules is required to begin the
process of legitimizing alternative forms of conduct among students
[53,54]. The efforts made by some institutions are commendable.
However, the State itself is undergoing a historic phase of deep,
chronic anomie that cuts of the possibility of effective intervention.
Linking public servants to criminal acts, using authority for private
benefit, harnessing power for individual enrichment, and giving
primacy to private interests at the expense of the public interest
illustrate the weakness of a State in chronic anomie. The same
is true in society, which is also experiencing a phase of chronic
anomie. Examples of chronic anomie include the long, fierce armed
conflict among factions of various origins, objectives and means,
acts of aggression, fights between neighbors, domestic violence and
public insecurity [2-6].
In the circumstances described, “the State does not have
unlimited power to solve the problem of violence in schools. This
is not a problem that can only be solved with better policies” [55].
The State’s weaknesses are manifested in the creation of acts that
threaten coexistence and that may arise from the family, the social
environment of the educational institution, the mass media, or any
agent, even the action of the State itself because it does not have the
means to reach managers and exercise its coercive power. Internal
motivations, the creation of social representations to justify school
attendance and the direction of accepted or rejected actions are not
tied to the strength of the State. The State’s toolbox is confronted
by reality: none of its regulations, laws, police forces, campaigns,
exhortations, speeches, rewards, stimuli, bonuses or coercion can
contain facts that are contrary to its coexistence.
When it tardily issues a regulation, as in the case of Colombia,
it does so with the aim of “contributing to the formation of active
citizens who contribute to the construction of a democratic,
participatory, pluralist and intercultural society, in accordance
with the constitutional mandate and the General Law of Education
- Law 115/1994-,” as stated in Law 1620 of March 2013. The State
emphasizes the development of citizen competencies, which are
defined as “core competencies in the set of knowledge and cognitive,
emotional and communicative skills that, articulated between
each other make it possible for the citizen to act constructively
in a democratic society” (Art.2). These general guidelines, the
integration of national, district, departmental, municipal and
school committees with their members and functions and the
implementation of a “Path for integral attention to school life” (Ruta
de Atención Integral para la Convivencia Escolar), including the
intervention of “the family as part of the educational community”
are at the core of the regulation.
Omission, failure or delay will be punished in accordance with
the “General Code and Criminal Procedure, the Single Disciplinary
Code and the Code of Childhood and Adolescence”; therefore, the
Law adds nothing new. It also establishes penalties for private
institutions, manager-teachers and official teachers and provides
incentives to educational centers. This is the State’s framework of
action that is expressed in the regulation. In short, this is where the
State’s difficulty in ensuring coexistence and counteracting school
violence is manifested. This finding is more worrisome when
neoliberalism has displaced the State’s commitment to its citizens
and when issues regarding the “minimum State” or worse, “failed
States,” are raised. According to this line of thinking, expectations
for successful State intervention are fragile or unclear.
Generally, educational institutions focus their concern on
cognitive aspects of teachers and students while giving second
place, when there is such a place, to the appropriation of “tools
of autonomous thought” and positive relations with “others” as
expressions of “social skills.” [56]. For these reasons, “strengthening
social cohesion based on conscious acceptance of the “other,” the
one who is different, (Tedesco, 2005, p. 35) as the main objective
of the institutions responsible for the process of socialization,
particularly of schools, is pending. Paulo Freire’s years-old
proposal to transform the “educational school” into an “educating
school” has not been implemented [56]. One of the reasons for this
interruption relates not only to budget cuts and deficiencies in
facilities and equipment but also, and above all, to shortcomings in
the human talent that ensures quality and efficiency in educational
transformation. The single generation unit was the family as the
recipient institution that was constituted in the development
environment and that promoted transformation to adult spaces
of autonomy. Other institutions (especially education, given its
specialized function) were complementary and supportive.
When the family lost its central role, primary links collapsed,
and modernity widened the road to individualization; institutions
weakened their links with the new generations. The vertical
decrease in patriarchy, the diffusion of family authority, the
absence of collective references and the constitution of mobile
pivots for people in an unstable and chaotic atmosphere constitute
the environment in which new generations are born and grow
up. Moreover, the fragility of links with educational institutions
contributes to darken the picture. The “generational position”
assumptions implied by a shared sociohistorical sphere and a
“generational connection” would produce solid links; historically,
however, they deflated in such a way that real participation in a
common destiny became a utopia to build rather than a real fact.
Different ways of aggression constitute group dynamics and can
only be improved if one works both in a group and with the group.
The most profound changes occur when those who are around
the group “recognize that the situation is not good and decide to
stop it,” explains Chaux, project leader of “Classrooms in Peace.”
Chaux’s project works on this problematic in several of Colombia’s
schools in three environments: the classroom; with the families
of the bully and the victim; and in heterogeneous clubs in which
students associated with a modern concept of democracy meet
[18,57]. The loss of boundaries between the “I” and the “other I,”
(my neighbor, my friend, my relative or a stranger) is increasingly
evident because the sense of family, of friendship, of neighborhood,
of being in and sharing a common space has been weakened. These
subjects draw a dividing line within their identity between “them”
and “us” [58].
“They” represents the field to which one does not want to or
cannot belong, whereas “us” is the “natural habitat,” it is the group
to which one belongs, where one understands what happens and
knows how to act, and where one feels safe. It is neither a superficial
and anecdotal distinction nor an abstract one, instead entailing
two differentiating attitudes: the first field, the “them,” elicits
antipathy, suspicion, fear, competence and eventual aggression
and confrontation [59]; Vizcaíno, 2008 , 2010a,b) [60-62] the
second field, the “us,” reflects emotional attachment, trust, security,
collaboration and empathy (Bauman, 1994).
For the intra-group to recognize and consolidate its selfidentity,
that which is foreign and external becomes a cohesive
factor that provides it with internal solidarity and emotional
security [58,63]. An experience such as “Classrooms in Peace”
illustrates an alternative type of socialization renovated in the
context of coexistence in democracy. The program was developed
under the leadership of Professor Enrique Chaux of the University
of the Andes for at least eight years at schools in various towns and
municipalities in Colombia and Monterrey (Mexico). Partnerships
with local organizations, the Ministry of National Education, the
Corporation for Productive Coexistence (Corporación Convivencia
Productiva), Manuelita S.A. and the Harold H. Eder Foundation, in
addition to international organizations such as the OIM, UNICEF,
and MSI, have supported the project, providing it with legitimacy
and strength. The analyses conducted in the multiple studies
described above will become input for experiences that should be
collected and multiplied throughout Colombia.
A substantive problem
The first conclusion is that the problem of aggressive behavior
among schoolchildren is complex because it does not originate
in educational institutions but instead comes from the outside.
Younger generations must overcome their elders’ tradition of
solving conflicts through the use of force and the asymmetry of the
power of some over others to adhere collectively to a democracy
that shows respect for the “other,” with equal rights and in healthy
environments for both individuals and the community.
Consequently, action does not exercise the necessary control
to remedy its roots and the prime motivators around it: it can
only influence effects and results as they occur within the facility.
Furthermore, as argued above, aggression cannot be confronted
in a partial and segmented way, primarily because it has
multidimensional dimensions that cannot be addressed through
a unidimensional approach such as the type provided by single
institutions. Several perspectives with complementary strategies
are required, as explained by Enrique Chaux when he stated, “A
problem as complex as school violence requires a comprehensive
view that encompasses the perspectives of the various actors
involved” (2011). Although teachers can help promote coexistence,
they cannot fight the huge burden entailed by their role alone; an
integral perspective would include students, teachers, counselors
and other professionals, school management and families. Only
where there is agreement may a serious deceleration or eradication
process begin.
Early detection
A second conclusion is that early detection of the problem is
crucial to begin a continuous process of monitoring and control for timely containment, especially when the problem has remained
hidden [15]. Otherwise, these events become fixed and harder
to treat. Additionally, it is both urgent and necessary to apply
collective therapeutic treatments that involve not only victims and
victimizers but also witnesses and observers participating in a pact
of silence or a conspiracy to silence and conceal. Bringing to light
what happens in the organization’s darkness is a proactive measure
to find effective solutions. The design of a measured, calculated,
constant and persistent process must intensify training in schools
and citizens’ coexistence to promote recognition and respect of the
“other” as both a democratic peer and a fellow citizen. The forms
and practices of a positive relationship between students and the
mediation of integral management in the educational institution are
also commitment elements that are irreplaceable and that shelter
everyone. It is an educational and moral imperative to promote safe
school communities that ensure healthy and calm environments in
which it is possible to fulfill both the institutional mission and the
expectations of children, adolescents and parents [32,64-67].
A collective dynamic
Schools can promote activities that highlight talent, cooperation,
solidarity, and the collective results of dynamics between and within
courses, for example, by providing incentives for both situations. In
this sense, the friend-foe pair is transformed, not from a mundane
and unproductive neutrality but from the possibility of personal
and collective growth. In this context, educational institutions
could develop what [68] have called “intermediate institutions”
that are located between major institutions such as the state,
politics, the economy, education, and the daily life of human beings.
Clubs, groups and teams related to spheres such as study, theater,
painting, music, areas of knowledge, and sports are spaces in which
one learns to manage confrontations and contain impulses and
channel energies toward the shaping of the individual. These are
alternatives that can end the sequence of violent roles, i.e., that can
create an ex-role, an escape and a passage to other roles legitimized
by the school. One of the objectives of unlearning the processes of
violent behavior is precisely to stop and interrupt the sequence of
negative roles, replacing them with roles that are positive for the
individual and his or her collective and self-rewarding with respect
to his or her previous role as a violent subject [69,70].
Solutions must be constructed collectively, which means
working to achieve consensus and implementing the principle of
shared responsibility [14,64,71,72,74]. All State institutions, civilsociety
organizations, the mass media, churches, families and
educational institutions should be committed to these solutions
together with school management, teachers and students and
should include victims, perpetrators, eyewitnesses and people with
no relation to violent acts. Nonetheless, they should not stand alone,
isolated, each with his or her own initiative; instead, they should
work within a productive and efficient system capable of selfassessment
and self-control. If, contrario sensu, radical measures
are not applied in all areas of society, we could experience a “silly
anomie” in which the State, its institutions and its citizens could fail
to observe its rules and even become a defeated society [43,75-78].
This warning is essential to draw attention to a problem with
profound implications not only for direct actors but also for schools
and for society in general and obviously, for the State. Investigations
have been presented, and the problem has been addressed; the
solution is in the hands of those who determine policy and those
who manage the various levels of decision-making. One limitation
of this article is that its conclusion is confined to educational
institutions when aggression comes from the outside and on
which there is no control from within the school. Accordingly, it is
expected that when the violence in armed conflicts and in everyday
life is reduced and transformed by a culture of coexistence, schools
will experience the conditions necessary to favorably circumvent
aggressiveness among students. Under these circumstances, the
proposed solutions will find a favorable environment in which
solutions can be implemented with visible results.
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