Violence in the school environment

The death of Norma Lizbeth, a 14-year-old student after being beaten by a high school classmate in Teotihuacán, has once again forced us to look at the serious problem of bullying. As a result of this fight, recorded by students, and sadly viralized on social networks, press releases have accumulated about other cases of violence at the gates of schools in various states, and data that shows the extent of “bullying” in Mexico. . Accumulating outrageous news without making a diagnosis of the context or demanding a radical change in educational and security policies, is of little use. To single out the aggressors and their families is to fall once again into the “easy” reaction of privatizing violence as if the adolescent aggressors were “monsters”. To appeal to the renewal of the “cultural, moral and spiritual values” of Mexico, as the president has done, is to resort to an outdated abstraction from which no solution can be derived.

In a country plagued by multiple forms of violence, where critical difference is daily discredited and militarization is justified from the presidential rostrum, one should at least question what are those current “values”, what is the “morality” that spreads power and how affects society. Instead of discussing the benefits of the Mexican family, shouldn’t it be convenient to consult data on their living conditions, analyze the impact of criminal and social violence on families, neighborhoods and schools, examine how the environment affects boys, girls and teenagers? Shouldn’t the SEP seek advice from experts who have studied the school environment and have pointed out, for example, the impact of the pandemic on the spirit and learning capacity of the student body? Asking what has been done and what can be done to stop this particular violence is urgent.

Bullying is certainly not new, nor does it affect only Mexico, but it ranks first in bullying of all OECD countries, with more than 18 million primary and secondary students affected. The fact that it is a general problem does not justify its minimization like other types of violence, since it affects the personal and intellectual development of the new generations. According to Bullying without Borders, 70% of students are harassed on a daily basis. The ENDIREH 2021 already indicated that 21% of women aged 15 and over had experienced violence at school in the last year.

If violence is analyzed as a complex phenomenon whose manifestations are interrelated, bullying implies discrimination and intolerance towards differences, as well as an exaltation of violence and an inability to resolve conflicts constructively. This does not refer only to the possible impact of networks, drug series or violent video games, but to a broader environment of tolerance for extreme violence and sexist violence; tolerance reinforced by impunity for criminal and institutional violence. In daily life, it also refers to the violence that is experienced both in families – where incest is silenced and intimate partner violence is minimized – and in neighborhoods, many of which are insecure, controlled or threatened by criminals. Neither the school nor the family, therefore, are in themselves the only sources of the violence displayed by the students: they contribute (or not) to promote or reproduce these behaviors. Together with the community (including the SEP), they have the responsibility to stop and prevent them.

Even if extreme violence does not stop in the short term, schools can influence their own environment to reduce bullying. There are and can be adapted prevention programs that, based on a diagnosis, integrate families and the community in a process of changing the vision of the “other” and daily behaviors. Prevention from primary school should already be a priority of the SEP and of the private initiative.