Bullying in school environment: the educators’ understanding

• Autor(a) principal: Salgado, Fellipe Soares
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Oliveira, Wanderlei Abadio de, Silva, Jorge Luiz da, Pereira, Beatriz, Silva, Marta Angélica Iossi, Lourenço, Lélio Moura
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/64947
• topic: Bullying; Violence; Education; Family relations; School health services; Violência; Educação; Relações familiares; Serviços de saúde escolar; Ciências Sociais::Ciências da Educação

Introduction: Bullying is a type of violence between peers characterized by intentionality, repetition and imbalance of power between victims and aggressors. The occurrence of bullying in the school context impairs students’ learning and healthy development. Objective: To analyze the educators’ understanding of bullying in the school environment. Methods: Cross-sectional and qualitative study carried out with 16 educators (principals, deputy principals, pedagogical coordinators and teachers) from two public schools in a city in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Semi-structured interviews that followed a script produced from indications in the specialized literature were conducted. The content of the interviews was recorded and transcribed in full. The interpretation of the data followed the assumptions of content analysis, in its thematic modality, considering the following steps: pre-analysis, exploration of the material, treatment of results and interpretation. Results: Three thematic categories were identified: 1) The centrality of families in the problems of schools in relation to the conception of educators; 2) Beliefs that establish explanatory links for bullying; and 3) Intervention actions developed in relation to bullying. The results show that educators’ beliefs hold families exclusively responsible for school problems and bullying. These conceptions stem from situations experienced in everyday life or from speeches of other education professionals who reiterate the absence of families and the little parental involvement in the issues of formal education of children as the major problem. Narratives of this nature denote the absence of an expanded understanding of bullying and its complexity. In addition to the family, the educators pointed out the influences of personality, the media and social standards as factors that can explain the involvement of students in bullying situations. For the participants, the most effective responses to minimize or respond adequately to school bullying require the participation of the family and some did not believe that the school could do something effective alone. In the data set, it was noticed that the educators’ beliefs and understandings about the problem of bullying prevent measures aimed at school aspects, which are more proximal to the occurrence of bullying, from being implemented. Conclusion: It is concluded that the investigated educators need to expand their understanding of bullying, in order to develop effective actions to face this phenomenon in schools, which also include the participation of families.