Bullying is the tip of a very deep iceberg where the entire society is: an ancestral culture of dominance and submission. It is one of the reflections of the director of the Preventive Psychology Unit of the Complutense University María José Díaz-Aguado. This professor of Evolutionary Psychology has been working on violence prevention for more than 40 years and is a reference when it comes to school coexistence and has directed the study on bullying and cyberbullying in Spain in childhood and adolescence promoted by the Colacao Foundation together with the Complutense. The study, which included 21,000 participants from the 17 autonomous communities and the participation of 324 centers, shows that nearly two students per class suffer bullying in the classroom and one in three victims of bullying does not explain it to anyone. . Despite the worrying data, Díaz-Aguado assures that for almost two decades she has been working in the right direction, although she warns of new dangers, including cyberbullying.
Are we going to get better?
Without a doubt, although there is a long way to go. In the mobilization of society against bullying there was a first turning point in 2004, after learning of the suicide of Jokin, a teenager who was suffering from very serious bullying. The media paid great attention to this suicide, largely because the family decided to work as hard as possible to ensure that this terrible event contributed to ensuring that there were no more. Society was mobilized at multiple levels: the State Observatory of School Coexistence was created, protocols were put in place, legislative measures were taken, coexistence plans in schools… The studies that have made it possible to compare before and after this date in education compulsory secondary school found that bullying decreased. When such a mobilization occurs, bullying decreases. In the study, which we carried out in 2023, comparing with data that was published in 2010, it is seen that there is a decrease in victims of 24%, and in harassers of 50%.
There is a perception that it is getting worse.
This perception is explained by several reasons. One is that collective awareness helps society discover the seriousness of the problem and make it seem like there is more. In addition, new risks appear, such as those produced through information and communication technologies. It is very difficult to stop cyberbullying: it continues permanently on the networks, it lasts all day, it can be carried out by more people… This type of harassment is increasing in Spain and around the world. Furthermore, the quality of mental health and socio-emotional well-being of children and adolescents today is more worrying. And this worsening seems to go parallel to the use of new technologies. They can be a fabulous resource to fight against bullying, but they also involve certain risks and abusive use deprives children and adolescents of other conditions necessary for their development, for their mental health. And the changes generated by the COVID pandemic, interruption of treatments, confinement, seem to have increased certain mental health problems in the population as a whole, also in childhood and adolescence, which have not yet recovered.
Are you taking cyberbullying seriously?
Yes, society is becoming concerned and measures are being taken, which must be increased. 85% of the students who responded to this question say they remember having worked at their center on the risks of social networks and the Internet. Just three years ago the figures of those who remembered having worked on this in Secondary Education were 52%. What happens is that the changes are faster. Society is ahead, it poses new educational needs, new risks and it costs much more to generate solutions. We live in a culture that reacts to problems and we have to prevent them. Taking a proactive approach to violence is especially important, because prevention is far better than cure, ethically, socially and economically.
Being done?
When the media reports on a case of bullying, they usually ask: Was the bullying protocol applied? It is enormously important that it is applied. But I always miss asking: Was there a preventive plan? Bullying is the tip of a very deep iceberg where the entire society is. An ancient culture of dominance and submission, where power is exercised by subduing other people. There are many expressions of this culture: harassment at work, gender violence, bullying at school, and cyberbullying. All schools should have worked to become aware of what bullying is and the importance of stopping it at the first sign. We have asked primary and secondary school students: -Do you remember working in class on what bullying is and what to do to stop it? They have answered us yes, 80%. There has been progress, but it would have to be 100%.
Are there enough resources in schools?
They are increasing, but more are needed. Schools need specialized personnel to work on these new topics with sufficient dedication and adequate training. The figure of the well-being coordinator is very important. We have asked educational centers if they have this figure and 90% have told us yes. It is an advance to improve the fight against bullying, as well as other violence. Schools are working more on bullying than on gender violence. And they are very related, they are two expressions of the same model. Many research teams and the United Nations itself advise preventing them together, because their risk and protection conditions are largely the same and because a comprehensive plan could work better and more efficiently.
Calls for adopting a gender perspective in the prevention of bullying.
Why is the percentage of boys who bully almost double the percentage of girls? The answer is clear. Sexist education transmits an association between masculine values, the use of dominance and violence. Their violence is encouraged by sexism or justified, while girls are prohibited from using violence and are trained in empathy and the ability to put themselves in other people’s shoes. The child is sometimes rewarded for the use of violence and there are adolescents who feel powerful and very masculine when they use violence. They must be taught to feel good exercising power in a prosocial and non-violent way. Machismo also destroys men. And if not, how can we explain that in the entire European Union for every woman who commits suicide, there are approximately three men who do so? And why don’t they ask men for help? Because since childhood, sexist education has prohibited it. We are thereby reducing the quality of their life, condemning them to a type of psychological discomfort that clearly reduces their development. And freeing them from machismo is improving their dignity and quality of life. If 100% of men have not understood it that way, we have to convey it better.
20% of victims of bullying have attempted suicide.
It is a tremendous number. We know, from studies carried out in different cultural contexts, that violence increases suicide attempts. But we must also consider that this hopelessness and such strong psychological suffering can make these students more vulnerable and that students who are oriented toward bullying look for vulnerable classmates. And, therefore, those who are suffering more psychologically are at greater risk of suffering from harassment. On the other hand, the suffering that leads to a suicide attempt can also be due to other previous violence, because having previously suffered violence increases the risk of being a victim again. All victims of bullying should receive specialized psychological help to alleviate the damage caused by this violence. And furthermore, we should always convey to them that we believe them. There will be time to confirm the victim’s story, contrast it with other data and to see and decide what measures are taken. There is a lot of evidence that not believing a victim of violence when they tell it can lead to new victimization that must be avoided.
Sometimes it’s hard to see the line between a hooligan and a stalker.
62% of those who have identified themselves as harassers say that no adult in their family has spoken to them about their harassing behavior. And when asked if a teacher has spoken about their harassing behavior, 66% say no. Bullies, very often, are not receiving educational treatment to help them get out of this situation. They present a type of externalizing behavior problems that makes helping them very difficult for adults. They have worse relationships with teachers and also worse relationships at home with the people in charge of their education. It’s not easy to help a bully. If we do not give schools sufficient resources, we are generating a new source of stress for teachers, which sometimes makes their work even more difficult. In recent times we even ask you to help us prevent suicide. We have to empower schools and teachers so that they can take on what we now ask of them: neither more nor less than changing society. We have to give them enough resources for such an ambitious goal.
Are you thinking about helping the bully? Or is he simply expelled?
Punishment serves several functions. And if we do not take it into account, we will hardly improve it. When a person seriously fails to comply with the rules of coexistence, there must be consequences. If not, impunity increases the tendency to reoffend. It is a way of conveying that that person has broken the social contract. And this message must be sent to the sanctioned person and to society as a whole so that this rule and respect for it continue to have strength and be effective. It has another very important function: to repair the victim. But there is a third, very important, function of the sanction that is often forgotten: correcting the conduct of the sanctioned person. And this is one of the great pending issues. Our sanctions are very often ineffective in this function. The American Psychological Society (the most influential in the world) created a group of experts to analyze the effectiveness of the policies implemented in the United States against school violence, which were based on punishing the minimum offense with maximum severity. and with expulsion from school, and nothing more. The conclusion is forceful. These measures have not only not made schools safer, but have made the situation worse. Bullies generally have a lot of problems. If we do not address them, their harassing behavior will not stop.
What can we do?
First, be aware that expulsion may be effective in conveying that the sanctioned behavior is unacceptable. But it is very likely that the harasser will exert more violence elsewhere and that the problems that have led him to harass will increase. We must help him to make a cognitive change, to understand why what he has done is wrong, to become aware. You have to help him repent of what he has done, an emotional change. Without repentance, the risk of reoffending is very high. And you have to help him convert that discomfort of having behaved inappropriately into behavior to repair the damage he has done. When these three changes – cognitive, emotional and repair – are integrated into a global process, their effectiveness increases. 57% of schools have told us that they have these restorative practices. They would have to be 100%.
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And something very important, coexistence classrooms, so that, instead of expulsion, those who break the rules can go to a context within the center itself, where qualified personnel will help them repair the damage. This alternative to expulsion can be much more educational. 40% of schools have them. And they would need a very good connection with resources outside the center to work on the most difficult cases, including collaboration with families.
What types of abuse are not addressed in schools and should be?
If we connect the plans against bullying with the plans against gender violence, we would improve the effectiveness of both and optimize resources. The same could be said of violence through new technologies and self-harming behaviors, including suicide, which we are now beginning to address. If we insert it properly into these global plans with specific components of each violence, we will favor its extension and efficiency. Our proposal would be to work on at least these four types of violence, also understanding that when working on the prevention of bullying we must carry out proactive treatment of respect for different types of diversity (cultural, functional, sexual…), construction of equality, of inclusion of students, of understanding what different sexual and gender orientations are and not stigmatizing them, of empathy towards those who have a disability or a functional limitation…
Do you defend that no one is born an abuser?
Although there may be neurological characteristics that increase the risk of engaging in violence, educational studies allow us to affirm that no one is born violent, that there is no inevitable biological determinism, since there is a decisive influence of learning, education and culture. It manifests itself in our species’ capacity for flexibility, for change from one generation to the next through culture and education. To refute the biological determination of violence as something inevitable in human beings, the United Nations often says, it is a very clear, wonderful phrase, that violence is born in the minds of human beings and that is where we have to sow the seeds of peace The United Nations says this regarding wars, but it can be extended to other forms of violence. Furthermore, many of the neurological difficulties that increase the risk of violence may be related to traumatic, very adverse situations, from the early stages of life, which would not have occurred with optimal education.
What can families do from home to combat bullying?
The main results of the study on this topic reflect that, first of all, all families should talk to their sons and daughters about bullying and other forms of violence. Help them reject them, intervene at the first sign and teach them to resolve conflicts without violence. 70% have said that in their family there is the strongest position of rejection of harassment. At the other extreme, 4% respond that at home they do not give it importance or that they say that it has always happened, that it is something normal. When a person abuses his strength, he acts as a bully against someone who is defenseless. What needs to be done is for the entire group to convey to the bully that this is unacceptable, and not to look the other way. Because what bullies want is power. If the peer group and the entire educational system (including families and teachers) convey that the only way to feel important is with prosocial behavior, they will change. We should convey to the families of those who harass them that their son or daughter is in a very problematic situation, that it is necessary to help them get out of that trajectory, that it can go further, leading to the use of violence against adults at home, in other places and with himself. This message should reach them and that they have the support of society to achieve it.
