School violence

Papanis Efstratios

epapanis.blogspot.com

Greek

English

School violence, Racism, Psychic tension, Group join, Marginalization

Web Article

Parents, Teachers, Young People.

Not relevant

While cases of school violence decreased in pan-European level during the period 1994-2008, this phenomenon has increasing trends in Mediterranean countries. In particular, in Greece the reasons that lead to an increase are associated with the transformation of the family, increase of singe-parent families, unemployment and low economic level of the parents, the lack of free time for parents, the indifference of parents for their children and the continuous and volatile changes in the educational system. Along with the above factors it should be noted and the increase in school violence incidents due to racism. Both minority groups of pupils and Greek students, especially in urban schools, forming gangs in an attempt to gain identity, to raise standards and self-esteem through the peer gangs. Children who join gangs they need to integrate into groups but they do it in the wrong way because of the lack of right guidance from their teachers and their parents also. The reasons that lead some students to marginalization and to relieve mental tension through violence is the educational and social exclusion, school failure, the competitive school environment.
While some research shows that boys are the protagonists of this phenomenon, others indicate that more and more girls are being involved in such incidents. In addition, both the victims of bullying within the school, and students engaged in violence, have obvious signs of a general psychological tension; students-victims are more stressed, have lower self-esteem, depression and tend to be more solitary. So people who engage in violence, and pupils who are often victims of psychosomatic disorders, such as headaches, pain in the neck etc., they are more irritable, with trends towards hedonism and sleep disorders.

This article that is posted to the blog of Professor of Sociology at the Aegean University, Mr. Efstratios Papanis, is a simple record of the phenomenon of school bullying in Greece. According to him, there have been the last 15 years rising trends in Greece and other Mediterranean countries, in contrast with other European countries. The reasons given by stem from more general social disorganization observed in Greece in recent years. This disruption, coupled with diversification in the composition of school classes due to the influx of immigrants in the country has an impact on school climate. The presence of immigrant children in classrooms fosters diversity, and this in combination with the inherent need for adolescents to be assignable to groups leads them to the integration in groups, whose members are resorting to violence in order to strengthen their profile. Of course the influx of immigrants is not the main reason for the existence of this phenomenon. Here it should be noted that several investigations have been made in recent years in Greece suggest that the phenomenon of bullying concerns not only students from low socio-economic strata, but observed in schools, whose students come from wealthy families.
Then the author refers to the profile of the victim. More specifically, the student-victim faces some psychosomatic disorders. Mr Papanis is primarily psychologist and in this article refers mainly to the innate characteristics of people who suffer some kind of bullying, in other words the psychological characteristics regardless of other social factors that can make them vulnerable to any threats and intimidation. As we aforementioned, the current article is just a simple record of the phenomenon of school bullying in Greece and consequently there are no any proposals for the confrontation of this problem.

http://epapanis.blogspot.com/2009/02/blog-post_11.html

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