Alex Trelinski
A REPORT into bullying at schools in Spain reported 24.4% of students believing it went on at their institution in the 2021-22 academic year.
The survey published by the Mutua Madrileña Foundation and ANAR Foundation on the eve of Tuesday’s World Day against Bullying said the figure was up on the 15.2% logged in the previous school year but well below the 34.1% total recorded in 2019.
The study was carried out by interviewing with 5,123 students and 229 teachers.
It concludes that bullying ‘is changing since the enforced school break during the Covid-pandemic’.
The most common type of bullying in the last year were insults, nicknames and teasing (89.5%), as opposed to other ways of mistreating victims.
The majority of respondents have come across bullying in just one person (51.3%) and that 29.9% believe the victim has been suffering from it for more than a year.
Among the reasons why bullying occurs are the physical appearance of the victim (56.5%) and the things he does or says (53.6%).
Less frequent, but also of note are doing well academically (20.7%) or the fact that the aggressor is aggressive (20.2%).
In reference to the aggressors, the study highlights that in 72.6% of cases the aggression is carried out between several people.
That’s a rise that has been registered in recent years and reaches three out of four cases of bullying detected in the current report (compared to 43.7% in 2018 and 2019).
In cyberbullying, the study points out that bullies are known classmates of the school in 85.2%, most of the same class.
As for the perception that students have about the school’s response to bullying, 45.4% of boys and girls perceive that their teacher does nothing and up to six out of ten (61.7%) that their school does nothing.
It is also close to half (46.8%) the percentage of students who believe that their classmates do nothing.
The bullying study also asks teachers about their perception of bullying and almost half of teachers (45.9%) have been aware of a case of bullying.
Of these, more than half (56.5%) are secondary school teachers and seven out of ten (69.2%) are women.
Teachers usually learn about these bullying situations mainly through peers or witnesses, the family or the affected student rather than by himself or another teacher.
READ MORE:
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