STUDY ON PSYCHOLOGICAL

VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS

Ph.D. Sociologist
Ni Andreea Mihaela
 Contextual frame
School is an institution that offers educational services, transmits
knowledge, develops abilities, forms competencies, values, socially
accepted norms.
School violence is an extremely complex phenomenon, with
multiple ramifications: in family, society, school, on ourselves and
culture. Its different forms are interconnected and have a specific
dynamics.
In the last years violence has become more and more present
in Romanian schools, having as effects school abandonment,
decreased interest towards school, but also towards the social
environment and increased number of crimes among students.
 In schools, the most encountered forms of
psychological violence are the ones regarding the physical or
mental features of colleagues, behavior often determined
due to students age, who become in adolescence more
careful and more critical on these aspects.
Teenagers use psychological violence on colleagues
at school or on teachers to get either the attention of others,
in order to become popular, or to gain control and authority.
Psychologists believe that such behaviors have two causes:

internal causes, like anxiety, depression or problems in

controlling negative emotions (anger, sorrow, envy);
external causes, like the impossibility to solve problems,
cognitive rigidity, lack of the capacity to understand
consequences.
 Contextual frame
Depending on the aggressors sex, the purpose of psychological
violence on a person are diverse, thus:

if the aggressor is a boy, he exerts psychological violence for

intimidation, control, domination and feeling of personal security,
because he considers that the torturer cannot be aggressed, thus
functioning as a strange defense system.

if the aggressor is a girl, she exerts psychological violence for

manipulation, hurting feelings, victims marginalization/isolation or even
cruelty.
 Research objectives on psychological
violence in schools
for students
Learning the satisfaction degree of students regarding the education unit in
which they study;
Investigating the social phenomena specific to teenagers, which happen in
schools;
Learning the frequency with which conflicts and violent situations appear in the
respondents schools;
Investigating the phenomenon of psychological violence and the manners in
which it appears;
Investigating the manner in which psychological and physical violence influence
the development of students;
Investigating the students opinion regarding the activity of the teaching
personnel;
Learning the students opinion regarding who can solve the conflicts appeared in
schools;
Investigating the trust that respondent students give parents when it comes to
violent conflicts appeared in schools;
 Research objectives on psychological
violence in schools
for teachers

Investigating the frequency with which physical aggressions appear on teachers;

Investigating the manner in which psychological violence is exerted within
education institutions;
Investigating the relationship between teachers and students and their parents;
Learning the teachers opinion regarding violence acts (physical and
psychological of students);
Investigating the manner in which some teachers can lose their objectivity in
giving grades or sanctions in class;
Learning the teachers opinion regarding the reasons of the situations of
psychological violence between students and teachers;
Investigating the teachers opinion regarding the diminishment of psychological
violence in Romanian schools.
 Research methodology
Research method: opinion investigation, based on administered
questionnaire
Investigation technique: questionnaire under the form of a Likert sheet
(two questionnaires were applied - one for teachers and the second for
students)
Period for data collection: January 15th - 31st 2014
Volume and structure of sample: 879 respondents, distributed as it
follows:
Questionnaire for the students - 582 respondents;
Questionnaire for the teachers - 297 respondents;
 Results of the questionnaire applied to the students
on psychological violence in schools

Three quarters of the students included in the sample of this

research stated that their expression opportunities are rarely or even
never restricted, while 20.1% believe that their expression is sometimes
prevented.
 Yells are part of the
psychological violence
cases, pretty frequent in
school units in Romania.
Asked if they were in the
situation of someone
yelling at them, 72.7
percent in the total
respondents chose the
variants never and rarely.
 71.4% of the interviewed students stated that it rarely or even never
happens to be yelled at on a raised tone, while 21.7% indicated that this
happens sometimes. At the same time, 6.9 percent in the total respondents
stated that they are often or even always yelled at on a raised tone.
 88.3% of the respondents stated that they never feel humiliated or
mocked at, while 8.4% undergo this rarely and 2.6% sometimes. Only 0.7% of
the interviewed students stated that they are often humiliated or mocked at.
 Each teenager needs a person to go to when in trouble, when
he/she is in a situation they consider critical. Thus, each 22.9 percent of the
interviewed students go to their parents or one of the teachers when a
conflict situation appears.
 Results of the questionnaire applied to the teachers
on psychological violence in schools
Rumors are spread within an education unit, like a virus, whose carrier
can be teachers, students or auxiliary personnel. At the same time, several
researches have shown that adults gossip more and debate that rumor for a
longer period of time.
 Intimidation means: to make
become or become timid, to instill
someone or feel fear.
97.6 percent of the total
interviewed people stated that they have
never been submitted to physical
aggressions. Thus, only 2.4% of
respondents have admitted that once
every few months or few times a month
it happens they are mildly aggressed
physically to be intimidated.
 Aggressive, ignorant or careless behaviors of students seem to appear
more and more in schools in Romania, thus 15.2 percent of the respondents of
this research stated that once every few months the class is intrerrupted due
to an inappropriate behavior of students, while 7.1% stated that this happens
few times a months, while for 2 percent of the teachers questioned this
happens weekly.
 86.3% of the interviewed teachers stated that they havent been
confronted with the situation in which their decisions might be critized and
contested. However, 13.1 percent of the respondents stated that it happens
once every few months that their decisions are critized and contested.
Reasons for situations of psychological violence between
students and teachers from the teachers point of view
 Conclusions
Violence in education institutions becomes a worrying phenomenon,
because it can affect the very basis of a society, with the prejudice brought
directly to the education process. Physical violence, but also the psychological
one creates a harmful environment to the purposes sought by school, creating a
climate of insecurity and totally inefficient.
The cases of psychological violence from students appear also from
their insatisfaction on the studied subjects, their content, didactic materials,
material resources, equipment in laboratories and workshops, etc. Within our
research, we could notice that only 71.9% of the interviewed students are fully
satisfied with the school they study in and 76.1% would rather go to the same
education unit.
 Conclusions
According to this study, physical and/or verbal threats are rare in
Romanian schools, 96.2% of the respondents stated that they rarely or even
never receive threats of this kind, while 2.6 percent are threatened sometimes
physically or verbally and only 1.2% repeatedly.
Also, three quarters of the respondents say that psychological violence
between students and teachers appears very rarely or even never, while 16%
consider this happens sometimes.
Regarding teachers, 85.5% of them stated that they never lost their
objectivity in grading students for fear of conflicts with their parents.
 Conclusions

In the opinion of the interviewed teachers, the necessary measures to

diminish violence in schools are: a stricter education of the child inside the
family (17.3%), strictly following the regulations of the education institution
(16.4%), partnership with the students families and the community (15.6%), but
also a better communication with students (15%).