24.4% of students acknowledged having participated in some act qualified as bullying without realizing it during the 2021-2022 school year. This figure, included in the IV Report ‘The opinion of the students’ prepared by the Mutua Madrileña and ANAR foundations, coincides with the number of students who believe that there is bullying in their class, which represents an upturn with respect to the year of the pandemic, when bullying was detected by only 15.2% of them.
Regarding the type of harassment, the most common in the last year were insults, nicknames and teasing (89.5%), while the rest of the ways of messing with the victim were reduced. Punches and kicks go from 38% from 2020-2021 to 31.8% in the current study.
Motives and aggressors
Half of the students think that bullying affects only one person and that the victim has been suffering from it for more than a year, as indicated by the percentages in the report. Among the reasons why bullying occurs, the physical appearance of the victim (56.5%) and the things she does or says (53.6%) stand out. Less frequent, but also remarkable, are their good grades (20.7%). On the other hand, the fact that in 72.6% of cases the aggression is carried out between several people is striking; a situation that is increasingly common in recent years and that already reaches three out of four cases of bullying (compared to 43.7% in 2018 and 2019).
Reduce cyberbullying
On the other hand, only 8.2% of students think that someone in their class is a victim of cyberbullying (16 percentage points less than in 2020-2021). However, they are aware that the harassers are classmates: in 85.2% of cases they share a class. A trend that continues is the main way it occurs: WhatsApp, with 66.9%. The study reveals other social networks not mentioned in previous surveys, such as Instagram (53.1%) and TikTok (48.6%), which are emerging as new means of harassment. In these situations, to deal with the problem and avoid it, minors choose as their first option that of notifying an adult (29.1%), followed by deleting or blocking the account and deleting the messages (20.8%). ) or report the harasser (20.1%).
How do teachers and center act?
Regarding the perception that students have about the school’s response to cases of bullying, it is still striking that 45.4% perceive that their teacher does nothing and up to six out of ten (61.7%) that their school does not act. Likewise, almost half believe that their peers do not react to this type of situation. It is a fact that collides with the perception of teachers: they, indicates the study, usually find out about these situations of bullying mainly through classmates or witnesses; then, from the family or student affected and, lastly, by the victim herself.
Teachers believe that the improper use of new technologies and social networks (95.2%) is the most decisive aspect when this type of case occurs, followed by group pressure (94.3%), lack of respect for differences (93%), and adequate emotional management to resolve conflicts (92.1%), as well as the normalization of violence (91.3%). They see the aggressors as people who have an air of superiority (76.7%) and lack social skills (73.5%). In Primary, the psychological problems of the aggressor (insecurity, low self-esteem, frustration, fear of rejection…) (55.6%) stand out as the most frequent reason. As for the actions that they propose for families to help prevent bullying, they are paying more attention to their children (88.5%), making good use of new technologies/social networks (88.1%) and educating in values (86.7%). Although the interventions that they consider most effective are the awareness and prevention of specialists (86.3%), action protocols (78%) and teacher training (75.3%).