Perception Of Violence Encouraged By Attacks On Schools

The attacks on schools reported in the last two months raised the discussion about the increase of violence in society. After all, brutal attacks on kindergartens and teachers and many others that failed before they even occurred is not normal. Brazil is one of the most violent countries in the world, with homicide rates above world trends. Violence is the main cause of death among young people: according to data from the Atlas of Violence, in 2019, out of every 100 adolescents aged between 15 and 19, 39 were victims of fatal violence. On average, 64 young people in this age group were murdered per day.

However, in attacks on schools, young people appear as agents. The many occurrences in a row being reported in a short time opened space for the perception that violence in these environments has increased. Overnight, the feeling is that the country has become much more violent than it already was. “The picture remains bad in Brazil, but that doesn’t mean it has gotten particularly bad in the last period”, says Renan Theodoro de Oliveira, a researcher at the Nucleus for the Study of Violence at the University of São Paulo. In addition to the concern of parents with the safety of their children at school, social networks are also a point of care.

The possibility that the internet and social networks have opened up to spread false news, share nefarious ideas and ideologies, misrepresent speeches and threaten people and institutions, contributes greatly to the degradation of law and order and may be one of the reasons for the escalation of cases of violence within and directed at schools, which are still not a reason for consensus among researchers in the area.

Even so, the researcher says that Brazil is not experiencing a moment of anomie, that is, when the known rules no longer work and relations are completely deregulated. What happens is that talking about crimes increases society’s perception of insecurity and violence – especially within the school environment. “At the same time that we notice an increase in the discourse of concern about violence, we notice that what is also happening is that people are less accepting of aggressiveness”, says Oliveira.

Violence
“Violence is a multifunctional phenomenon and it also has multiple manifestations”, explains Oliveira. Therefore, there are several types of violence and one cannot speak of a single motivation that permeates all, to the point of becoming a common factor among agents. “We understand that violence is always about an outcome to some kind of conflict. The nature of conflicts which is manifold.”

Can we say, then, that violence has increased? Strictly speaking, no. This is because the concern about violence in the school environment is relatively new, with greater intensity since 2021. The topic has also been more discussed in recent years. The researcher also says that there is not a solid base of records of this type of violence as in others, which makes the analysis difficult.

Even so, these attacks are infrequent – ​​less than 30 attacks on schools have been recorded since 2000 – and a “new addition to the school environment violence scene.” Concretely, what increased was insecurity and the perception of violence, in addition to the lack of confidence in the safety of schools.

violence in schools
In the case of schools, there is no way of knowing for sure what motivates teenagers to plan attacks or even to initiate such acts. What Oliveira points out, however, is that the school has not become just a place of learning and socializing, but has become a place where students take their difficulties and personal conflicts, which started outside this environment. “Children and teenagers solve their problems at school, because school is still a central place for them. That’s where they spend most of their time,” he says.

“What is behind violence is always a conflict. It can be a dispute, a competition, a divergence of expectations. The point is that, since redemocratization until now, the school has been absorbing many conflicts that previously were not within its scope to resolve.” Schools have always played a mild role in conflict resolution, that is, they absorb the most diverse and complex conflicts brought up by their students, but do not effectively resolve them. This adds up to internal conflicts such as bullying.

In his analysis, there is a mismatch between the relations of authority and expectation. This is because the perspective of what an authority is has changed, as well as the expectations surrounding the school and its professionals. “So, you have an authority that is changing and that is not going to solve things as they were before, there is an emergence of new expectations in relation to the school: it has to teach, it has to socialize, it has to turn people into citizens , it has to democratize.”

The school still has another problem: at the same time that they receive several children and problems, education professionals are undervalued and are not prepared to deal with education, which adds to the resolution of various problems that are unrelated to the school environment. However, they are in contact with these children at all times, which gives them space to understand what problems exist. “Historically, the school has been responsible for resolving conflicts of various kinds, including conflicts that are generated in the student’s daily life.”

Solutions
The researcher says that the solutions to these attacks and problems of violence are always long-term, they are never short-term solutions. For him, schools should have a greater integration of psychological care services, health services and social care for the entire school community, from students to employees.

“We are chasing the feeling of security, but we forget to build safe relationships, safe spaces. The solution for this is for the school to be a safe place, people have to be safe at school, to deal with their conflicts, to deal with their dilemmas. So as not to be oppressed for being one way or another, for thinking in a left or right way. The school cannot be that place of oppression, it cannot be the place of repression of problems, ”she says.