Trento is the first city in Italy where all comprehensive schools have obtained PdR 42 certification from CSQA for the prevention and fight against bullying , after a process that lasted the entire school year.
Bullying is fought by informing, raising awareness and helping all the people involved: bullies and victims, classmates, teachers and parents. For this reason, at the beginning of the school year that has just ended, the seven comprehensive schools of the city of Trento were involved in a process of prevention and fight against bullying, carried out thanks to the support of Etika, the electricity and gas offer of the Trentino Cooperation with Dolomiti Energia , and the co-financing of the Autonomous Province of Trento and of the individual institutes.
With the Trento 6 Institute leading the way, the path has now led all the Institutes of the capital to obtain certification from CSQA , the only city in Italy to have achieved such a high goal. The Istituto comprensivo di Cavalese was also involved in the project, as an experience of a peripheral school context in the valley.
The project involved all the protagonists of the school world: students, school staff (teachers and ATA staff) and families , starting from the operations of listening to their perception of the phenomenon which were then the basis of concrete organizational and management measures, as well as training.
One of the most important stages of this awareness-raising process was the survey carried out to detect the perception of "bullying behavior" experienced in the school context.
In the months of December 2022 and January 2023, 2,809 students of lower secondary schools and in some cases also of the fourth and fifth grades of primary schools of the eight institutes were able to express their feelings. Another 2,377 questionnaires were completed by adults, of which 1,657 by parents and 720 by school staff (teachers, secretarial staff and school collaborators).
The outcome of the investigation
From the questionnaire emerges a good starting situation and as many points of reflection that will have to be taken up by the educational community as a whole: 83% of the boys say they feel good or fairly good in class; a further 13% answered "neither good nor bad" and 3% (corresponding to 36 people) instead said they were feeling bad, with a uniform distribution in the various Institutes. 4% of students think that there is no good time at school: not even recess, commute or free time, which are preferred by others.52% of boys indicate that they have never suffered, done or seen bullying. 30% of having only witnessed, 12% of having been bullied and 2% of having done it. From the answers emerged the healthy awareness that bullying can only be overcome by denouncing the aggressor and talking to some adult figure.
56% of respondents would choose a parent, 48% a teacher. Over half of students believe it is necessary to speak up in class, 10% choose to be friends with the victim and 36% to do something more, such as defending them. Only 3% believe nothing can be done.
Against bullies, boys ask for a "hard punch": punishments (26%), suspensions (7%), recall/stop/report (6%), expulsion/rejection (5%). Only 12% believe that bullies should be helped, like victims. The opposite result, on the other hand, is what emerges from the questionnaires filled out by parents and teachers, who recognize in bullies a fragility to be supported and accompanied towards a path of recovery and awareness.
One last curiosity: the experiences of bullying detected by school staff are about double those perceived by parents. This means that the educational alliance between school and family remains the primary ground on which to work to address the phenomenon , bridging those information and training gaps that both adult components consulted declared feeling. All the adult components express the need to understand more and to be better equipped with the tools needed to deal effectively with the different situations. (Source: https://www.ladige.it/ )