Abstract

This study addresses the current situation of school violence in high schools in the Yucatán state, from the students' perspective. In the theoretical framework, school violence is analyzed from the general to the particular, that is, the impact of school violence in the country is mentioned until reaching the interested state. The methodology is supported by the unstructured questionnaire as a data collection technique, which allowed us to know more extensive answers from the 715 students surveyed about this problem in their schools. The results reveal that there is some inference in cases of bullying since the students do not always report such events. It was also found that some of the students prefer not to attend classes rather than ask for help from a teacher or principal.

1. Introduction

Education in Mexico has been in constant motion throughout its history, being an important part for the development of the country, as this has been considered by renowned Mexican figures such as Benito Juárez García, Justo Sierra and José (Miranda, 2017) ¹. During the 21st century, several aspects related to education quality, which is repeatedly promised and desired, are being questioned, considering the existence of various problems that afflict society. In this sense, it will be presented the school violence that happens in the classrooms of diverse schools in Yucatan, which will provide a different and clear vision of the educational realities of the state. The present situation nowadays, gives rise to the idea that schools are unsafe, when this should not be. In line with the above, Baquedano y Echeverría (2013) state school is a learning area, not only at a cognitive level but even more at a social level and there is no denying that violence is present in day-to-day interactions, occasionally because of inadequate conflict resolution processes ².

Certainly, it is at school where the first interpersonal relationships that children develop take place, however, social institutions such as the family, religion, among others, also interfere in the way in which these relationships are carried out. Naturally, this problem also involves different participants such as: teachers, principals, parents, students, victims, and aggressors. This situation has aroused a great deal of interest, as reference Saucedo y Guzmán (2018) mention, on one hand, there are teachers, parents, principals, and government agencies that have been concerned about understanding what is occurring in schools and how to solve it. On the other hand, there are the media that distort the facts, creating alarms of non-generalizable cases, in addition to criminalizing the behavior of students ³.

Thus, when talking about violence, it cannot be questioned that it becomes something daily and evident, so that “over the years, many theories have tried to explain it, the classifications that have been proposed and the action strategies that have arisen to combat it.” (Baquedano y Echeverría, 2013).

Regarding the aforementioned, Mercado (2017) ⁴ refers to the risk factors that are considered as possible causes of violence in the school environment, among which social exclusion or perception of the feeling of exclusion, continuous exposure to violence reflected in the media, integration in gangs that make use of violence, justification of violence in society, family problems, overwork and abandonment, family crises, unemployment, alcohol, drugs, and lack of values are highlighted.

The present situation of school violence in Mexico has generated several studies and investigations that analyze the causes and other factors involved, so it is considered important and accurate to analyze this problem in schools. Saucedo y Guzmán (2018) shows that students are currently in an era in which they are the focus of attention and hardly analyzed are the contexts of practice in which they build relationships with other individuals involved in the educational process. Therefore, students should be considered as an essential element to know the current reality of school violence in educational contexts, without neglecting other interfering factors, such as teachers, principals, parents, among others.

Additionally, there is a crucial fact to mention, which states that school violence is not generated primarily at school, but rather this behavioral pattern is received, above all, from the social and family environment and often degenerates into vandalism and aggression towards teachers and students (Mercado, 2017). All this appears to confirm the necessary intervention that individuals such as parents should always have with their children, since everything that is learned at home is repeated in the classroom and has repercussions on their performance, positively when there is the proper attention, and negatively when there is no attention at all.

In the article presented by Toribio (2019) for Excelsior, an alarming point for Mexican society is emphasized, which mentions that Mexico continues to rank first internationally among the countries of the Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE) in cases of bullying, a phenomenon that affects 40% of primary and secondary students in public and private schools in the country ⁵.

The previous information confirms the situation of basic education in the country, which is being seriously affected, occupying a dishonorable international first place in violence within the different countries of the OCDE. Nevertheless, different strategies have been sought to reduce this worrisome situation, some of which will be described throughout the research.

Apart from that, one of the programs that seeks to address this situation in basic education is the Programa Nacional de Convivencia Escolar (PNCE) which was made official in 2016, and according to the Consejo Nacional de Población - CONAPO for its acronym in Spanish - (2017) is a preventive and formative educational program implemented in Basic Education, with the objective of favoring the establishment of environments of healthy and peaceful school coexistence that contribute to the prevention of bullying situations ⁶. Such program proposes to strengthen aspects such as: the development of social and emotional skills, the expression and management of emotions in a respectful manner and the resolution of conflicts through dialogue and the search for agreements. Despite all this, based on the results of a research on the implementation of the PNCE in a federal entity, conducted by Chaparro, Mora y Medrano (2019) it is concluded as a rule, the participants from the three educational levels considered that the program is important and that its implementation in schools will contribute to a better coexistence. Those responsible for the program in the schools ratified that the PNCE is necessary. They see in its great contributions to improve interactions among students and as a response to obtain a decrease in problems such as violence, harassment and bullying ⁷.

The abovementioned shows a favorable impact for this program and, moreover, the acceptance that teachers have, which is why it is convenient its application and its follow-up. Nonetheless, school violence is still present in spite of having projects such as this one, and to confirm it, it is essential to carry out an investigation in the educational centers in order to know the realities that the different participants, which were mentioned above, are dealing with.

Silvia, Morales y Reyes (2018) shows that school violence is any type of aggression that occurs in school contexts, it can be directed towards students, teachers or property, these acts take place in school facilities, around schools and in extracurricular activities ⁸.

At the same time, Santoyo y Frías (2014) ⁹ mention that school violence encompasses all those negative actions and behaviors carried out by any type of person in and around the school environment, including fights between students, gangs, antisocial behavior, vandalism, among others.

On the other hand, Mercado (2017) points out that is the intentional action that affects the members of the educational community (students, teachers, parents) produced within the school physical spaces or in other spaces related to the school (environment).

Definitely, the above definitions coincide points such as violence that develops in school contexts, that involves different individuals and that triggers major negative problems. Therefore, it is shown that although there are different conceptualizations, they are directed towards the same idea.

If we speak particularly of secondary schools, it is necessary to refer to previous investigations that show the positions of students, teachers and principals in the light of this problem, but first it is important to stress the position in which these schools were in the country, since the Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDH) pointed out that, based on studies by the Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE), Mexico is the country with the highest number of cases of bullying at the secondary school level in the world (Higuera, 2014) ¹⁰.

In a study conducted by Chuquilin y Zagaceta (2017) in a high school in Mexico, it is evident that the problem of violence is not only among students, because some of the participants in the investigation reported having bothered their teachers and principals, this is how the authors comment that in fact, the reports show the triggering of episodes of physical violence, probably motivated by the authoritarian treatment and negative evaluations of the students by one of the teachers. The students question the teacher's way of relating to them, his way of communicating and his authoritarianism. They express their complaint and, at the same time, their claim when they say that the teacher, far from valuing their positive aspects and encouraging them, scolds and shouts at them ¹¹.

What is regrettable is the fact that many adolescents see these events as something normal and accepted because they are constantly repeated around them, either because they do not receive any sanction or because they lose hope of finding any remedy.

In another study conducted by Jacinto y Aguirre (2014) in a high school in the State of Mexico, when interviewing 2nd grade students, they found, in general, that for young people, extreme violence (fights, murders, robberies, kidnappings, etc.) are what they perceive as real violence. Other than that, everything else is normal and a game. But as researchers, we know that physical violence is not the only existing violence, that there are other types of violence that pass almost unnoticed, such as symbolic, verbal, gestures, cybernetic violence, to mention ones ¹².

The previous citation shows that the most recurrent acts of violence are not considered in this way by the students, but rather, they consider them a game and some of these are: name-calling, hitting, touching, teasing, insults, among others. It is necessary to accompany the students in order to eliminate any ambiguities that may exist, and also to raise awareness of the seriousness of the problem.

For the 2018-2019 school year, in accordance with the Sistema de Estadística Educativa de Yucatán (SIEEY), the total number of secondary school students was 108,992, which represents 26.12% of the total number of basic education students in the state ¹³.

In a study carried out by Castillo y Pacheco (2008) in 18 secondary schools in Merida, results that change the perspective that the inhabitants usually have on these issues were found, as it was said that acts of violence of any kind are more common in the southern part of the city, but the following results mark a guideline against this prejudice, in the research it is mentioned there were notable differences in the rates of abuse among the different schools, and this relationship, rather than referring to the area of the city where we worked, was much more congruent with the policy of the management of each school. This was clear in a school located in the center-south of the city of Merida, where the principal and prefects have taken on the task of encouraging the use of respectful language among students. There, the lowest rates of abuse in general are recorded and the frequency ratio observed in the other schools is inverted, where the presence of verbal abuse stands out above physical abuse ¹⁴.

This confirms that the presence of school violence in Yucatan is highly influenced by the lack of values among students, since in schools where school authorities promote respect among students, lower rates of violence were registered.

It is curious that even though we have clear and accurate information that presents the reality of school violence in Yucatan, there are still elementary schools that are not enrolled in the Programa Nacional de Convivencia Escolar, previously mentioned. This can be ascertained in a notice presented by the informative news site La Verdad (2018), which reads as follows: The reason for which there are around two thousand elementary schools without being part of this program has been made known by the principal of Convivencia Escolar, Laura Saldivar Lopez, who claimed that Yucatan schools have an autonomy of their own ¹⁵.

Such autonomy makes it difficult for the Secretariat to order schools what they should do, and it must also be considered that each principal is in charge of observing his or her real needs. This presents a panorama of the way in which principals act against violence in the state's schools, either by promoting respect or only making an attempt to promote it.

In analyzing the contributions of various researchers on this topic, Mateo (2010) considers that some school variables that affect coexistence in schools are mainly marked as follows: The lack of a participatory model in the educational community may result in both teachers and students not finding channels for consensus in decision-making. An inconsistent, lax, ambiguous, or extremely rigid disciplinary system can lead to the emergence and maintenance of situations of violence and intimidation ¹⁶.

The rapid intervention that teachers and administrators use for the detection, prevention, and solution of violent situations, favors a correct communication between the educational center's participants, and certainly, this causes that the aggressors are no longer willing to continue incurring in such negative behaviors.

There is no way to deny the fact that students who suffer from violence or who are the aggressors try to find other ways to separate themselves from the problem of violence. One of these paths to take is dropping out of school, which is shown in the results of a research conducted by Del Tronco , Madrigal, Santiago, Baginni, Méndez y Navarro (2013), where it is mentioned: What these data show is that, indeed, the probability of having thought "sometimes" about leaving school is directly related to: a) having distant relationships (where trust is absent) with the parent, teachers and classmates, and b) having participated in the suffered vandalism actions carried out against the school and/or its members ¹⁷.

The aforementioned words confirm the fact of the important and necessary participation that parents and teachers play in the teaching-learning process of students, but more importantly, in the process of coping with violent behaviors in which students are participants or victims. Another point worth emphasizing from the research conducted by the previously mentioned researcher is the following: A violent school climate that diminishes educational quality and increases dropout rates, takes away professional development opportunities, encourages unemployment, motivates informality, favors a weak culture of legality, promotes the image of an unjust order, corrodes the State's capacity to establish the rule of law, erodes institutional trust, contributes to the emptying of representative democracy, and creates the conditions for social discontent of proportions; all ingredients of an explosive cocktail that originates, almost imperceptibly, during the transit of adolescents through secondary schools (Del Tronco, et al., 2013).

On the other hand, the consequences that can result from acts of violence in educational centers are becoming apparent, since, if they end in school dropouts, the future becomes uncertain, although it will almost certainly be disadvantageous for the adolescent. Lack of opportunities and work at an early age lead to informality and add another percentage to the already high statistics.

Mexico, as mentioned earlier, is a country in which violence in schools is the order of the day, that is, it has become a very common situation for society, to the extent that it has the first place in school violence among OCDE countries. Considering the above, Tello (2013) argues that the impact of the environment has a close relationship in the negative behaviors that some students tend to present, so the professor of the Trabajo Social de la UNAM, mentions: The problem is aggravated by the generalized climate of illegality and insecurity in the country. Public high schools located in high-risk neighborhoods in Mexico City are the most conflictive points, said the expert, who has worked in this area for a decade. Young people are not aggressive because of this condition. They generate violence due to the fact that they live in such an unequal world, which imposes the desire to possess objects out of our reach and produces impotence when we do not obtain them. Aggression in schools is recreated from the social environment, detailed ¹⁸.

An important point that the expert comments on is the insecurity of the Mexican territory, naturally, this is a very relevant aspect when talking about the violence that takes place in the country, and the alarming figures confirm the seriousness of the situation. At the beginning of 2019, Mexico experienced the most violent January since records began, with 2,853 murders, according to data from the Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública (SESNSP) ¹⁹.

Unfortunately, the numbers are on the rise, causing the wave of violence to grow, resulting in young Mexicans being exposed to repeat acts of this type or worse, to be victims.

The role performed by the teacher within the classroom in the teaching and learning process is fundamental for the acquisition of knowledge of the students, in this sense Guevara et al. express that the teacher's style and teaching strategy affect the prevailing classroom climate, the degree of student participation, the group's attention and comprehension levels, as well as student achievement (Escobar, 2015) ²⁰.

In addition to this, according to Cabezas y Monge (2014) ²¹, teachers play an essential role in the education of the school population, being their task to implement programs that develop the topic of bullying among peers, from the moment children start school. They should also consider whether the students have been victims or perpetrators of this situation, so that they can identify the causes that give rise to the perpetrators' actions. However, in order for this to be possible, it is necessary for the teacher to have the appropriate tools to know how to act, which is why the implementation of programs that prevent such situations will be useful.

2. Methodology

In order to obtain answers that present the reality of school violence at the secondary level, it was decided to use the unstructured questionnaire as a data collection technique, which according to Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (2013), is defined as a type of format consisting of general questions that allows the interviewer greater freedom and flexibility in the formulation of specific questions ²². The questions are not asked in a strict order and allow the interviewer to adapt the vocabulary to the cultural level of the interviewee.

Therefore, the relevance of using this technique lies in the fact that the participants are the protagonists of the interview and have the opportunity to deepen their experiences and stories through generative questions, which is enriching for the research. Besides, the researcher becomes a moderator during the interview (Gallego, 2020) ²³.

For the purposes of the present investigation, the questionnaire was administered to 715 students, of whom 388 were boys and 327 were girls, aged 11 to 16 years. Twelve secondary schools in the state of Yucatan participated in the application of the instrument, of which three were telesecundaria schools, two were from the interior of the state and seven were from the city of Merida.

The open-ended questions asked to the students obtained different answers, hence, they have been grouped in a general way, without losing their original meaning. To do this, it is convenient to first code the open-ended responses, finding and naming the general response patterns, in other words, similar or common responses, and then list these patterns and assign them a numerical or symbolic value ²⁴. Then, to close the open-ended questions, a process similar to that presented by Hernández, Fernández and Baptista (2003) is followed:

1. Select a certain number of questionnaires by means of an adequate sampling method, ensuring the representativeness of the subjects investigated.

2. Observe the frequency with which each answer to the question appears.

3. Choose the most frequently occurring responses (general response patterns).

4. Classify the answers chosen in topics, aspects or items, according to a logical criterion, making sure that they are mutually exclusive.

5. Give a name or title to each topic, aspect or item (general response pattern).

6. Assign the code to each general response pattern.

Such questionnaire was elaborated based on five guiding questions that allowed us to know the perception that students have of school violence, either as victims or aggressors. The five questions are:

1. How do you react when you observe your classmate bullying and why?

2. How would you describe a person who bullies your classmates or yourself?

3. If you have bullied, how do you feel at the time of bullying and afterwards?

4. If you have been a victim of bullying, how do you feel at the time of experiencing it? and afterwards?

5. How does the presence of violent cases in your school affect you academically?

3. Results and Discussion

To begin with, the results of the first question asked to the students show the following:

The 27% of the students responded that when facing bullying situations, they prefer to "not doing anything”. This response represents the majority of those surveyed, who prefer to remain silent in the light of these acts, probably out of fear or because it has become so constant that it is seen as something normal. In relation to the above, Tello (2005) points out that when violence becomes part of the environment, the possibility of recognizing it diminishes and, therefore, it is introjected by the subjects who live it as something natural, to notice it is necessary that it increases. It is a problem that is reproduced and exponentiated. It increases and deepens, gradually and stealthily, in personal interrelationships; it is only recognized in its new expression, the rest is already part of the given and, because of the given, no one is astonished ²⁵.

On the other hand, 11% represent those who choose to defend their classmate when they are involved in bullying, but do not necessarily respond in the same way as the aggressor acts. Also, it is important to point out that 13% decide to tell an authority, which may indicate that there is a relationship of trust between the teacher-student or manager-student.

The results of the second question asked to the students are presented below:

In this second question, the result was that 32% of adolescents describe an aggressor as a "bad person", so it is likely that peers will reject him/her, since his/her actions have caused them to have this impression of him/her. Consecutively, 18% consider that this is a person who has "problems at home", this may be due to the fact that in the family environment violence is encouraged among its members, and in turn this is repeated in the school environment. Regarding the above, Ayala-Castillo (2015) mentions that the school classroom is considered a space for the construction of identities, however, what happens in the classroom is a reflection of what happens outside, whether in family relationships, in the streets, in the community, in the country. Hence, the interrelationships that occur among students are produced and reproduced from the previous experiences of each one in relation to the external world, but also with the subjective aspects of the group ²⁶.

Moreover, 10% consider the aggressor to be "courageous", probably due to the fact that the aggressor is capable of breaking school rules and evading the authority of the teacher and directors, without showing any fear, or perhaps this is what he or she appears to others. The 7% of the students consider this person as "superior", this could mean that the aggressor demonstrates a unique position, which no one will be able to reach, it could also be due to the fact that his negative actions cause fear among the students, causing them not to dare to approach him, to complain to him or to speak to him.

Continuing with the results of the third question asked to the students, they show the following:

This question addressed to students who cause bullying in schools is possibly a key question to know the approximate percentage of aggressors. The answer given most frequently refers to 53% of the students who "has not bullied" their classmates. In a way, this data is favorable to the problem addressed, given that more than half of the respondents do not participate in bullying, yet 14% acknowledge feeling "shame", 12% feel "bad" and 3% "feel guilty afterwards" after doing it, which is probably due to the fact that the aggressor feels a need to do the bullying, but after having done it, this condition disappears, causing negative feelings in students; this leads to consider that school violence is reflected through behavior and manifests itself in mistreatment, bullying, intimidation or victimization (Baquedano y Echeverría, 2013).

It is even observed that some feel indifference in this situation since 2% said they feel "sometimes bad", perhaps because they perceive these acts as something daily and that it is not always serious. If these actions are not attended to, they could continue to happen in schools, causing cases of bullying to increase instead of decreasing, including the fact that as long as there is no intervention, the aggressor will continue to behave negatively during their stay at school.

Following on with the results of the fourth question asked to the students:

The fourth question addresses the opposite of the previous one, that is, it seeks to know how those who suffer bullying feel. It can be said that it is positive the fact that 33% of respondents "has not suffered" from bullying, nonetheless, those who have suffered should not be ignored, even though they are a smaller percentage.

The 21% of the students feel "angry", most likely because they cannot defend themselves when they are assaulted or perhaps because it becomes repetitive and with this feeling, they show that they are tired of the situation. The 17% feel "sad", which might mean that students feel too helpless in the event of bullying, which could trigger other feelings in them, as in the case of the 12% who said they feel "lonely", possibly because they do not know how to act against this problem, deciding to turn away without telling a teacher, principal or even their parents.

Fortunately, 3% choose to "asking for help", which would be the most appropriate in these cases where bullying is present. Trust between the teacher-student and the director-student is very important, since it can facilitate good communication, allowing them to intervene in the solution of the problem in question, preventing cases of school violence from increasing.

Lastly, the results of the fifth question asked to the students:

The fifth and last question asked to the students, shows the ways in which bullying affects them. Although 57% responded that these acts "does not affect him/her", it is likely that this happens because students find this situation as something normal and every day, in other words, it becomes part of the school environment, it can also be said that bullying does not affect them because they are not the ones who suffer it.

The 19% of the respondents feel "fear or dread" about the cases of violence in their high schools. It is not necessary to suffer bullying to have this feeling, as it is possible that those who gave this answer feel vulnerable to the aggressor and the perception of being a possible victim causes such "fear or dread".

5% of students prefer not to "participate" in classes and/or school activities, which can affect the relationships that the adolescent must develop either inside or outside the classroom and can cause them to withdraw from their peers and even get bad grades. In the case of the 3% of students who "does not want to attend to class", it is even more important to intervene quickly, since this could be the cause of educational lagging, but it is unfair that the adolescent's education is interrupted by something that can be avoided.

4. Conclusions

The objective of this article was to learn about the current situation of school violence in secondary schools in Yucatan, as seen from the perspective of Yucatecan students, since they are the ones who are most closely aware of the acts of violence. When applying the questionnaires to the students, different responses were obtained that allowed us to know in a broad sense the current thinking about school violence. In comparison with other studies, certain common patterns that occur in cases of school violence were found, which according to Gómez, Gala, Lupiani, Bernalte, Miret, Lupiani y Barreto, 2007) ²⁷ are:

1) it usually includes behaviors of various kinds (teasing, threats, intimidation, physical aggression, systematic isolation, insults).

2) tends to cause problems that are repeated and prolonged for a certain period of time.

3) it involves an abuse of power, as it is provoked by a student (the bully), generally supported by a group, against a victim who is helpless, unable to get out of this situation by himself.

4) and is maintained due to the ignorance or passivity of the people who surround the aggressors and the victims without directly intervening.

The first conclusion found refers to the fact that students who witness acts of violence in their schools are indifferent, that is, they prefer to do nothing when they observe aggressions against their classmates. This makes it difficult for teachers, principals, and victims to communicate in order to find a solution and immediate attention to the problems that appear. In this regard, it is worrying that just over a quarter of the students choose this option and only a little more than a fifth decide to tell an authority, which is the best way to counteract the situation. The second conclusion is related to the feelings found after the bullying, being that a good part of the aggressor students feels guilt, shame and even sadness after carrying out the acts of violence, hence it is important to pay attention to what is behind each of the aggressor students, since school violence is reflected through behavior and manifests itself in mistreatment, bullying, intimidation or victimization (Baquedano y Echeverría, 2013).

Another point of concern is the fact that students prefer to stop attending classes, because this encourages educational lagging in school, making it difficult for students to receive an education. Although the fear that is most prevalent in them, it also causes students to stop going to school. The school should be a place where the adolescent feels comfortable and willing to receive a quality education, and not a place that causes insecurity, fear, discouragement, etc., for this reason, it is necessary for teachers and principals to act before cases of school violence become more serious, always trying to meet the needs of students, and promoting actions that favor a good school environment and coexistence.

Finally, it is necessary to conclude that although the results of this research show that the number of students who have not suffered bullying is greater than the number who have suffered it, this smaller number has experienced it and therefore, it is obtained that school violence does exist in schools and that it is the responsibility of all those involved in educational practice to try to reduce its frequency, so that in future research, the number of students who show that they have suffered bullying is null.

References