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As we saw earlier, the Ministry is going to reform the data collection system regarding acts of violence in schools in order to make it a tool that can be exploited by school heads so that they can assess their own strategy. This is an important resource. The importance in the way each school deals with violence has been highlighted in several studies: there are some schools which are better than others. Whatever the official directives and the resources provided by the national or regional authorities, in both primary and secondary education, the determining factor is how the school team uses the resources according to its own specific agenda.

“Schools located in a same environment and that welcome the same type of population may be faced more or less dramatically with the issue of violence. In secondary schools which are most affected by the problem, research has also identified a ‘bad’ school atmosphere that may be perceived by a feeling of injustice among the pupils. This correlation shows that violence is not a phenomenon that comes from

nowhere. While it may be explained to some extent by the violence in the surrounding community environment and the porous nature of school with respect to this violence, it is also linked to the way the institution is run, and its organisation, reflecting the issue of justice within the educational system (Meuret, 1999).(Carra, 2006, p. 15-16).

With respect to her own research Cécile Carra concludes :

“While the perception of violence is closely linked to relations with others and the image that one has of the school and its location, the sentiment of violence, is constructed not only from the perception of the

level of violence on one’s school, but also how this violence is experienced as a victim and author, depends far more on the constructed contextual effects, in other words, the characteristics of the school climate. A comparative approach to all the schools in our sample population enabled us to

identify the type of climate associated with a low level of violence among pupils. It is strongly based on three factors linked to the school climate and significantly correlated between one another: the working atmosphere, the atmosphere of learning and that of justice, are all aspects that are based on the relationship that the teachers have with the pupils and their job.” (p. 158).

The comparative research work by YoonJung Cho (2008), mentioned above enabled us to carry out an extremely interesting analysis at school level, and to compare the effects of the French strategy with the somewhat repressive strategy led in South Korea, and the more collaborative and open guidance strategy taken in the UK pupils and partners outside the school, particularly the parents. The sample by country is too low to be able to draw any generalised, but the data analysis nonetheless has an indicative value insofar as it consolidates certain interpretations already put forward by other researchers.

Like Cécile Carra, Eric Debarbieux and his team members, she points to the subjective dimension of violence. What is considered as an act of violence by one pupil may not be by another. Our attention was drawn in particular not only to the climate of violence in a school and whether the users tend to see it in a positive or a negative light in the context of their local environment, but also to the national cultural variable when seen through a comparison involving very different countries.

At first sight, the results of YoonJung Cho’s survey contradict the Council of Europe’s views whereby prevention and collaborative education with respect to students are considered as the most effective means of guaranteeing safety at school and in society. Indeed, we observe that fewer students are involved in bullying in South Korea (non involved: 47%) than in England (28%) and in France (27%). Could this be the result of

a more authoritarian school policy based on stricter discipline and codes of conduct, including corporal punishment, with an education founded on adult authority and justified by Confucian and colonial traditions ? This is a challenge for other cultural contexts, because in today’s Western democracy, the different nations and their governments balance repression with prevention to guarantee the safety of citizens in towns, suburbs, and schools as much as throughout society. The media, which has a powerful influence over public opinion, also appears to favour this form of development (Zay, Cho, 2007).

What does the population under study have to say?

South Korean pupils are extremely negative with regard to their supervisors and other forms of control intended to protect them, and appear to be against the authoritarian educational tradition. This group also has the highest percentage of interviewees who consider the victim to be responsible for being bullied rather than the bully (25% vs. 52%), the highest rate of pupils claiming to be a bully without being a victim (32% vs. 4% in England and 15% in France), and with bullies legitimizing bullying as something that is educational : i.e. they “correct the victim's bad character” (21%, vs. 0% in England and 2% in France : Table 9). For the French (45%) and the English (30%), on the other hand, the main reason for bullying other children is “to get revenge, or in self- defence”. This appears to indicate that violence for them is more a reaction to an attack than a spontaneous choice of behaviour.

We could therefore put forward the hypothesis that an authoritarian and repressive policy prevents violence as long as the authoritarian policy is in place, but that it also generates frustration, a kind of legitimacy of violence and less respect for those who are weak. In the main, the latter does not appear to sit well with a form of education for young people that prepares them to live in a democratic society based on respect for others. This interpretation is confirmed in all three countries via the main reasons given for victimization: “different religion, timidity, physical appearance, etc. ” (24% for English pupils, 18% for South Koreans and 14% for the French).

Consequently, we are led to believe that the Council of Europe is right in focusing on education that fosters young people accepting others as having the same rights as themselves just because they are all human beings, and that this citizenship education should underpin initial prevention and the development of a suitable attitude for preventing violence. The significant difference in the ratings between English and French youngsters (24% vs. 14%) could also lead us to consider that the English social

and school policy based on “social differentiation”, a political model founded on communities, reinforces the awareness of difference among young people and increases their negative perspective with regard to others who do not belong to the same ethnic and religious model. On the contrary, the French policy of secularity, a model that insists on religion being a matter kept uniquely for private life, while differences cannot be introduced either at school or in public places, requires people to take into consideration the fact that they are all, first and foremost, subject to the same State laws and that they are all the same citizens belonging to the same republican State. We have seen this model impact on pupils from immigrant background in ToR 4 and we will develop it in ToR 9 - Support measures to facilitate school success of pupils from minority backgrounds: ethnic, linguistic, religious, regional, etc.

The answers from the English and French students seem to be linked to different school strategies and connected to the prevailing school cultural model. The English youngsters trust adults more in general compared to the pupils from the other two countries. 14% chose “Tell adults” (teacher, parents, police, etc.) in order to stop bullying vs. 8% for the French and 3% for the South Koreans. They think, more than the French and South Koreans, that supervisors are effective at preventing bullying at school: 60% declare that they are “enormously” or “a lot” (effective), vs. 25% for the French and 12% for the South Koreans. They also trust their school policies more as well as the measures set up for this purpose : 56% vs. 38% and 16% for both other countries.

It is true that in England school management is decentralized and the education community is recognised for its role that contributes to policies and laws in schools through cooperation and partnerships. In particular, young people play a role of mediator between students, teachers and the school head’s office through the model of “peer mentoring students”. They are also made responsible for helping students in trouble. Pupils are expected to, and effectively do, assume responsibility by searching for solutions themselves and then applying them. The national “policy statement on anti-bullying” in English schools has raised the awareness of pupils to the problem of bullying. These two measures have been applied in a very satisfactory way. This is illustrated in our data. While the rate of non-involved pupils is more or less the same in our English and French population (28% and 27%), these figures do not indicate the same situation. As we saw earlier, there are twice as many victims in England than in France (44% vs. 21%) and, consequently, there are fewer bullies (4% vs. 15%), apparently attacking more victims, including fewer victims/bullies (23% vs. 37%). This

indicates that not only most victims/bullies are defenders as in France (30% vs. 45%), but that one bully generally picks on several victims. We can infer that the specific English measures are more effective compared to France. First, they reduce the number of bullies and second, they also make it easier to prevent them from doing it again, because it is easier to focus on a few than on a large number.

The specific English anti-bullying policy which enhances negotiated rules, tutorship and peer mediation can also be considered to make them more aware of their own responsibility as young people for bullying between each other. For most of them, the bully is the main person responsible for bullying between young people, with the highest rate (72%, then the bully’s parents, 20 %, and last, the victim, 3 %), while only adults are deemed responsible for the French. They also give the most importance to their own behaviour with regard to the bullies: “avoid/ignore/do not bother bully”: (47.5%, vs. 21% for the French) or, on the contrary, “cope with bully, fight back”: 11% vs. 2.5% for the French.

The French answers are surprising. They first mention the police (25%), second, the bully's parents (21%) and then the class teacher (17%) as being responsible for bullying between pupils. We can compare this with the lower effectiveness they give to school actions and supervisors than the English. They are also the only ones to favour “strengthen supervision, punishment, education for victim/bully” as a solution : 24% vs. less than 1% in England. We can explain the French attitude as linked to a traditional culture that favours state schools and public services, and a centralized school system managed by the State which may also generate a lesser sense of responsibility. There is a specific French tendency to consider that the authorities are responsible for finding solutions to every issue. This national tendency can lead pupils to believe that the problem should be placed in the hands of adults. Consequently, if French pupils only expect adults to help them, they may be disappointed because they are not effective enough and may also consider that reinforcement and re-education of supervisors could improve the situation. However, there is a lack of community education to make young people more aware of their own responsibility and this does not prepare them as citizens in a democratic society.

This comparative study of three countries with very different cultures, history, and social habits confirms the policies recommended by the Council of Europe. The English example shows their positive effects. The authoritarian education in South Korea appears to generate frustration and make young people distrustful of adults and

more ready to legitimize oppression of those who are weaker. The over-centralized, subject-centred policies in France tend to make young people less aware of their own, individual responsibility

Nevertheless, the sample studied is too limited to be able to draw general conclusions. We can only check the results obtained and the interpretations put forward in comparison with other studies. We have already mentioned some of these correlations. Cécile Carra (2006) corroborates the importance of explicit rules, in the shape of a set of rules.

“In some schools in violent areas and in education priority another dimension appears to be important to the school climate : the rules. Where social control processes are initiated by precariousness, fostering the development of an anomiccontext, rules contribute to the production of explicit standards that contribute to establishing school order.”( p. 155).

We saw the importance of this factor with respect to disaffection from school (ToR 1). One of the causes of the problems that at times disruptive pupils in difficulty pose is that they do not understand the standards they are expected to meet at school nor the instructions given by the teachers (Barrère, 1997; Dolignon, 2005, 2008). This “cognitive misunderstanding”, linked to a “socio-cultural gap” “that is growing wider” between the school and the families, leads to direct disciplinary sanctions, often without verbal explanations, in turn leading to a mutual misunderstanding with the teachers, generating a repressive attitude repressive and an increasingly violent backlash (Carra, Hedibel, 2004).

However, negotiating the rules with the pupils only plays a positive role with respect to violence if it fits into a process structured by corresponding teaching standards and if enough time is allowed for it to take effect, as for the Freinet school (Carra, 2006; Carra, Faggianelli, 2005; Carra, Pagoni, 2007, cf. ToR 11, case study 2). In other schools, this factor does not come into play.

“Finally, the most important aspect of these results appears to be that the rules are applied in the same way for everyone and that everyone benefits from the same type of relations with the teachers (evaluated via the educational score) and that the sanctions, whether they apply to behaviour or schoolwork, are viewed as fair (what we learnt from with the justice score).” (Carra, 2006, p. 137).

This highlights the importance of the way the school generally operates, in an overall system that fosters adaptation which goes beyond dealing with specific problems, whether violence-related or not. We will look at this issue again in topic 10 - The assessment of success and failure regarding these points and the internal and external factors that influence it and 11 – Selected innovative and successful projects or case-studies that have proved successful at school, local, regional or national level.

After listing the help that currently exists, Maryse Esterlé Hédibel (2004) believes nonetheless that many teachers remain powerless when confronted with the issue and that their training in general is a major contributing factor: “increasingly precise assessment systems have enabled us to evaluate and categorise the phenomena, and several ‘anti-violence schemes’ have been organised nationally, with reviews of the sanctions and punishments currently in place in secondary schools (decree of 13 July 2000), several tens of thousands of teaching assistants have been recruited to assist the pupils outside school hours (their contracts will not be renewed, and the smaller number of education assistants will not be able to replace all of them.), and many conferences and meetings regularly bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss these issues. However, many school staff still only have their experience or their intuition to resolve the difficult situations. Initial teacher training or staff development courses to improve conflict management in schools is increasingly considered as a key issue, and it seems urgent that we raise the awareness staff confronted with violence that managing the situation comes down as much to the discourse they use and their attitude, something that concerns themselves as much as the pupils.” (p. 165-166).