Description
What is the Partnership Against School Bullying research about?
In 2015, three organisations from Hungary, Bulgaria and Malta joined forces to launch a pilot projectwhich aims to create a community-based complex school developing a programme effective prevention and treatment of aggression and abuse alternative conflict management methods. The long-term goal of the Partners Hungary Foundation, Partners Bulgaria Foundation and SOS Malta is to achieve a cultural change in schools that is supported by alternative conflict management methods preventing bullying and conflicts at school and reducing aggressive and other disruptive behaviours.
The research carried out for this report is the starting point and final summary of the level and extent of aggressive behaviour and abuse in the in three Hungarian, four Maltese and one Bulgarian school, which have participated in the ASAP programme and piloted the model programme to prevent and effectively deal with bullying and aggressive behaviour. We started the present work by examining the situation before the intervention, assessing the dimensions of the problem and collecting the views of teachers, non-teaching staff, students and parents.
What is the purpose of the research?
- examine the school climate in the participating Hungarian, Maltese and Bulgarian institutions;
- collect data on the extent and forms of aggression and abuse in these schools;
- explore the awareness of teachers, non-teaching staff, students and parents of this problem;
- examine the most common places where aggressive and abusive incidents occur;
- explore the level and method of reporting these incidents in schools, and the extent to which students, teachers and parents take advantage of them;
- outline how prepared stakeholders are to prevent such incidents or to intervene effectively.
In addition to evaluating the impact of the project, the research will provide data to compare the extent of the problems in the different school environments in the three countries and how key stakeholders relate to them at school level. Therefore, the results can be useful for the management of participating schools in developing effective responses to bullying, as well as informing project partners on how to formulate evidence-based recommendations to improve school policies in each country. The methodology of this research is designed to explore the diversity of issues of interest to project partners and school leadership. Thus, the methodology developed by the project partners is based on other can also be a useful tool for NGOs and educational institutions, which also explore this phenomenon in depth.
What is included in the research?
In line with the basic concept of the project, the research includes baseline and endline surveys in the schools concerned in Hungary, Malta and Bulgaria. The baseline survey was carried out between December 2016 and February 2017, and the final survey was conducted in late April/early May 2018. The aim of the baseline survey was to shed light on the presence and extent of bullying and aggression in the schools concerned, based on the perceptions of students, teachers, other school staff and parents. The survey will provide 8 useful insights into the prevalence of unwanted behaviour and incidents; examine the options for those involved to stop these incidents; and analyse the extent to which those involved find the problem serious. The baseline survey will both show the schools concerned the exact dimensions of bullying and aggression and give the project partners a clear picture of the baseline situation for the implementation of the Model Programme.
Once the project's approach of prevention and alternative conflict management is in place in schools, the output evaluation will help to assess changes in the areas listed above and will also show the effectiveness of the model programme.
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