Bullying: Analyzing Bullying Through Mimetic Theory
Bullying has always existed, even before it was called such, however research on it has increased in recent decades due to the need derived from the transitions that the social and educational field has gone through.
It is evident that it is no longer enough to reflect on the observations and results of these investigations, it is now necessary to delve into the psychological theories that give support to these and that frame a better understanding of reality, today so complex, guiding towards pertinent actions that give rise to a reformulation of social paradigms.
Definition of bullying
To better analyze this phenomenon, it is necessary to define it well.
Human beings are aggressive by nature and are often violent by nature. social learning although its behavioral expression varies according to cultures and times, until constituting a violent, overt and/or masked relational climate, which has become a well-understood social phenomenon (Gómez: 2006).
However, What do we understand by bullying? The Anglo-Saxon name bullying It is commonly used to refer to the phenomenon of “bullying.” Thus, bullying is the condition of abuse between peers characterized by the abuser’s harassment and/or intimidation of the victim, within the school environment. Therefore, a student is victimized when he is exposed repeatedly and for an indefinite time to negative acts carried out by one or more students.
A negative action occurs when a subject intentionally causes some damage or injury, morally, psychologically or physically transgresses another individual. Negative actions can be committed verbally, for example with threats and ridicule, with deception or even physically, through contact actions such as pushing, hitting, kicking, pinching, spitting. There is, furthermore, violence that is neither physical nor verbal for example laughter, grimaces, obscene gestures, libidinous harassment as well as the exclusion or refusal to fulfill the correct and legitimate wishes of the other person.
The effects of bullying extend far beyond the specific moments in which attacks occur, as victims are often anxious about the prospect of returning to school and terrified of the possibility of crossing paths with the bully again.
It is considered that they are immersed in these problems and that to a greater or lesser extent they are victims of them, both the students who are unjustifiably aggressive towards others, and those who are direct victims of said attacks. Likewise, students are victims of violence who, without being involved immediately, are involved indirectly, because they are observers and passive subjects of it, being forced to live in social situations where the problem is found. latent.
Why does bullying happen?
The essential factor in bullying is the immanent human desire to dominate, to subjugate others, rejoicing in their misfortune even if it is self-inflicted.
As the UNESCO points out, the probability that school is perceived by the student as an emotionally positive experience will depend on the environment that the students and teachers manage to create. He emotional climate of the school is determined by the presence or absence of violence and other disturbances in the various environments. Currently, among the different phenomena of violence that may occur in the school environment, it has been decided to focus attention fundamentally on those whose actors and victims are the students themselves, who are repeat offenders and which fracture the symmetry that should exist in relationships between peers, promoting or favoring processes of victimization in those who are subject to interpersonal violence.
A core aspect of the phenomenon of bullying is the existence of a imbalance of forces . It is a constant present in all those contexts of interpersonal relationships in which there are together, in a more or less obligatory, but relatively permanent way, people of equal social status who are forced by circumstances to share scenarios, jobs or simple activities. ; Students who attend educational institutions find themselves in these conditions, so they can, and in fact do, become involved in victimization problems.
Mimetization: entering the vicious circle of bullying
“Violence must be recognized as having a mimetic character, of such intensity that violence cannot die by itself once it has established itself in the community. To escape this circle it would be necessary to liquidate the terrible backwardness of violence that mortgages the future; “it would be necessary to deprive men of all the models of violence that do not stop multiplying and generating new imitations.”
—Irard (1983, 90).
In light of the above, school violence, from a social perspective, is established as a public health issue and a significant element that carries a psychosocial risk due to multiple consequences in the psychological, biological and social aspects.
The phenomenon of school violence is nothing more than the reverberation of aggressive subversion that emanates from family units and society in general. The extent of school violence is reflected in a deterioration in horizontal relationships between peers as well as vertically, between teachers, parents and students, the most notable and worrying, from my perspective, being the mistreatment of students towards teachers and institutions which largely addresses the consideration that teachers and schools give to students, social influence and mainly home training.
