SAVE: AN INTERVENTION TO PREVENT SCHOOL VIOLENCE BASED ON THE EDUCATION OF CONVIVENCIA

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SAVE AN INTERVENTION TO PREVENT SCHOOL VIOLENCE
BASED ON THE EDUCATION OF CONVIVENCIA

• Rosario Ortega
• Córdoba University
• Spain

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The concept of convivencia

• Convivencia is a very popular Spanish word
  employed in legal, community and institutional
  contexts.
• Convivencia means living together, sharing
  activities and life on a day-to day basis, with
  the guarantee that nobody is attacked or
  intimidated.
• Culturally it has a positive value, recognising
  that people look for the sharing of well-being.
• In the legal sphere respect for the rights of
  others
• At an institutional level the welfare of the
  whole community
• In the psychological field feelings of empathy
  and happiness to be with others including
  pro-social attitudes and behaviour

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Labels used to nominateBullying and Violence in
Spain

• Words used by students
• abuse, mistreatment, hitting, bothering, making
  my life impossible
• Words used by parents
• rejection, bothering, abuse, mistreatment,
  selfishness
• Words used by teachers
• indiscipline, conflict, aggression, bad behaviour
• General expression used by society
• school violence
• Despite no common criteria for naming school
  violence problems, in Spain, preventative action
  against these problems have been developed based
  on the concept of convivencia.

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School Convivencia

• School Convivencia concerns everyone in the
  school community teachers, students, family and
  society
• SAVE project was the pioneer of using this
  specific whole policy model
• SAVE project was designed as a whole policy and
  included improving School Convivencia

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SAVE project

• From the most socially and economically deprived
  areas of Sevilla metropolitan area 26 Schools
  (Primary and Secondary) were surveyed
• 4,914 Students, between 8-18 years old
• Only 10 Schools implemented the SAVE programmes
• 5 Schools (3 Primary, 2 Secondary) were evaluated
  as the experimental group and were compared with
  4 as the control group.

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SAVE main data Bullying and the risk of violence
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ANTI-BULLYING INTERVENTION
RELATIONSHIP DEFINING SCHOOL CONVIVENCIA
Rosario Ortega Rosario Del Rey
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SAVE Project

• Focussing on bullying and interpersonal violence
  prevention, SAVE aims to improve School
  Convivencia through
• Training teachers in service programmes
• Working on curricular issues
• Working to improve interpersonal peer
  relationships
• Feelings, attitudes and values as part of the
  curriculum
• Co-operative work on learning activities
• Intervention with students at risk and involved
  in bullying or interpersonal violence
• Working with bullies
• Working with victims

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Implementation processes of SAVE project

• Three conditions for a school to undertake the
  SAVE network
• The involvement of the School Counsellor, Head
  teacher and at least 4 teachers
• Each school developed their own programmes within
  the convivencia model
• Each programme had to be accepted by the CEP
  (Centre for Training teachers in Service)
• Only 10 Schools maintained these conditions
  during the 3 years of the implementation of SAVE

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Evaluation

• SAVE Schools
• Victims and bullies decreased on both measures
• Pre-Post Evaluation
• Experimental versus control evaluation
• Non-involved pupils increased
• General feelings of Convivencia increased.
• Peer relations improved increased tolerance,
  empathy, co-operation and social skills, as good
  examples of convivencia

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EVALUATION
RESULTS PRE-POST TEST
Rosario Ortega Rosario Del Rey
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EVALUATION
RESULTS EXPERIMENTAL VERSUS CONTROL
Rosario Ortega Rosario Del Rey
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EFFECTIVENESS OF THESAVE PROGRAMMES

• General feelings of Convivencia improved as a
  consequence of the SAVE programmes, in the
  opinion of 17.5 of students at the SAVE Schools
• Convivencia in terms of peer relations improved
  as a consequence of the SAVE programmes in the
  opinion of 71.5 of the students
• Reducing bullying as a consequence of the SAVE
  programmes was observed only by 18.0 of students
  at the SAVE Schools

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Students Opinions on SAVE Programmes
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CONCLUSIONS

• SAVE was a whole policy project based on
  convivencia as part of the Spanish Schools
  Culture
• Although bullying and interpersonal violence
  decreased, the best results of SAVE were in
  increasing the levels of peer relations and
  convivencia
• Students who were involved in the SAVE project
  perceived working directly with victims and
  bullies as the best way to reduce bullying
  problems at school.
• We need more work in order to know how whole
  policy models cope with bully-victim problems.