These days a study by UNICEF in Argentina called "Climate, Conflicts and Violence in the School" in which various factors and data have been analyzed to try to take a picture of the current situation in the schools of that country.
Among all the data collected for the study, those that show the differences between public and private schools are striking.
It has always been thought that in public schools, because of the social level of children who go, there is more violence than in private schools and, if we understand violence as physical abuse, this is confirmed, because in public schools children stick more than in private schools. However, it has been found that there is also violence among children in private schools, but from the unseen, from what is called psychological abuse, which occurs in the form of humiliations and insults, among other methods, and These children do more than children in public schools.
Some study data
To carry out this study, 1690 children were enrolled in secondary education (age is not commented, but the last three courses of that period are mentioned).
When asked if in 2009 someone had been cruel to them 2.3% of children who attended public schools answered yes and what happened regularly, compared with 1.8% of private schools. 4.3% of children in the public said yes on more than one occasion, being 13.2% children in private schools who confessed that someone had been cruel to them with such frequency. 79.9% of children in public schools and 69.4% of children in private schools said that no child had ever been cruel to them.
To the question of whether in 2009 ugly things had been said in public about them 2.8% of children in the public said that it usually happened compared to 3.9% of children in the private. 11.3% of the public said it had happened more than once in front of 17.1% of children in private and he responded that 68.5% of children in the public had never happened compared with 58.1% of children in the private.
The polls then took a turn and the children were asked if in 2009 they had treated some partner badly. 4.9% of children in the public said yes, usually, compared with 6.3% of those in private. 23.1% of public school children said they had done it more than once, compared to 36.2% of children in private and, asking if they had never treated a partner badly, 49.6% of the children in the public responded that they had never done so, compared to 33.6% of the children in the private, that is, 76.4% of children in private schools have ever treated a classmate badly.
They were also asked if they had ever said anything that would hurt a partner and 2.8% of children in the public said yes, usually, compared with 5.2% in private. 14.9% of children in the public said yes on more than one occasion, compared to 22.4% of children in private. When asked if 62.6% of the children in the public had never done so, he said he had never said anything hurtful to a partner compared to 46.5% of the children in the private.
Regarding physical abuse, they were asked what was the frequency with which there were fights between students and 11.6% of children in the public said they were very frequent, compared to 3.9% of children in the private, 26.7% said they were somewhat frequent, compared to 19.4% of those Children from the private sector, infrequent in 40.5% of public schools and 50% from private schools and not frequent in 18.3% of children from public schools and 25.8% from private schools.
They were also asked if they had been involved in fights in 2009 and 17.8% of public school children said yes, compared to 10.6% of the private, answering that not the remaining students, 81.6% of the children of the public and 89.1% of those of the private.
Conclusions
Surely everyone has already drawn their own conclusions. The study is done with schools in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, so I think it can be extrapolated to our cities too and that the behavior of our children should be quite similar.
As we say at the beginning of the entry and as the headline says, it seems that the children of public schools are more aggressive, more physical, more likely to solve problems with the body than with speech (it is not a difference either large between them, but this trend is seen). As for children who attend private schools, it is observed that they make less use of physical abuse, but they use psychological abuse humiliating and ridiculing their peers more, techniques that do not leave physical traces and that are, therefore, more difficult to verify (it is not the same to say "look what he has done to me" that "look what he has told me"), but that they also leave traces psychological.
The study is interesting because it highlights a reality that many did not know. To give an example, my 5-year-old son shares time with children from various social strata, since in school he is in a public school, with children of all kinds and backgrounds and on Saturdays he plays sports with children who attend, mostly , to private schools.
At school we observe that it is common for some children to hit (one day he listed us the children who usually hit and were a few), however "the other children do not hit," he told us one day. Now, in the light of what was seen in this study, they might not hit, but who knows if they will start using techniques like those described to harm other children equally without the use of force.
