Violence et déviance scolaires

School violence is a major preoccupation all over the world. The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation." The deconstruction of such a definition reveals that violence is of no simple nature.  As for school violence, it can be considered as the occurrence of any of the different types of violence in or in relation to the school system.  In the course of this paper we will deal successively with the types and causes of school violence before examining its possible solutions.

School violence is a phenomenon that consists in different forms. In reality, people should talk about violence in the plural rather than singular. For Eric Debarbieux school violence comprises  “three elements:

• Crimes that are stipulated in the penal code and committed at school
• Incivilities that are stipulated by the social actors
• The feeling of insecurity and violence resulting from the two previous forms of violence” (Debarbieux, 2001)

In our country too, school actors experience certain types of violence. For Mamadou Lamine Coulibaly three main categories of acts result in victimhood: verbal, physical and economic violences. However these categories of violence can be divided into two main ones: Violence at school that refers to criminality imported into the territory of school and school violence proper referring to acts directed against the institution or its visible representatives (Coulibaly, 2010).  Besides, school violence proper can differ according to the perpetrator (students or adults) or according to the victims who can be either actors or just symbols (buildings, materials); When violence is directed against materials, it is referred to as economic violence. Two major specific types of violence in our system are corporal punishment and sexual violence (Coulibaly, 2010).

School violence is then a complex problem and to understand it fully it is necessary to try to find out what its real causes are. Most of the time it results from misunderstanding among different actors of the sector. It can derive from the interactions between the socio-cultural environment and the institution. In this case the cause is the same as that of the violence outside. However all the violence that occurs at school doesn’t come from outside. In fact it can also be the consequence of the types of relationships between the actors inside the school. This includes the pedagogical approach used by teachers as well as the disciplinary techniques. Moreover, when violence happens and there is no adequate response to it, that can encourage the perpetrators to repeat it another time. One characteristic of violence is also that violence begets violence and the one perpetrated by adults works as an example for the youth.  Parent al guidance at home can also play a major role in the explanation of the behavior of their offspring at school.

It is high time to conceive appropriate solutions to violence at school because students go to school to learn not only knowledge but also good behaviors. In reality, educators have the possibility to reduce the prevalence of school violence through healthy relationships at and round schools and the classrooms. For that recruiting qualified social workers can help. For some schools that can not afford that possibility, the revival of teaching rules  and values is a possibility.  

According to Eric Debarbieux, school violence exists since Antiquity and

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