Bullying: analyzing bullying through mimetic theory

There has always been the bullying, even before it was called as such, however research on the matter has increased in the last decades due to the necessity derived from the transitions that the social sphere has gone through and educational.

Bullying and the mimetic theory

It is evident that it is no longer enough to reflect on the observations and results of said investigations, it is now necessary to delve into the psychological theories that they give support to these and that they frame a better understanding of the reality, today so complex, orienting 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.

The human being is aggressive by nature and often he is violent for social learning, although its behavioral expression varies according to cultures and times, until it constitutes a climate violent, overt and / or masked relational, which has become a well understood social phenomenon (Gómez: 2006).

However, What do we understand by bullying or bullying? The Anglo-Saxon denomination bullying it is commonly used to refer to the phenomenon of "bullying." Thus, bullying is the condition of mistreatment between peers. characterized by harassment and / or intimidation of the abuser on 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 by threats and teasing, deceit or even physically, through contact actions such as pushing, hitting, kicking, pinching, spitting. There is also violence that is neither physical nor verbal, for example laughter, grimaces, obscene gestures, libidinal harassment as well as the exclusion or refusal to comply with the correct and legitimate wishes of the other person.

The effects of bullying extend far beyond the specific moments in which the aggressions occur, since the victims are often anxious at the prospect of going back to school and terrified of the prospect of crossing paths with him again aggressor.

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 and students who are unjustifiably aggressive towards others, such as those who are direct victims of such assaults. Likewise, students are victims of violence who, without being immediately involved, are indirectly involved, because They are observers and passive subjects of it, being that they are forced to live in social situations where the problem is latent.

Why does bullying happen?

The essential factor in bullying is the immanent human desire for domination, to subdue others, rejoicing in their misfortune even if it is self-inflicted.

As the UNESCO points out, the probability that school is signified by the student as an emotionally positive experience it will depend on the environment that students and teachers manage to create. The emotional climate of school is given by the presence or absence of violence and other disturbances in the various environments. Currently, among the different phenomena of violence that can occur in the school environment, it has been decided to focus the attention in a fundamental way to those who have as actors and victims the students themselves, who are repeat offenders and who fracture the symmetry that should exist in relationships between peers, promoting or favoring victimization processes in those who are subjected to violence interpersonal.

A core aspect of the phenomenon of school bullying is the existence of a imbalance of forces. It is a constant present in all those contexts of interpersonal relationships in which they are together, in a more or less obligatory way, but relatively permanent, people of equal social status who are forced by circumstances to share scenarios, jobs or simple activities; The students who attend educational institutions are in these conditions, so they can, and in fact this is the case, be involved in victimization problems.

Mimicry: entering the vicious circle of bullying

“Violence must be recognized as 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 the violence that mortgages the future; it would be necessary to deprive men of all models of violence that do not cease to multiply and to engender new imitations "
—Irard (1983, 90).

In light of the above, school violence, from the social point of view, is established as a public health matter and a significant element that carries a psychosocial risk due to multiple derivations in the psychological, biological and social aspects.

The phenomenon of school violence is nothing more than the reverberation of aggressive subversion that emerges from the family nuclei and in society in general. The capacity for school violence is highlighted by a deterioration of horizontal relationships between peers as well as as vertically, between teachers, parents and students, being the most notorious and worrying, from my perspective, the mistreatment of students towards teachers and institutions, which attends to a large extent, the consideration that teachers and school provide to the students, the social influence and mainly the training at home.