Rami Benbenishty
Keynote session from the World Anti-Bullying Forum 2021 in Stockholm by Rami Benbenishty.
This presentation describes a socio-ecological model we have developed to describe, predict, and prevent violence in schools. In this model, we include the multiple and distinct faces of school violence: emotional, social, physical, sexual, and cyber victimization, perpetrated by and victimizing both students and staff. In contrast to many other models, the school is in the center of the model, rather than individual students. The school is embedded in multiple contexts (e.g., neighborhood poverty and crime, culture and ethnicity, media, and global events) that impact levels and types of violence in the school. The school does not merely mirror the external contexts, but could modify and buffer these influences by developing effective social-emotional, organizational, and academic climates. Finally, the model emphasizes the changes over time in contexts (e.g., the recent pandemic, ‘me too’ movement) that require changes and adjustments in school climate in order to prevent school violence n these evolving contexts.. Implications for policy, practice, and research will be presented.