Why is the classroom a place where children or young people should learn about equality and, later, gender-based violence? How is it in practice? What opportunities for prevention are available? When it comes to these topics, what kind of educational content would be appropriate in primary and secondary schools? Are teachers willing and trained to provide appropriate support? What is the competent ministry doing about it? And why a view of Great Britain might be significant for us
Seven out of ten young people have experienced violence in a partner relationship, every sixth young person has been exposed to physical violence, and one third of young people do not even consider a single slap as violence... These are some of the findings of research published two years ago in which hundreds of high school students participated (Looking at youth partnerships: Research on gender-based violence in youth partnerships in Kragujevac).
In the same survey, almost half of young people agreed with the statement: "If a guy/girl wants to know where you are at every moment, it's a sign that he/she cares", and 42 percent of the respondents believe that extreme jealousy is a sign of love. and not violence. Every fifth young person is of the opinion that it is normal to sometimes be afraid of your partner, and that threats in a relationship should be understood only as a way of expressing anger.
Judging by previous research, conducted over the last ten years, Kragujevac largely reflects the situation in the entire country.
Of course, gender-based violence among young people is a global phenomenon. What differs from country to country is our answer - how much society recognizes the problem, how much parents and teachers are aware of it even when they are guided by the best intentions, how decision makers and the media act, what they are after, what everyone is doing together to solve the problem of violence and discrimination among young people, including gender based violence, recognize and prevent...
One of the actors in the formation of attitudes and (dis)creation of stereotypes is certainly the school.
"School could be - and if we look at the legal solutions - it should be a place where children and young people are taught to prohibit discrimination and equality, including gender equality," psychotherapist Biljana Slavković told Vreme.
According to psychologist Ivana Jakšić, assistant professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, the school should change myths and unfounded beliefs about gender-based violence - that jealousy is an indicator of love, that victims can cause violence, that men and women are equally violent - as well as to teach children to recognize warning signs and teachers to recognize signs of victimization, how to act according to the procedural framework...
NO SYSTEM RESPONSE
In the aforementioned research, every fifth young man believes that a real man will occasionally shout at a woman (against 8 percent of girls), every second that a real girl/woman should know when it's time to shut up, and that a girl should be gentle, quiet and to take care of her boyfriend/husband.
"At the root of the unfair social position of women in relation to men are traditional and rigid gender beliefs, i.e. stereotypes that prescribe different expectations for men and women," says Ivana Jakšić. He also adds that education offers the possibility of early - the earlier prevention programs are started, the more effective they will be - rejection of such stereotypes, i.e. teaches that personal characteristics such as gender, gender identity and sexual orientation should not limit them in life choices, nor serve as justification for unfair treatment.
"A system that does not recognize that gender relations in society are unfair is usually a system that reproduces inequalities. Therefore, if we do not have education for gender equality, we will have education for gender inequality", concludes Ivana Jakšić. As controversial issues, she cites insufficient representation of women in curricula and the issue of gender-sensitive language that reflects on the choices that girls make: "The names of high-status professions and positions in the feminine gender help girls and women to identify themselves, that is, to imagine themselves in such professions and in such positions, and various empirical studies confirm this again and again."
Biljana Slavković points out that we can actually deal with equality through every subject. For example, if you are teaching about the Middle Ages, the topic can be the way the Inquisition used prejudices about women, many literary works convey violent patterns, so through the analysis of epic poems with a critical distance, you can talk about the gender perspective. Girls can also be empowered to do more math or programming, the so-called male sciences as is now the trend in the West.
However, it all depends on the good will of the teacher to dedicate himself to the topic in such a way.
For the Civic Education course, knowledge about equality and prevention of domestic and other violence are part of the compulsory program. With the fact that, as is known, Civic Education is an optional subject. In addition, according to Biljana Slavković, it is also extreme, and teachers are rarely really trained.
Finally, when it comes to violence and prevention, schools themselves make plans on how to organize education or not organize it at all. Training on this is one of many trainings that teachers may choose. In other words, systematic information and education of children, youth and teaching staff, as well as other employees in educational institutions, does not exist. And the need is there.
GOOD AND BAD NEWS
From 2016 to 2018, AŽC organized a two-day seminar on the topic "Protection of women and children from violence in the family context - the role of educational institutions" in 15 cities in Serbia for representatives of 30 secondary schools and eight faculties. Even today, AŽC has two accredited seminars related to these topics intended for teachers and associates.
Work with schools is encouraged by the fact that they have a legal obligation to react when violence among students occurs or when children are exposed to violence by adults or there is a suspicion of it. This is prescribed by the Law on the basic system of education and upbringing, as well as other laws, as well as conventions signed by the state.
In a survey conducted seven years ago (Investigation of gender-based violence in schools in Serbia, 2015), the statement "A girl who wears too short skirts and tight T-shirts is to blame if someone attacks her" was considered correct by 62 percent of the young men surveyed, 49 percent of the girls, but also 17 percent of male teachers and 13 percent of female teachers. It is likely that the results would be better today, i.e. if there were fewer young people who would blame the victim and not the abuser. Nevertheless, that belief is still very present and also, which is very dangerous, such attitudes and various other prejudices are sometimes held by those who would have to fight against them, i.e. the teaching staff.
The lecturers at the aforementioned program of the AŽC were psychologists Tanja Ignjatović and Biljana Slavković.
"In some schools, the professional services, psychologists and pedagogues, are willing and know what their obligation is when they notice that there is, for example, violence in the family of a child who attends that school. Then, together with the director, they should cooperate with the center for social work", explains Biljana Slavković. However, it happens that school principals avoid or even prohibit, of course unofficially, that schools turn to centers for social work.
20-02THERE ARE NO MALE AND FEMALE OCCUPATIONS: Awareness of equality in school as well
Why? Because "they will not interfere" and "it is not ours to drive it out"; because they do not trust children or young people; because some principals, who are more political representatives, do not want the "school to be put on the pole of shame", as if it is a bigger problem to find out about violence than the fact that violence exists; because they are afraid of influential and violent parents... There is a similar attitude when their female colleagues are victims of intimate partner violence. "My impression is that we have about a third of professors who are resistant to understanding who is responsible for violence and who protect bullies," says Biljana Slavković, recalling the case of a professor from an elite high school who said that she was a father who drastically abused her mother. certainly still a good father.
On the other hand, as Tanja Ignjatović states, the fact that a large number of educators and teachers are highly motivated for this type of training is encouraging, they want to better understand procedures and procedures, as well as to receive more educational materials for working with students and informing parents, because they recognize the importance of the topic. This is exactly how the workshop manual for all school subjects was created (AŽC, 2018), where female professors wrote how, through different subjects, the topic of gender equality and family violence can be addressed. Some of the examples are the critical analysis of the poem "Banović Strahinja" or "Dioba Jakšića". Then, in mathematics class, tabular and graphic presentation of certain phenomena and processes - in this case, gender-based violence and discrimination in everyday school life - then, through history lessons, a lesson about the rise of Nemanjić in the 14th century and the position of women in society at that time...
It is also important, according to Tanja Ignjatović, to "avoid lectures and the passive role of students in favor of various interactive activities and examples from life, 'as if' situations, discussions, and also for the school to include parents in these conversations, and there are such programs, as well as other actors from the community - experts, representatives of civil organizations, artists, to use plays, films, books and other contents that are used by children and that can serve as an occasion to open questions related to these topics."
Ivana Jakšić points out the same: the general principle is that teaching goals must be realized in accordance with the age and development specifics of students, first of all through active learning, where students are involved, and by means of content that communicates with their life experience. She further explains: "Age and developmentally sensitive teaching work will mean that we will teach kindergarten children with a limited number of very specific instructions, using visual and musical content (for example, showing a card of the human body and marking with colors where it is inappropriate for adults to touch a child ), while adolescents can also understand more abstract content, such as data on the frequency of various forms of gender-based violence, concepts such as stereotypes and prejudices.
Like her colleagues, Ivana Jakšić points out that young people are very interested in hearing about these topics at school - which confirms her experience with FPN students - teachers want to be educated, but all attempts to implement different programs have been unsuccessful.
All interviewees point out that the current climate in which textbooks are being withdrawn and re-examined is even more discouraging.
DON'T WAIT UNTIL IT'S LATE
Last September, "relationship education" (relationship education for primary schools; relationship and sex education in secondary schools) became compulsory in all schools in England. There was resistance, certainly less than there would have been here, and it did not succeed, which would also hardly be the case in Serbia.
The experts there explained to the public that an increased presence of the police would only be a band-aid on a serious wound, and that one should not wait for children to reach the age of 14 or 15 to talk about consent, but that certain topics should be introduced in elementary school, according to their age. they must be discussed, and that this is the only real prevention. The program was designed by focusing in primary schools on learning about the characteristics of healthy relationships, friendly, family and those with other children and adults. Then about how to treat others with respect and care, about the importance of honesty and personal space, respecting other people's boundaries... Later, in secondary schools, sex education and health education are introduced.
It is interesting that the example of Finland was cited as an argument for the introduction of this subject, where sex education was introduced as compulsory in 1970, and from 1994 it became an optional subject. Although it was certainly not the only reason, in the late 50s the number of abortions among teenage girls increased by 2006 percent, and there was also a noticeable decline in the use of contraceptives. Since XNUMX, this subject, now called Health, has been reinstated as compulsory in Finnish schools. Once again, the percentage of abortions in the minor population has decreased, contraception is used more, and girls start having sex later.
BUOYANCY AND RESISTANCE
In Serbia, many of the mentioned topics are still either taboo or encounter great resistance. The interlocutors of "Vremena" remind you of the case from 2017, when the Incest Trauma Center created educational packages for learning about sexual violence against children with the support of the Ministry of Education, headed by then Minister Srđan Verbić, but after stormy public reactions, everything was stopped.
"The health education program on reproductive health for secondary schools has not been renewed, although it has been implemented in Vojvodina for three years with very positive effects. Analyzes of teaching programs indicate mostly missed opportunities to implement such contents in teaching, and the existing implementation is mostly sporadic", adds Ivana Jakšić.
Tanja Ignjatović is of the same opinion. She points out that there are a large number of manuals and guides, both domestic and foreign. The interest and motivation of students, as well as teachers, has already been discussed - there are appropriate laws, but everything remains, as Tanja Ignjatović says, at the level of declarative commitment and periodic activities of limited scope and duration.
Why is there so much resistance to introducing these programs? There are many reasons, but Biljana Slavković especially emphasizes that just as gender discrimination cannot be viewed outside the framework of discrimination in general, everything that happens in connection with education, as well as resistance to these topics, cannot be viewed outside the framework of the overall situation in where the company is located.
"As a society, we are in regression and everything that falls under modernization, everything that is even slightly different from the average is perceived as an attack on identity - national and religious, as an attack on the state", says Biljana Slavković. "We pay the price of our constructs and stereotypes, our conviction that we are the best and our excessive sensitivity to criticism."
At the root of you diagnoses of society, she sees an identity crisis - we don't know whether we are in the East or the West, whether we are in Europe or outside of it, whether we are a civil state or not, whether we are a dictatorship or a democracy. And when society is in such a crisis, every move is interpreted as an attack. Only in that one defense those for whom we are supposedly fighting - children and young people - are suffering.
What is the task of education?
When asked whether school is a place where children should and must learn about gender equality and gender-based violence, because there is still no consensus on this in the public, Ivana Jakšić says: "If the goal of the education system is to support the development of each individual and individuals so that they realize their full potential and achieve a high quality of life, then children must be taught through the education system about the obstacles they may face along the way just because they are boys or girls or have a different sexual orientation. The task of education is to remove barriers within its system, to warn children about barriers in other spheres of life, to teach them how to recognize them and to empower them and provide concrete support in overcoming them. I believe that there would be less resistance in society towards measures of gender equality in education if it were clarified to citizens that it is a very simple principle, about enabling children to grow and develop in accordance with their authentic needs and interests, and that society it doesn't flap its wings just because it's a boy or a girl. Also, the general public is not aware that this type of 'wing trimming' as a rule impairs the quality of life. By undermining women's self-confidence and directing them to lower-paid occupations, it denies men the right to vulnerability, and members of gender and sexual minorities at a sensitive age do not respect the basic psychological need for acceptance and belonging, which very often leads to problems in the field of mental of health. When we talk about gender-based violence, as a more severe form of gender discrimination, the goals of educational programs and interventions are not only about the realization of potential, but the immediate protection of physical and psychological integrity."
Violence in youth relationships
How widespread is violence in young people's partnerships?? How much teachers and parents are aware of it?
"All research, both domestic and foreign, confirms that young people are quite exposed to gender-based violence in their environment, from adults they trust, and often in their first partner relationships," says Tanja Ignjatović, and continues that some forms of violence young people do not they recognize, some normalize, some are difficult to talk about, which most often refers to sexual abuse and violence. Also, "there is a significant difference between the sexes when it comes to exposure to almost all types of violence, and more severe forms of violence, as well as in relation to the consequences and personal experience. Girls and women report a greater number of different acts of violence and more severe violence, they are more afraid, have more experiences of helplessness, their "space for action" narrows more than when it comes to the experience of boys and men who are more often exposed to violence originating from male peers."
When comparing what parents or teachers know about the exposure of children and young people to violence, Tanja Ignjatović points out that there is a significant difference - there are more experiences of violence than adults know and she notes: "The reluctance of adults to react when children and young people confide in them is particularly worrying. which is more common when it comes to sexual abuse or certain types of psychological violence. It is completely inappropriate if adults then show that they do not trust children and young people, if they act as if the children themselves are to blame or deserve it by their behavior, if they advise them that "it's nothing terrible, it will pass" and the like.
Finally, the introduction of school content on gender equality, non-discrimination and prevention of gender-based violence provides, as Tanja Ignjatović states, opportunities for learning and practicing diversity tolerance, non-violent communication, mutual respect, respect for boundaries and the autonomy of another person. "This enables recognition and differentiation between equal, conflictual and violent partner relationships, recognition of early signs of controlling, coercive or violent behavior in emotional relationships of young people, as well as violence and abuse committed by adults towards children of both sexes. Such programs inform about strategies for protection, reporting and seeking help, help in the formation of attitudes and behavior that do not blame the victims, but provide them with support, that do not justify the perpetrators and do not normalize violence, but confront it in a non-violent way."
This text was created within the project "Improving the safety of women in Serbia", which is implemented by the United Nations Agency for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women in Serbia (UN Women), with the support of the Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade. The views in this text belong exclusively to the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of UN Women and the Norwegian Embassy.
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In 2019, the identity of the victim was revealed in every other text, while in 2021, the number of posts in which this is done is 40 percent. In this period, the number of texts in which the act of violence is justified by external circumstances or personal characteristics of the abuser decreased (from 20 to 11 percent), and the responsibility for violence is less often shifted to the victim (from 10 to 7 percent of the analyzed posts). Credit goes to local activists and journalists who showed how to report professionally and fight against violence
