Schools are supposed to be an educational and social place for students to learn and interact with others. However, how come students don’t feel safe at school? It is important to know that this issue does not only happen on male or female students. But, it also happens between students and some cases also involve teachers. Yet, if the numbers are continuously increasing years by years, how come “77% of schools have reported not a single incident”? (CBC News)

 Before diving into the topic, I want to explain the reasons why I chose this topic. First, I chose this topic because I consider this topic to be fairly relatable because we’re all students. Second, I chose this topic because school violence is one of the most critical problems in which it doesn’t only affect student’s physical health, but it also torments their psychological and mental health. But, I feel like schools are not fully taking actions to protect their students, meanwhile they are more focused on creating a good reputation and image to the community. Additionally, schools play an essential role in student’s life. Because students are mostly spending their times in school, the negative experiences suffered in school could lead to serious future damages. Therefore, I feel the need to bring more attention to the topic of school violence. Throughout the paper, I’ll based my arguments and facts on secondary research such as the “School Violence” documentary and I’ll also further support with several in-class readings.

First of all, school violence doesn’t limit to only physical injuries. It also includes serious issues such as sexual assault, mental harms, bullying, etc… According to the documentary, “41 per cent of boys say they were physically assaulted at high school; 26 per cent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school; and one in four students first experienced sexual harassment or assault before Grade 7.” (CBC News) Looking at this numbers, it is frightening how this only represents a portion of the entire world. In other words, if we gather the data and statistics from countries to countries, how enormous would the numbers be? Also, while analyzing these numbers, a question has arisen: what causes school violence? Many argues that it is caused by the diversity of races and ethnicity. Other might say that it is caused by gender-based norms and so on… However, why should factors such as gender, religion, race considered as a metric to measure a person’s vulnerability to get hurt? “Social scientists use the term “racialization”, or “racialized identities”, to remind us that we are socially conditioned to observe differences in people, to group people according to those differences, and to hold beliefs about what those differences mean.” (Kwan-Lafond 225) To put it differently, we as humans, we’re the ones that have associate the different labels and prejudices on victims which has made them more vulnerable than others.

Now, let’s further analyze the concept of gender-based violence. As mentioned previously, results have shown that “41 per cent of boys say they were physically assaulted at high school; 26 per cent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school”. Looking at the statistics, we directly see a connection between young boys and violence. Why? According to Kimmel, “Competition is one component of masculinity that seems to contribute to boys’ and men’s difficulty to achieving relational intimacy.” (Kimmel 165) Traditional male gender roles have been carrying the label of “real man”. Since a young age, men have taught to be independent and to resolve everything with their fist. Therefore, they would avoid everything that would involve emotional sharing. In other words, they believe that communicating is not an option to resolving a problem. So, they express their anger through physical violence such as the use of weapon, threatening, etc… Examining the numbers, almost half of the boys have been physically assaulted. This percentage makes me draw a correlation that a major reason of it has to do with masculinity. Young boys in school obey under a hierarchical system. In other words, boys would form and associate themselves in gangs in groups to prevent isolation. To do so, they have to challenge themselves to be dominant and independent to be accepted. Everything is based under the ideology of power and control. If they are too weak, they would be rejected and be seen as a sissy. “Violence is often the single most evident marker of manhood.” (Kimmel 148) The pressures of the label “masculinity” that society has repetitively forced on boys have led them into toxic behaviours. Why is that? Imagine the amount of pressures that you have to suffer as a boy. First, you can’t show any signs of being weak or “girly”. To put it in another way, you can’t be emotional or share your feelings with others. On top of that, you need to always keep the figure and impression of a strong, reliable, independent men no matter if it’s in school, with friends or at home. At school and with friends, you want them to perceive you as a “real man” in order to be accepted and to have the feeling of belongingness. At home, you want to meet you father’s expectation on you, so you’ll toughen up to get his approval. Therefore, when can men truly be themselves? Relating it to the documentary “Man Enough”, Tony Porter mentioned “we talk a lot about this man box, in the box is everything such as be though, be aggressive, be dominating…”. Similarly, in the “School violence” documentary, boys have commented “I was told…I needed to toughen up”. It is not a coincidence that terms such as man up, be a real man, don’t be a sissy, etc… occurs in many different platforms. They are actually signs telling us that men are suffering and that they need help. Furthermore, there are studies telling us that “young boy’s sadness and anger have led them to feel violent.” (Niobe Way)

On the other end of the spectrum, the statistics show that “26 per cent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school”. As we could see, the nature behind these two issues are gender-based. Despite being in the 21^st century, women have always been seen as inferior to men. Many women are often objectified as sexual object. In other words, they are seen as reproduction slaves. Therefore, many men were taught to be misogynistic. Since men usually associate women with sexual activities, most of the men wouldn’t bother to ask for the women’s consent. These beliefs and ideology have been passed on from descendent to descendent which has caused that women are still the target and victims of sexual harassment. Based on the documentary, “1 in 4 girls say that they face unwanted sexual touching and grabbing and 3 in 5 girls didn’t report to school because they are aware that nothing will happen.” Looking at the numbers, it is ridiculous how young girls that haven’t even met the age of 15 are being sexual assaulted by men. On top of that, it is depressing knowing that more than 60% of them don’t report to school because they are aware that schools won’t take any actions. Many of the victims have said that after coming forward, they would be the ones who are criticized and punished. Why should victims be the ones who get the blames? Considering the enormous courage that they need to gather to speak up, why are schools still ignoring their situation? Young girls have always been seen as weak and vulnerable because of their gender and of their biological differences. However, knowing this, why is schools not implementing any measures to protect students from gender-based violence?

In conclusion, while school should be a place to learn and to socialize, students are actually scared of going to school. Students are feeling unsafe and unprotected. According to the documentary “School violence”, Jayden Trudell has argued that ‘school is more survival related, I’m actually more worried about the kids than the grades”. Knowing this, why should an educational establishment be seen as a survival maze rather than a comforting learning environment? What should we do to make students feel accepted and safe at school? The first approach or measure that schools should take is probably to be more transparent about their data. This is the first step to reducing violence because we need to identify the real problem before being able to implement measures. On top of that, schools should probably change or manage their public image. To put it differently, nowadays, most of the students associate schools with discomfort and danger. Therefore, the first step to correcting that should probably changing their image in student’s heart. To do so, schools should implement programs in which it will demonstrate to students that they truly care about student’s well-being. Also, as mentioned above, educational establishment should care less about their reputation and release critical information that would actually help the violence in school situation. Lastly, is it important to respect others no matter their gender, religion and races. We are all unique and we all have flaws, therefore we should learn to accept others to be able to live collectively.

Works Cited

CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, gem.cbc.ca/media/marketplace/season-47/episode-4/38e815a-011d8f47088.

Christopher Kilmartin and Andrew P. Smiler. “No Man Is an Island: Men in Relationships.” The Masculine Self, Cornwall On Hudson, NY, Sloan Publishing, 2019, pp. 161–171.

Danielle Kwan-Lafond. Racialized Masculinities in Canada

Jere, Kate, et al. “School-Related Gender-Based Violence Is a Major Barrier to Education Equality.” Global Partnership for Education, 13 May 2015, www.globalpartnership.org/blog/school-related-gender-based-violence-major-barrier-education-equality.

Kimmel, Michael. Masculinity as Homophobia. 1994.

“Man Enough Episode 4 – #MeToo.” Facebook Watch, http://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2129001024007697.

“Violence in Schools: Causes, Effects and Prevention.” UKEssays.com, http://www.ukessays.com/essays/education/the-history-of-school-violence-education-essay.php.

Way, Niobe. “Why Are Boys So Violent?” HuffPost, HuffPost, 22 July 2013, http://www.huffpost.com/entry/boys-mental-health_b_3263318.

“Why CBC Started Looking into Violence in Schools | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 9 Nov. 2019, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402.

Schools, ranging from elementary and CEGEP, contain more violence than we are aware of. Schools and school boards are more concerned about their reputation, so they keep fights and violence in the dark. Jennifer McGuire, an author, wrote an article involving school violence and why CBC is taking interest in this topic. She mentioned that the team at Marketplace was looking into students being physically and mentally harmed at school. They realized that most students experience forms of violence without seeking help or telling anyone in an authoritative position. A more comforting approach has to be taken in order for students to share their experiences and confide in people who could potentially help them.

For the sake of CBC, the firm Mission Research conducted a survey. 4,065 students, between the ages of 14 to 21, participated in this survey. More than half of the responders were at least 14 years old, but younger than 18 years old. In a direct quote from the article, “41 percent of boys say they were physically assaulted at high school; 26 percent of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school,” (CBC). However, it was also stated that, in Ontario, 77% of schools have no reported violent incidents (School Violence, 9:09). This is evidence that secrets are being kept, in order to not harm a school’s reputation. We need to care more about the safety of the students and victims, rather than how ‘good’ the school looks to the public. Many parents are clueless about the reality of violence at the school their child(ren) attend. The data needs to be accurate and shared so that a solution is found. 

As we learned from the previous statistics, 41% of boys and 26% of girls experience violence at school. The violence presents itself in different ways, based on the gender of the individual. “Institutions are themselves gendered. Institutions create gendered normative standards and express a gendered institutional logic, and are major factors in the reproduction of gender inequality,” (Kimmel, 2-3). For boy students, while emotional and verbal violence may occur, violence in schools is most often in forms of physical contact. I believe this is due to the fact that men have to fight in order to be considered masculine or manly. Sadly, the violence girls experience in school is often of a sexual nature and considered unwanted harassment. 

The amount of students who have experienced violence in schools higher than it should be and not much is being done about this probelm. Schools and school boards are not exposing or even recording incidents of violence. In my opinion, school boards do not even know how to deal with these situations. The problem cannot be solved if the people in charge do not know how to deal with it. Some students do come forward and they still do not receive the help that they feel is necessary.

Students should feel safe when they attend school, they are there to learn and not experience violence. It is also worried that schools do not do enough to prevent incidents. CBC is working hard to investigate more situations involving school violence. Personally, as a student who has experienced violence in school, I feel as though more should have been done. I did reach out to someone with authority, and close to nothing was done in this situation. The schools really do care more about their reputation, rather than the problem. In many cases and in mine, the school is very quick to swipe events like this under the rug.

Resources:

Kimmel, Michael. “Masculinity.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 5. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 1-5. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 9 June 2014. 1-5. Print.

Why CBC Started Looking into Violence in Schools, CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402.

“How To Fight For Safer Schools.” School Violence. CBC, 24 October 2019.