Verbal Violence: Contributions From the Initial Level Teachers, Unidad Educativa Leoro Franco

Adriana Aroca Fárez ,
Pedro Quelal Onofre ,
Daniel Sono Toledo ,
Jessy Barba Ayala

Abstract

The verbal violence is an invisible-made topic in Ecuadorian research, from there it is a deficient discussion that prevents it from analysis and regularization in classrooms. In that sense, research makes a short contribution to the knowledge of the thematic, which at the same time allows us to comprehend the gender violence that discriminates the girl- woman as the origin of the social phenomenon discussed; therefore, this study is exploratory, descriptive, of transversal cut, which purpose is to describe the teacher’s education for the treatment of the verbal violence inside the initial education. Its theory content is argued scientifically. The methodology is right at using the survey, under a questionnaire consolidated within three indicators, applied to the twelve teachers in initial education level 2. The most relevant results are: the teachers manifest to have knowledge about gender violence and consider that verbal violence form is its main manifestation inside education; on the other hand, they recognize the diverse emotional expressions from the schoolchildren, and the usage of offensive oral language by the students. The conclusion lies on confirming the existence of verbal violence inside the institution, observable by the usage of the word tonto-tonta (fool or silly) which discriminates very specifically to the student girl, although it is imperceptible and spontaneous, such information is an extenuating for starting the construction of curricular intromission, which in a pedagogical way could enable in good terms lead the human behavior towards the respect and mutual consideration between man and women.

Keywords: Initial educationteacher’s formationverbal violence

Introduction

Gender violence in its whole historical context recognized as a social phenomenon, is a valuable reflexive argumentation about human behavior, which contribution lies on favoring the analysis and comprehension of women’s discrimination for the fact of being a woman, caused mainly by men.

One of this manifestation of such discrimination is the verbal violence, understanding it as the abusive use of oral language which offenses and humiliates the woman specially, watchable in every social ambit that implies habitual relationships between men and women.

The school as an academic and social responsibility formation center, is not alien to the existence of verbal violence; in this sense, the studies made for Ecuador evidence that:

The most common scholar violence between peers are about verbal and psychological matters, be it by insults and nicknames (38,4%), rumors (27,8%); 7,8% of students is victim of scholar bullying by rumors. There is a higher level of vulnerability in the female population (Ministerio de Educación et al., 2015).

The contribution of this research work is justly putting into manifest under scientific arguing achieved through a descriptive statistic, that verbal violence is not a cultural situation that obeys to male chauvinism situations, which in fact, come unnoticed by the society, but it’s the reflex of human behavior decadence that has maintained woman in submissiveness.

Visualizing this paradox that shows up the society, carries a big educational compromise, that if is not approached with the softness and seriousness that only scientific investigation is able to reach, will remain in the historical silence with an entire complicity that involves the educational community, whose accusing signal will be not have been able to generate, with enough pedagogical seriousness, actions to eradicate the discrimination against women.

Ultimately, all the scientific arguing from the investigation turns around the general question: How the teachers describe the presence of verbal violence inside initial education?

Problem Statement

  • That verbal violence is not a cultural situation that obeys to male chauvinism situations, which in fact, come unnoticed by the society, but it’s the reflex of human behavior decadence that has maintained woman in submissiveness.

Research Questions

How the teachers describe the presence of verbal violence inside initial education?

Purpose of the Study

Describe the presence of verbal violence in early childhood education.

Research Methods

This article has a research exploratory scope, which intention is to examine verbal violence in initial education, being it, a topic or problem poorly studied (Hernández, Fernández et al., 2014).

On the other hand, the study has a descriptive investigation focus, because there have been examined behavioral features (McMillan & Schumacher, 2005), from the teachers inside initial education.

Investigation methods

The inductive method has benefitted this research, because its field of study starts in an observation process of enough acts in order to be able to understand their common characteristics (Palella & Martins, 2012), and explain somehow their behavior.

The use of the deductive method has allowed to jump from the analysis of results understood as a whole thing, to then decompose it into more critical arguments (Palella & Martins, 2012).

Techniques and research instruments

Two are the techniques used in this study; the first one is the observation which has been used in the construction of the theorical framework through bibliographic observation cards; the second one is the survey, because it is used “often in educative research to discover new attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and other kind of information” (McMillan & Schumacher, 2005, p. 43); this instrument is designed through a questionnaire, and structured in 12 closed questions of dichotomous type and multiple choice. The purposed questions determine four indicators: a) the teacher’s knowledge about gender violence b) the behavioral state of schoolchildren c) the comprehension of verbal violence in the scholar environment; and d) the procedure state of the teachers in the face of verbal violence.

The studied population is every teacher inside the initial education from Unidad Educativa (UE) Luis Leoro Franco from Ibarra city, Ecuador; in total they are 11 professionals that convey their instruction in sublevel 2. In this case, the population has been chosen by convenience, since “it is a group of chosen fellows on the base of being accessible or suitable” (McMillan & Schumacher, 2005, p. 140).

The data as being of quantitative nature, has been operated on Excel and presented through tables mainly stablished in frequencies, whose reason “supposes to determine how many observations are presented in each answer category for the variable” (Palella & Martins, 2012, p. 176); on the other side, the usage of observation cards, have allowed us to focus the analysis of the topic, avoiding giving an inconsistent bias.

Findings

Indicator 1: Cognitive links of the teacher between gender violence and verbal violence.

Do you know the diverse kinds or manifestations of gender violence that occur in our society?

Table 1 -
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As shown in Table 1 , the teachers consider in its whole having knowledge about gender violence; all this data is satisfactory for the case in study, which as being contrasted with research from Barredo et al. (2014) where it is explained that “three out of ten from the surveyed educators being capable of identifying rape as an act of gender violence” (p. 44).

Where do you consider that there is a higher frequency of gender violence?

Table 2 -
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The information from Table 2 , expose that a 54% of teachers have pronounced for the social environment category, followed by the inside home (33%); in that sense, results are similar, although not in the same proportionality, to the ones obtained by Barredo et al. (2014), those who indicate a 28,7% for the social environment, and 8,7% for the family (p. 43).

From the following manifestations of gender violence, which one is displayed with the highest frequency in the society?

Table 3 -
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In Table 3 , the results reveal that the teachers staff beliefs that the highest gender violence frequency is the sexual one, then the physical, and at the end the verbal one; about this aspect the teachers match with the data given by ONU Mujeres (2019), where it is “estimated that the 35% from women all over the world have suffered from physical and/or sexual violence”.

Which of the following manifestations of gender violence causes the highest psychological harm?

Table 4 -
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The results in Table 4 , show up that sexual, physical and verbal violence, cause the same psychological impact in the people victim of gender violence. Hernández, Magro et al. (2014) affirm that “the physical and/or sexual aggressions always produce some consequence, suffering, mark, injury or psychological lesion” (p. 31).

Indicator 2: Behavioral state of schoolchildren regarding to verbal violence

Inside the scholar environment, have you ever noticed in the initial education students, the following behavioral changes

Table 5 -
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According to Table 5 , the teachers staff explain that children show up a higher frequency of irritability and crying, followed by isolation and diminution in verbal communication; such situation allows to suspect about mistreating situations by several ways: a) by the unadjusted behavior from the child or changes in himself; b) because of signs or physical injuries; c) because the student tells that directly or he tells it to another child (Puerta & Colinas, 2007, p. 21).

As a teacher: What is your way to attend the behavioral situation categorized as the first place in the last question?

When analyzing each one of the answers from the teachers, it has been able to contrast that most of them agree that dialogue is the best way of attending this kind of temperamental incidents. Such circumstance forces to think that the actuation protocols are unknown in the face of Violence Situations detected or committed inside the educative system (Ministerio de Educación del Ecuador, 2017, p. 84).

Indicator 3: Comprehension of verbal violence in the scholar environment

As teacher: What kind of verbal expressions do you use to keep the discipline with your students?

The answers from most of the teachers agree in that “the songs” are one of the most used verbal expressions to keep discipline in students. This kind of adopted attitude is very assertive, because, following Gari (2002) argumentation cited in Rios and Rojas (2018), songs represent an excellent playful resource available anytime, and they help to exteriorize emotions.

From the following teachers’ expressions towards female schoolchildren: Which ones are heard with the highest frequency?

Table 6 -
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According to Table 6 , the choice “That is a men’s work” has been identified as the most common, or the one which is most heard, followed by the preposition “Those are not girl’s games”; according to González and Moya (2017) in their research work they conclude: “The reflection about language use by young people is related with their own personality development and their identity construction, processes linked into a integrated vision of human development” (p. 23-24).

From the following expressions from teachers to male schoolchildren: What are the ones heard with the higher frequency?

Table 7 -
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The analysis that the data inside Table 7 deserves, is in a majority onto the expression “Men don’t cry”, “That is a woman’s color”, “You are a brave little soldier”. However, the verbal expressions used for intimidation are: “Here comes the hippo” or the “earthquake”, as well “ugly fat”, “pig” and “girl” being a boy (El Comercio, 2017).

In the scholar environment: From your point of view, what are the most used verbal expressions?

With the teachers’ arguments it could be analyzed that many of them have heard violent verbal expressions among children. Between those there can be highlighted:

Silly, dumb, fool (among both boys and girls)

That’s a girl’s color, you are a fool, you’re ugly

Girls don’t fight, don’t play soccer, they do the cleaning, they are weak

Boys don’t give toys, they’re rude and bad

You kick like a girl

The one who arrives at last is a girl

Boys don’t cry

The expressions fool are the ones used with the highest frequency, anytime and in any space inside the institution; most of the cases are undetectable, there are no specific reasons, they occur for any situation; however, one in particular is the one which has attracted the teachers’ attention, whose have argued that is the protection of their toys’ property, food, etc.; in that sense, it cannot necessarily be accused the predominance of men over women, neither from women towards men, but it can over the fact of being recognized as offensive and humiliating, Acevedo and González (2010) cited in Manzo et al. (2018) explain:

(…) the main perceived and felt scholar violence is the verbal violence; it’s the most invisible in the day-to-day colloquium, it does not leave trace, it’s not censured and is more practical, constant and effective to stablish control over the scholar dynamics and making the ones who suffer from it invisible. (p. 54)

Indicator 4: Procedural state from teachers towards verbal violence

Do you believe that is important to treat gender violence since initial education?

Table 8 -
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As Table 8 shows, the results (110%) throw back and highlight the importance that gender focus has in the initial education, linking the scholar and familiar atmosphere for the generation and redesign of didactic strategies with the purpose of creating a new direction in the children’s educative process through planification, activities accomplishment and evaluation, instructive materials, socialization and cultural adaptation processes to promote equality of opportunities, focused on the values propagation that encourage equality, respect and equity towards diversity (Esparza, 2005, p. 11).

What strategies do you consider the most appropriate to mend the gender violence situation given by verbal expressions, in initial education?

From their personal point of view, the teachers declare that videos, stories, dramatizations and workshops for family parents, would be the best strategies to remediate gender violence inside initial education. This means would be used both for working with parents as with children, and in that way achieving a collaborative work to eradicate verbal violence; one of the immediate actions must have as objective “to guide about violence and its various manifestations, with the purpose of easing its prevention and detection” (Ministerio de Educación del Ecuador, 2017, p. 11).

Conclusion

Verbal violence in school is not treated as an isolated topic, but as part of scholar bullying; however, its offensive manifestation is a humiliating insult, especially given from boys to girls.

Teachers perceive a great knowledge about gender violence, which in most of the answers are coincident with several similar studies; this cognitive attitude favors the pedagogical processes in every moment and the scholar education spaces; although, it will always be opportune to revise and consider forced compliance rules as the “Action protocols in front of spotted or tasked Violence Situations inside the educative system”.

Verbal violence has been found manifested in initial education from Unidad Educativa Luis Leoro Franco, although it is of hard perception, it manifests specially with the use of the word fool, both for peers and different people; the cause is imperceptible and spontaneous.

In the classroom, dining hall, and recreation spaces, it has been seen both in boys and girls some negative emotional states such as sadness, isolation, and low verbal communication; for the fact of not bringing serious consequences, this is considered as normal doings, though it can be an alert motive for the teacher.

Teachers show having empathy towards schoolchildren at the time of intervening on conflicts; very rightly, dialogue usage results in being very effective, which at any case, is the recommended actuation by the pertinent authority. On the other hand, the songs use as a didactic resource to keep discipline is very assertive. It is very onerous to know that teachers have predisposition of a nonstop improving in favor of verbal violence eradication.

References

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About this article

Publication Date

01 June 2021

Article Doi

https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2021.06.6

eBook ISBN

978-1-80296-108-9

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European Publisher

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109

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1st Edition

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Health, well-being, comprehensive health, psychosocial risks, education, pedagogical processes, social development, human behavior

Cite this article as:

Fárez, A. A., Onofre, P. Q., Toledo, D. S., & Ayala, J. B. (2021). Verbal Violence: Contributions From the Initial Level Teachers, Unidad Educativa Leoro Franco. In C. Guzmán Torres, & J. V. Barba (Eds.), Psychosocial Risks in Education and Quality Educational Processes, vol 109. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 52-61). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2021.06.6

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