Olbia, day against bullying: debate between students and experts at the Amsicora high school

It is a known phenomenon but often underestimated or denied, especially by adolescents: this is the data that emerges from the responses to a questionnaire on bullying submitted to 817 students, 412 from Olbia middle schools and 405 from the Amsicora high school. Presented this morning during a meeting on the topic, organized by Ipia Amsicora, entitled Indifference is its strength, on the occasion of the National Day against Bullying and Cyberbullying, the numbers emerging from the survey are in line with national statistics : the vast majority of the analyzed sample knows the meaning of the term bullying, denied by just over 4 percent of the participants, a significant fact, however, if compared to the diffusion of the phenomenon, which can be interpreted as a mechanism of denial or distancing from this form of violence. A more evident reaction among high school students who demonstrate less participation in the face of bullying episodes compared to their younger colleagues.

If 45 percent of the children who attend high school declared that they intervene in defense of the bullied people, over 23 percent, however, react by "pretending nothing happened", an attitude implemented by only 5 percent of the students of middle schools who, instead, try to help their classmates involved. To confirm the tendency to underestimate the problem, the percentage of almost 35 percent of the sample of adolescents who do not intervene because the bully "behaves well with me, it doesn't concern me" while among the youngest, in 35 percent of cases , there is a fear of being excluded if they intervene in bullying episodes.

Of every order and degree, school remains the main place in which these forms of violence are exercised, with the difference that among middle school children, teachers remain the reference figures while older students lose trust in adults and the community educating. At the meeting, in which experts on bullying and cyberbullying, online safety and hate speech spoke, including the provincial head of the Postal Police Michele Delogu, the delegate of the Social Service Office for Minors of the Ministry of Justice, Gabriele Virdis, and the journalist of L'Unione Sarda, Caterina De Roberto, the protagonists are the students of the socio-health course engaged in a monologue on the topic and the drawings made by the pupils of the city's middle schools which will become murals on the walls of the Amsicora because the no to bullying remains indelible.