Social exclusion and violence:
Education for social cohesion

« Violence in schools » Initiative

Europe

This program is a European initiave for cooperation with safety at school and against violence phenomena which are growing in importance and taking many different forms at European schools. In more or less patent forms, in behavious that harm one's emotional, moral and/or physical integrity, this violence contributes to create an unsafe climate in school life. The project aims to share information about those events which might be verbal or physical violence, indiscipline, incivilities, rackets, ...

In many European countries concrete actions are being undertaken to deal with violence within the schools. Recognising the importance of such an issue, the European Commission proposed to Member States to support cooperative actions to counter violence in schools.
The extent of cooperation addresses in particular the exchange of information and experiences through participation in joint actions. These transnational actions can be built upon existing experiences in the Member States. They could, for example, take the form of projects aimed at setting up networks of actions conducted at a national level. They could also set up projects in order to test and evaluate approaches already being used in other countries, thus enabling conclusions to be drawn on whether they could be generalised and duplicated.
Particular attention is given to the direct involvement of different actors in the school milieu such as teachers, pupils, parents and socials workers.

Safety at schols is a subject of concern for anyone involved in education such as policy decision makers, teachers, pupils, parents, educational psychologists, local authorities, and many other public or private organisations because of the high growing of the phenomena. The program was created in order to deal with violent situations and develop an efficient prevention program capable of stimulating pro-social behaviour and positive attitudes.
It seems that a multidimensional approach should be adopted too for the success of such a program.

European Union Commission
200 rue de la Loi/Wetstraat
200 B-1049 Brussels
Belgium
E-mail : eac-info@cec.eu.int
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/violence/home.html

Institutional Partners
National institutions

The project began in 1997 for an initial two year period