A project of intervention against homophobic bullying to support the quality of relationships in the schools

In a systemic perspective, the homophobic bullying can be considered as the outcome of prejudicial believes about sexual orientation linked to a dysfunctionality of inter-subjective systems that organize the relationships among students. Based on this approach, we structured a wide action-research program aimed at improving the quality of relationships in the school. The project is focused on the construction of a specific network (constituted by the University of Bari, The Regional Education Office of Apuglia, the Provincial Student Council of Secondary Schools of Bari’s and BAT provinces). The project was divided into two phases. In the first phase, 150 students from different Secondary Schools were recruited to participate to an intensive peer-education training course related to homophobic bullying, aiming at detecting and reducing peer victimization among adolescents. They took part in three focus group and training sessions about the quality of relationships in their contexts; they were involved also in a discussion aimed at the construction of a specific questionnaire to be administered in each school. Later (the second phase) they became the tutors of their class- mates when these were required to fulfil the individual questionnaire by an online procedure set up in each school. In the second phase we administered a questionnaire which detected the ways in which the bullying phenomenon occurs within the school, involving a sample of 9.000 students. The students answered a number of questions concerning their experience in the school, their role in possible bullying dynamics, and their opinions as to the reasons for bullying, to the more frequent victims’ social categories and so on. Particular attention was paid to homophobic bullying and to the students’ cultural models regarding homosexuality and sex and gender stereotypes. Results were analysed by considering the effect of some critical variables (gender, kind of school, different social contexts, and so on) and the correlation among several forms of peer victimization. Starting from the results, a number of psychological activities was set up in different school communities involved in the present study. Empowering strategies of peer education and action research were then generated in the frame of our project, in order to prevent and reduce bullying behaviours, while developing more positive interpersonal/intergroup relationships, and more inclusive cultural models of sexuality to promote a culture of differences in the schools. In our contribution the project will be presented and the results will be discussed in more details.