Educational Interventions for Civil and Democratic Society: A Research-Training Project on Bullying and Cyberbullying at Apulian Schools

Social inclusion, closely linked to the concept of civic education and the removal of obstacles to participation and forms of discrimination, requires specific and widespread training on tackling bullying and cyberbullying, understood as complex social phenomena. A collaborative research-training with a network of I and II grade secondary schools in Puglia is described, aimed at designing a device for education for civil and democratic coexistence (the SEP device: sensitize, educate, protect). The phases of the experimentation included: a mapping of the dynamics between peers inside and outside the school context; the emergence of representations, dynamics and interactions between adolescents; the identification and training of opinion leaders, who have experimented with workshops with the tutorial support of the trainers. The following were used as data collection tools: a questionnaire administered before and after the training intervention, video recordings of the laboratory sessions, trainers’ reports, tutor teacher logbook, researcher monitoring sheets. The results of the experiment made it possible to learn about the phenomena of bullying and cyber-bullying among the adolescents of the schools participating in the network; sensitize all actors in the school context to non-violent management approaches to conflict and forms of participation that counter homologation and discrimination of adolescents; empower young people to make informed use of technological media and social networks; educate to civil and democratic coexistence, promoting the culture of legality, intercultural communication and the enhancement of diversity.