School, on affective education only spot projects implemented

From insults to other forms of online defamation to the dissemination and possession of child pornography, there are many faces of bullying and its digital derivation that affect girls. As a form of prevention against dangerous behaviour (some of which constitutes actual crimes), the teaching of affective education in schools is becoming increasingly urgent. Italy, however, is today one of the few European countries not to provide any form of regulation for sexual-affective education programmes in school contexts. The absence of a law therefore leaves margins of discretion to individual schools, with the institutes in the centre-north and large cities most active.

Bullying - which, according to data from the Elisa platform, is slightly on the increase in its systematic forms - and violence against girls at school are closely linked and, says Paolo Russo, president of the Contrajus anti-bullying association, "take the form of a problem of lack of tolerance and acceptance towards those who are different. Here again, the woman is identified as a fragile subject, easy to hit'. Currently, the topics of combating violence against women, education for correct and respectful relationships and the promotion of equality between men and women are included in the teaching of civic education. This has been introduced as a cross-curricular subject from the school year 2020-21 in the first and second cycle of education for at least 33 hours and, when planning, class councils can adopt different organisational solutions.

As things stand, there is no national law in Italy that defines affectivity education at school in an organic manner that respects age characteristics and adapts to the Italian context what is indicated in the Unesco Guidelines and the WHO standards. The result is that activities are uneven and left to the initiative of particularly sensitive headmasters and teaching boards who decide to propose meetings and training on topics such as discrimination, socio-emotional education or gender equality.

This is what is happening at the I.I.S. Copernico-Carpeggiani second-rate educational institute in the Ferrara area, with mainly male attendance, which from 2019 has embarked on the path of teaching Countering Gender Violence. "The subject occupies about one third of the annual civic education hours and includes topics such as non-violent communication, victimisation and recognition of signs of abuse," says institute headmaster Francesco Borciani. The project, five years after its inception, is now being revised. "What is most useful," says the professor, "are the activities that lead the children to reflect on their daily, often unconscious behaviour and to consider violence and asymmetry in relationships. What we have done is not enough. The need for broader reflection emerged'. The pupils therefore directly participated in the revision of the discipline, a revision that started from a questionnaire prepared by the pupils themselves and submitted to their peers. "Despite the activities of recent years we do not see a growth in awareness in the children," Borciani notes, adding: "We also need the collaboration of the families. Too often the media and popular culture perpetuate harmful stereotypes and attitudes that help reinforce stereotypes'.

Research from 2022 disseminated by EduForIST, a University of Pisa project on sexuality education financed by the Ministry of Health, monitored between 2016 and 2020 a total of 232 emotional literacy initiatives implemented at regional level. The geographical distribution is uneven, with the majority being in northern regions (53%). Institutions in the centre-north and in large cities are the most active, while only 17% of the activities involved young people in the south. Only 13 projects involved primary schools, despite the fact that the WHO suggests that children already have the right from childhood to receive adequate information, with language and content commensurate with their age. In many contexts sex education at school is still a taboo, says Mario Puiatti, president of Aied, who explains: "Various legislative initiatives over the years have tried to bring the subject into schools but have remained only on paper".