La violencia entre iguales en la adolescencia y su prevención desde la escuela

The violence between adolescents and its prevention from school. This article analyses, from an ecological perspective, the main results obtained in investigations concerning violence between adolescents: prevalence, characteristics of aggressors and victims, and age and gender related differences, with a special emphasis on the series of studies that the author has directed with 826 adolescents concerned with the conditions of risk and protection with respect to the violence that they suffer, employ or observe, in school and in leisure. Based on the results of these studies, the development of prevention is proposed, integrating characteristics of specific anti-bullying programs from a wider perspective, which overcomes the usual contradictions and rejects all forms of violence, along with the dominance-submission model on which it is based. Emphasis is placed on the following key components for prevention: the development of multiple-level cooperation and a no-violence curriculum. The results obtained from a program assessed with 783 adolescents confirm the effectiveness and viability of the aforementioned components.