Prevalencia de intimidación en dos instituciones educativas del departamento del Valle del Cauca, 2009

Abstract

Bullying has been defined as the intentional use of force, not occasionally, but maintained over a
period of time, with the objective of generating a negative impact on the victim from a powerful
position, and therefore unevenness between participants tolerated among a group of peers. As an
initial approximation to establishing prevalence in the Valle del Cauca Department, a first cut was
performed from a cross-sectional study with an estimated population of 2000 schoolchildren from
grades 5 to 10. The first cut corresponded to a population of 366 schoolchildren, 32,2% from 9th
grade with an average age of 13. [ED±1,82], in the distribution, 51.4 % were female. The reported
prevalence is of verbal bullying 90.1%, Social bullying 86.2 %, Physical bullying 71.3 %, and
intimidation by coercion 29.6 %. These early findings make clear the need to implement intervention
strategies to strengthen coping capacities against offences, ridicule, and criticism that bullies exert,
but complemented by strategies guided at not allowing or encouraging the use of violence, generating
both protective and prosocial behavior.