Development of scales to study barriers and needed measures to address gender-based violence in schools. Elaboración de escalas de valoración de obstáculos y medidas para abordar la violencia de género en las escuelas

SALETTI-CUESTA, LORENA; AIZENBERG, LILA; TORRES, EDUARDO; SÁNCHEZ, LUCÍA FLORENCIA

Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios Sociales

Colectivo de Estudios e Investigacion (CEISO)

Año: 2022 vol. 39 p. 223 - 239

1853-1679

Teachers play a key role in the prevention of gender violence (GBV) in the educationalfield. However, studies evaluating the opinionsof teaching and management staff regardingthe necessary measures to prevent GBV or theobstacles they must face when addressing thisproblem in the educational field in our contextare incipient. This work aims to validate twoscales to know the opinions and evaluationsof the educational personnel on the obstaclesand the measures they consider necessary to tackle and prevent GBV in schools. A descriptive,cross-sectional and multicenter studywas carried out to an intentional non-probabilitysampling. The study population wasthe directing and teaching staff of schoolsin the Province of Córdoba, Argentina. Thestudy variables were: sex, years of experiencein the position, age, educational level of thecenter (initial / primary / middle / tertiary),area (urban / rural), locality where the faceto-face training was carried out, preventionactivities carried out in the educational centerfocused on: students, families, and the educationalteam; GBV training activities carriedout by the educational team, women and/orfamilies identified in GBV situation, familieswith judicial restraining order, team interventionseducation before GBV of the studentsand/or families, staff of the educational teamthat has lived or is experiencing a situationof GBV, meetings of the educational teamwith local community organizations to articulateactivity to prevent and/or address GBV,need for training on GBV manifested by theteaching team. To measure opinions on theobstacles and measures necessary to addressGBV in schools, we applied a self-administeredquestionnaire with two scales, one onobstacles and the other on measures, based onSpanish scales. A descriptive, bivariate analysisof the relationship of all variables withsex, exploratory factor and Cronbach?s alphawas performed. Finally, a multiple regressionmodel was constructed to test the convergentvalidity using each factor as the dependentvariable. The first scale of ten itemsidentifies a dimension of obstacles relatedto family ties and existing prejudices in theeducational community. The second dimension,values aspects related to the scarcityof resources. For its part, the thirteen itemscale of measurements has three dimensions.The first dimension, groups measures relatedto specialized help to address GBV, such asprevention programs, materials, and coordinationwith external organizations. The secondgroups the measures related to the need to have gender mainstreaming measures in theapproach to GBV at school. The third dimensionreflects the importance of staff trainingon these topics. Bonds and biases function asmajor obstacles for the elementary level. Theimportance given to specialized help, as ameasure to prevent GBV, is mainly associatedwith educational teams that have expressed aneed for training in this area. Those who havecarried out prevention activities and primaryschools, value more the mainstreaming ofthe gender perspective as a measure. Schoolswith staff who have lived or are experiencinga GBV situation consider GBV training as ahighly relevant measure. The scales validatedin this study are reliable and include empiricaldimensions of the assessments of obstaclesand measures in relation to the GBV approachin schools