Speaker
Description
Abstract: Children have many needs that they depend on us adults to meet: These include social and emotional needs, the need for safety, and the need to learn. In schools, the time of children and adults alike is overwhelmingly ear-marked the meeting of just one of children's needs: their need for learning. Children, however, have many more needs that they need help from adults to meet, including the need for protection, belonging, and recognition. Bullying, I argue, must be understood against the backdrop of schools being organized such that adults have scant time to identify and meet children's needs, leaving many children to fend for themselves. I show how we gain insights into bullying from research on mafia-formation in failed states – including insights into what it takes to stop it.
Ole Martin Moen is a former school teacher and secondary school chairman. He holds a PhD in philosophy and is now professor of healthcare ethics at Oslo Metropolitian University. In 2023, he published a book in Norwegian on child maltreatment in schools, Skolens omsorgssvikt. The book is praised by professor Kari Killén – former President of The International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse & Neglect – as "a brave work that should be read by everyone who is engaged in ensuring that children in schools have their basic needs met."
Keywords
Children's need; failure to protect; child neglect; systemic failure; survival strategies
| Please indicate what type of scientific contribution it is | Theoretical contribution |
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| Please also indicate what kind of contribution it is: | Scientific |
