Abstract:

Greece has been severely hit by the economic recession starting in 2007. Teachers have since reported growth of juvenile delinquency in secondary schools, which involves rise in disruptive behavior and bullying especially towards students with an immigrant or ethnic background.

In this paper we investigate the relationship between the behavior change of teenagers in the school environment as a consequence of the recent socio-economic crisis. We analyze the variation in the number and sort of infractions from 1990 until 2018 recorded in the punishment books of the Aravissos Junior Highschool, a school situated in a disadvantaged agricultural area in Northern Greece. An increase in antisocial behavior against minorities during the period of crisis is indeed ascertained. There was no correlation among this escalation and the number of the immigrant students since their number was fairly constant throughout the study period. However, there is a significant positive correlation with the unemployment rate of the area and the percentage of votes obtained by the neo-Nazi party named ‘Golden Dawn’ at the national elections of 2015. No other event disruptive event which could affect the local society has been recorded. These findings strongly suggest that the increase in the students’ infringing behavior is directly related to the crisis.

We analyze the actions taken by the headmaster and the teachers in order to deal with the increasing juvenile delinquency and the social exclusion of students coming from immigrant and disadvantaged families.

We record the counseling services, the assistance programs as well as the non-profit organizations that have developed anti-bullying programs and provided support to the school community and present the best practices they offered.

Keywords:

Bullying, aggressiveness, social exclusion.