Bulling and return of the punitive paradigm in the Argentine education system

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the hegemonic discursive constructions that have proliferated in the last decade in relation to bullying, as well as their effects on the representations of the other and on pedagogical authority and the way in which they have an impact on school relationships. The installation of the self-styled “anti-bullying” discourses, far from putting an end to violence, meant a clear setback in the process of shaping a system of coexistence from a rights-based perspective, which Argentina had begun once democracy was restored. The punitive paradigm returns in its cruelest versions, with discourses that stigmatize and criminalize children and adolescents. If in the past there were reprimands, today children and adolescents can be criminally denounced, be blamed for the suicide of a classmate, have their privacy exposed on social networks or be beaten by a family member who comes to school with a vengeful spirit. The situation is particularly worrying in these times, as it evades the responsibility that falls to us as a society to accompany our young generations so that they can elaborate the encounter with the structural vulnerability of the human subject that the pandemic reveals.