Dan Olweus

Dan Åke Olweus (born April 18, 1931 in Nässjö ; † September 20, 2020 ) was a Swedish - Norwegian psychologist and professor of personality psychology at the University of Bergen .

effect

After Olweus had initially worked as rector at the Erica monastery in Stockholm , he received his doctorate from Umeå University in 1969 . In the same year he was appointed professor in Bergen, where he worked for many years. Since 1970 he has been one of the first researchers to deal scientifically with bullying and the problem of violence in schools (for which he used the term " bullying ") and has been developing methods of violence prevention since the 1980s. The occasion was that three Norwegian students committed suicide after persistent harassment by their peers.

Violence prevention program according to Olweus

Dan Olweus is considered to be the founding father of research on violence in schools. For this he himself used the term 'bullying', which is almost a synonym for 'bullying'. In numerous studies in the 1980s, he gained knowledge about the conditions of aggressive behavior in schools. The motivation for developing his program was the suicides of three boys in late 1982, believed to be the result of severe violence by their peers. Olweus' program was evaluated and further developed by Hanewinkel and Knaack in 1997 for Germany with 15,000 schoolchildren between 1994/95 in Schleswig-Holstein. The prerequisite for the implementation is an awareness of the problem and a willingness to change among the adults involved, which, however, can only be brought about by the measures taken. D. Olweus warned, however, that an "action against violence at a school should not degenerate into a show with short-lived, feverish activities." The proposed measures can be freely selected according to the specific situation of the school and can be combined in modules. Structurally, the measures of this program can be presented on the following levels:

1. The necessary framework conditions are created at the school level . First, an anonymous questionnaire survey is carried out in order to record the current state of violence in its spread and intensity at the school and to raise awareness of the problem among all those involved (to raise awareness of this topic). This questionnaire contains questions about violence among pupils, the relationship between pupils and teachers, the location and type of violence experienced, ... This can be followed by an “educational day” on which not only teachers and school principals but also parents and pupil representatives and external experts (from advice centers / external school psychologists) should participate. An official decision to start the program can then be made at a school conference, as can a joint commitment to implement the program. Regular supervision in the playground is indispensable in order to take decisive action in the event of aggressive behavior in order to signal that violence will not be accepted. On the other hand, supervision without intervention is fatal because it implies tacit approval. An anonymous phone can be opened where a person of trust or an external expert is available as a conversation partner who provides support to socially insecure victims and to get an idea of ​​the situation. The longer-term goal should be to persuade a victim to have a face-to-face conversation, especially in a desolate communication situation at school. It makes sense to institutionalize the cooperation of teachers, possibly also with the parents, for example in the form of a working group.
2. At the class level , there are more specific prevention options. Students and teachers work together to negotiate specific class rules against violence (example: we help the students who are being bullied!). It is important to discuss these rules in the class. Violations of these rules should have negative consequences as soon as possible and directly, which is often difficult to achieve in everyday school life. In the event of vandalism, active repair of the damage through the perpetrator's own work has proven itself instead of anonymous liability insurance. Regular class discussions are useful to change rules or to discuss questions about the use of violence with the aim of changing the general attitude to violence in the class. In these conversations, prosocial and non-aggressive behavior should be praised and positively reinforced. Combinations of generous praise for positive actions and consistent and targeted punishments for aggressive, rule-breaking behavior appear psychologically sensible. The learning and teaching style should be changed in the direction of cooperative learning - a special form of group work. For example, common tasks should be solved in a group of two to six students, so that shared experiences of success are possible. Teachers should be aware of or clarify the social relationships in the class. Physical education should focus on more fairness training instead of aggressive competition. Joint positive activities are to be encouraged in order to strengthen class cohesion and a feeling of solidarity. It should be noted that this can also lead to negative experiences for bullied students.
3. At the personal level , targeted discussions should be held with the aggressive children, their victims and the parents concerned on both sides. A possibly enduring perpetrator-victim relationship between individual children must be changed in order to give the victims courage to assert their needs. Parents of aggressive children should be involved in cooperative work, e.g. B. in an attempt to bring perpetrator and victim families to one table.

The second violence prevention and intervention program presented here is a personal measure.

Awards and honors

Olweus himself and the anti-bullying programs implemented according to his methods at the local level have received several awards and prizes; in addition, they have been selected by leading experts in the USA in cooperation with the Justice Department as one of the model programs for violence prevention in American schools and have been and are already being practiced in several. In 1990 he was elected a full member of the Academia Europaea and was awarded the Norwegian Christie Prize in 2018 .

literature

• Dan Olweus: Violence in School. What teachers and parents should know and can do. Huber, Bern 2006, ISBN 3-456-84390-9 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Dan Olweus in the catalog of the German National Library
• Dan Olweus. ( Memento from October 25, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Staff website of the University of Bergen. (English)
• Franziska Hochwald Against bullying in schools - The Olweus program radio program SWR2 Wissen from December 14, 2019

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dan Olweus vinner Christieprisen 2018 , forskning.no, April 25, 2018, accessed on September 25, 2020.
2. ^ Membership directory: Dan Olweus. Academia Europaea, accessed October 8, 2017 .