Verbal Aggression in the Action Field School

The basis of the scientific and communication actions is a FWF scientific project: Verbal Aggression and Social Variables of Gender Age Social status (Elise Richter - Program, 1.07.2012 31.01.2017). The project Verbal Aggression in the Action Field School aims at transferring scientific know-how, learnt by me over two decades of research in the field of verbal aggression, to pupils as a strategic group in order to 1) evoke their interest to science, 2) reveal practical relevance of research for them, 3 ) concentrate their attention on violent aspects of communication, 4) help them identify and reveal aspects of the nonviolent expression of emotions, productive strategies in controlling emotions in everyday relations and5)to contribute to positivesocial climate in the action field school. The project that along with the priority group is also targeted at teaching staff, provides a number of activities to research and to prevent (verbal) violence in Viennese schools for 2017/2018 and 2018/2019: - Meeting with the pupils (2 hours, about 1 month before the workshops): introduction to the topic, presentation of data collection, systematization and analysis methods, choice of topics and formation of working groups, who are researching on these topics over the next time until the workshop. - Interactive workshops Verbal Aggression in the Action Field School for school pupils (10 - 17 years old, two groups: 10 - 13 and 14 - 17 years old); Types of schools: APS (Neue Mittelschule, Wiener Mittelschule), AHS (Gymnasium, Realgymnasium). Duration: 2 hours. On the basis of the research conducted by the pupils, causes, forms and functions, perception and reactions to verbal- aggressive speech acts are discussed and possibilities of nonviolent emotional communication are discussed too. - Workshops: for teachers; for school psychologist. - Public presentation of the project and its results. The topicality of the planned scientific and communication events corresponds to current national strategy, aimed at preventing violence in schools. The project is aimed primarily at showing the pupils verbal violence as an independent form of violence and sensibilizing the pupils, that speech actions can traumatize the same as physical ones. At the same time pupils learn that language may prompt escalation, as well as de-escalation and resolving conflict situations, and that expression of negative emotions is a part of communication, as well as to express the negative emotions without using the verbal-aggressive speech acts.

The science communication project "Verbal Aggression in Schools: Causes, Forms, Violence Prevention", which I implemented at schools in Vienna from 14 March 2018 to 13 September 2019, involved the following activities: - Meeting with pupils (2 hours): age-appropriate introduction to the topic, presentation of data collection, data systematisation and data analysis methods, choice of topics and formation of working groups. Conducting research in the working groups and preparation of short presentations (3-4 weeks before the workshop); - Interactive workshops "Verbal aggression in schools" with the pupils (10-17 years old, age- appropriate design for two groups: 10-13 year olds and 14-17 year olds). Duration: 2 hours. Based on the research carried out by the pupils, causes, forms and functions, the perception of and reactions to verbal-aggressive speech acts were talked about and the possibilities of non-violent communication in everyday life discussed. 12 schools 4 gymnasiums, 4 so called NMS/WMS (New Middle Schools), 1 BSV (student council), 1 BHAS/BHAK (Commercial High School), 2 VS (primary schools) with several classes (a total of 27 classes) and the Wien Josefstadt Prison participated in the WKP. All project goals could be achieved, especially the raising of interest for science and research in general and for the topic "language and violence"/"verbal aggression" in particular. This is due to the active participation of the pupils in the research process. In lively discussions, children and young people were made aware of the fact that violence takes many forms and that linguistic actions can be just as violent as physical ones and can also be acts of violence. After the pupils themselves had been able to appear in the role of researchers and had researched the causes, forms and functions of verbal aggression in everyday school life, we jointly designed non-violent models of communication/expression of emotions from a certain distance and discussed productive strategies for dealing with verbal aggression and (negative) emotions. The project gave me impulses for future theoretical, methodological-didactic work and ideas for further projects in the field of science communication as well as for the research of verbal aggression and verbal violence in the youth languages. The experiences I have had in the project and which have been confirmed by teachers and school principals show the need for a complex approach to the phenomena of "verbal aggression and verbal violence in school", which asks for an involvement of different school partners. Based on this, I have prepared the WKP follow-up project "Science Communication as a Bridge to Violence Prevention in the Social Field of Schools", which is characterized by this holistic approach and includes science communication activities with teachers, school psychologists, peers and parents/guardians, thus contributing, among other things, to the cooperation between school and family.