Implementation of public policy of school coexistence in Colombia
Description
Introduction: In Colombia, after legal processes derived from cases of direct and structural violence that had students as victims, Law 1620 of 2013 was enacted; despite the existence of the public policy, this scourge persists. Objective: This article presents the results of a study that determines the perception of middle school students and teachers about implementing the public policy of school coexistence and mitigation of school violence in the municipality of Tunja, Colombia. Methodology: Two questionnaires were used: one applied to 1,074 students in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades of public and private schools, and the other applied to 50 teachers assigned to these courses. Results: Regarding the perception of the implementation of the policy, it was found that there is a significant difference between the responses of students and teachers in the factor of socialization of the procedure (t = 3.207, p = 0.002 < 0.005). In the aspects of strengthening and perceived impact, there were no significant differences. Conclusion: There are differences in the perception that both groups have regarding the implementation of the School Coexistence Law in their educational institutions. It was evidenced that teachers have a more positive perception than students concerning the implementation of the policy.
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The questionnaire Efectividad de la Política Pública de Convivencia en las Instituciones Educativas de nivel secundario del Municipio de Tunja is based on previously applied questionnaires, such as the one carried out in the city of Barranquilla (Colombia) related to the characterization of abuse between peers in a sample of schools in that city (Hoyos, Aparicio, & Córdoba, 2005), which described the incidence of different manifestations of peer abuse. Additionally, the investigation Violencia en los colegios de Bogotá: contraste internacional y algunas recomendaciones (Velasquez & Chaux, 2008) was also considered. Thus, an instrument of 44 items with a Likert scale was constructed, allowing the measurement of the perception of the existence of violence in educational institutions, tolerance to violent behavior, and its consequences related to school dropout. The first instrument was validated by 10 experts in Public Administration, Law, Sociology, and Education from the Secretaría de Educación del Departamento de Boyacá and the Municipality of Tunja. With the instrument validated externally by experts, a pilot test was carried out on 90 secondary school students and teachers at the Colegio de Boyacá (which does not participate in the population under study) to verify that the wording and the items were understood, in addition to allowing the internal validity of the instrument through statistical tests of Cronbach’s Alpha. The questionnaires were made up of 20 questions that evaluated factors associated with the implementation of Public Policy. The socialization factor includes items that question the routes of attention, actions, training, and educational issues. The second factor, strengthening, relates to pedagogical projects and activities promoting school life in educational institutions. Finally, the third factor, perceived impact, includes questions aimed at investigating the adequacy of implementation, reduction of violence, and the effectiveness of activities within the law of school coexistence. The questionnaire was conducted using a Likert scale with five response options, where 1 indicates strong disagreement and 5 indicates strong agreement. For the construction of the variable, factor analysis was performed. In the student survey, a KMO of 0.787 was obtained; the sample adequacy measure (MSA) was above 0.6; the commonalities were above 0.5; the cumulative variance in three factors was 89%, while Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.899. For the teachers' questionnaires, a KMO of 0.687 was obtained; similar to the results obtained for students, the MSA was above 0.6; the commonalities were above 0.5, with a cumulative variance in three factors of 78%, while Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.857. The results obtained in both questionnaires validate and ensure the reliability of the items that make up the questionnaires.