1 National Institute for Working Life, Department for Work and Health, SE-171 84 Solna
² Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social Medicine,
³ National Institute of Public Health, Injury Prevention Program

Abstract

The school is the work environment of pupils, and often their first contact with working life. It is therefore important that the school offers a healthy and safe environment where they can develop intellectually and socially. A first step in that direction was taken in Sweden when all pupils from six years and upwards were covered by the Work Environment Act in 1991. In that context, the current importance of school violence and its recent trend, and also associations of violence with school-specific psychosocial and physical environmental problems were considered as part of a recent survey of Swedish schools. The responses of principals of a representative sample of compulsory public schools (7-15 years; 68.4% response rate) revealed that, for the school year 1995-96, violence was a problem regarded as "moderate" or "large" in 17% of schools, as "small" in 64%, and as "non-significant" in 19%. There has been a non-uniform trend in perceptions of violence across types of schools and municipalities since 1990. Schools where violence has been a problem for some time were more likely to express dissatisfaction with the psychosocial and physical environments, and to emphasize individual and adult-supervision factors as injury determinants. Prevention of intentional injuries requires a variety of interventions, adapted according to factors associated with the problem at local level.

Keywords

Violence, Health Promoting Schools, Workplace Health Promotion

Contact

Ewa Menckel

City

Stockholm

Country

Sweden

E-mail

ewa.menckel@niwl.se

Phone

+46 8 617 03 22