Making Meaning Together: Helping Survivors of Violence to Learn at School (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal Infant Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy, 2005
Research on the effects of exposure to real-life violent events point to resulting difficulties in cognitive capacity. This creates difficulties for schoolchildren in thinking and learning. Often their “trauma” is then compounded by failure at school and inability to solve problems in their lives. Children who live in ongoing violence cannot wait until better times make it possible to reduce symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and ensure safety. Instead, psychodynamic programs can assist them to improve their capacity for symbol formation while they continue to live in an uncertain world. This article gives an example of such a program in New York City and points the way toward future research.
The relation between history of violence exposure and the development of academic and mental health problems is explored. Violence exposed children have an increased risk of developing school-related problems including: mental health problems, learning disabilities, language impairments, and other neurocognitive problems. These problems interact to create a complex web of deficits and disabilities where intervention access points are difficult to assess. Often mental health problems and academic problems develop in parallel. Timing of violence exposure and the developmental stage of the child during exposure complicate our understanding of the underlying mechanism. A model is presented that explores pathways linking violence exposure to aspects of school-related functioning, both academically and behaviorally. Early life stress, in the form of violence exposure, is related to neurocognitive deficits, including executive functioning and problems in self-regulation. Deficits in self-regulation at the level of behavior, and cognitive control and executive functioning, at the level of brain processing, are related to both academic and mental health problems, suggesting a possible psychological mechanism. Biological mechanisms are also included in the model to illustrate the contribution of the stress response, neuroendocrine system response, and neuroanatomical structural and functional impairments associated with violence exposure.
Attachment & Human Development, 2003
Three examples of young Kosovar children who were exposed to brutal violence together with their mothers are presented to illustrate how important it is to understand the impact of traumatic events on young children's development from the perspective of the parent -child relationship. The traumatized mothers' internal representations of self and self-being-together-with-child were damaged, and this in turn led to their care-giving system and internal representations of the children being negatively affected. No longer being able to see themselves as protective and loving parents, the mothers were unable to respond to their children with care-giving behaviour. The traumatized children's increased attachment behaviour and posttraumatic symptoms functioned as a trigger for posttraumatic symptoms in the mothers and contributed to a disengagement of the care-giving system. The on-going process disrupted the previous attachment pattern in mother -child interaction and a disorganized attachment pattern developed.
The role of social and cognitive processes in children's adjustment to community violence.
Journal of Consulting …, 1998
This study examined associations of community violence exposure and psychological well-being among 99 8-12 year old children (M = 10.7 years) using home interviews with mothers and children. Both moderators and mediators of the links between violence exposure and well-being were tested. After demographics and concurrent life stressors were controlled for, violence exposure was significantly associated with intrusive thinking, anxiety, and depression. Regression analyses indicated that intrusive thinking partially mediated associations between violence exposure and internalizing symptoms. Planned comparisons revealed that violence exposure had the strongest effect on wellbeing among children with low social support or high levels of social strains. Furthermore, children with high levels of intrusive thinking were most likely to show heightened internalizing symptoms when they had inadequate social support.
What is the Place of Listening in the Learning Field Faced with Violence and its Effects?
In the face of what we used to calling "the rise of violence" and the diversification of its manifestations, this article aims to reflect on the different psychological practices present nowadays in the field of education and, at the same time, to think about the possible contributions from psychoanalysis in this domain. We deal with diagnostics such as "bullying" and "Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder" through to techno-scientific imagery. The article demonstrates the illusions at play following the imposition of technical and (psycho)pedagogical policies destined to be applied in state schools by teachers and psychologists, without their having participated in the construction and discussion of these methods. Using some examples, drawn mainly from today's tendencies in Brazil's education system, the authors offer a critical analysis of neoliberal policies, based on an authoritarian and instrumentalized scientific discourse such as that of behaviorism and cognitivism, which insist on regulating everything. This is why violence is starting to emerge as a response to the attempts of normalization, in the wake of the excessive use of diagnostics in schools and its respective medicalization, which has ultimately led to stigmatization and contributed to the sharp increase in passages à l'acte by children and teenagers. The authors dare to ask: what is the place for conversation in this context? Thinking about some less ambitious but perhaps more effective interventions, the authors defend the development of a psychological praxis oriented by psychoanalysis, founded on the valorization of singularity and subjectivity, that promotes a real insertion of children and teenagers in the adult universe of language and culture.
Domestic Violence: A Hindrance to Optimal Functioning of a Learner"s Cognitive Capacity
Domestic violence is a common phenomenon that seems to be taking a centre stage in hindering sustainable development in many homes today. Previously, advocates for peace within homes were concerned more about wives being beaten by their husbands, but today there is a shift in paradigm where wives are seemingly inflicting both physical and psychological pain on their husbands. As if this is not enough, the young boys and girls reared within these homes seem to be getting an equal share that resultantly impedes the optimal function of their cognitive capacities. This study analyses the various dimensions of domestic violence and the resultant impediment on the effective function of the learner"s cognitive function. The study was structured from a constructivist learning perspective, bearing in mind three dimensional theoretical approaches covering the socio-cultural theory by Levy Vygotsky, ecological theory by Urie Bronfenbrenner and observational learning by Albert Bandura. The plight of the learner being nurtured within violent homes was surveyed where some teachers and pupils" observations, anecdotal records and vignettes were major data collection tools among young boys and girls randomly selected from both rural and urban schools locally. The study established that commitment by parents, caregivers and teachers in carrying out their responsibilities seem to be on the decline. The study further exposes some inherent challenges and abuses faced by learners in unsuitable living conditions. The implications of such 314 situations are that learning institutions should ascertain possible ways of liberating the affected learner and educate the parents, caregivers and teachers on the negative effects of perpetuating domestic violence.
Child Welfare, 2021
Adolescents affected by violence express a strong desire to learn at school. However, once there, whether affected by armed conflict, structural violence, the school-to- prison pipeline, or other traumatic experiences, they face multiple barriers to learning. Therefore, new ideas are needed. This promising intervention, originating in Northern Uganda and utilized in Oakland, California, applies new developments in attachment theory, along with key elements of community resilience to create a trauma-informed, culturally integrated approach that has shown promising results in both contexts.
Transformation of childhood traumatic experiences to violence
Life Skills Psychology Journal, 2020
Although there are several genetic, social, cultural, and evolutionary explanations for violence, this article will only be based on a psychological aspect with a special focus on trauma theory. Traumatic events in childhood including witnessing family violence and experiencing abuse, neglect, loss and abandonment can cause long term emotional pain and distress. Particularly, trauma becomes more severe when children are victims of family violence and parents who are supposed to love, protect, and reassure children become violent and threatening. Traumatic events leave children with overwhelming feelings of fear, anger, and vulnerability. Many authors emphasized the link between childhood traumatic experiences and aggressive behaviors, and they consider trauma and violence inseparable. However, there is little research focusing on the developmental aspects of this relation. Bowlby's attachment theory suggests that traumatic experiences interrupt a child's secure attachment and they generate attachment injuries that interfere with obtaining healthy relationships. Ferenczi's identification with the aggressor theory claims that traumatic experience teaches children both roles: victim role and the abuser role. Trauma in children and youth, differently than trauma in adults, affects underdeveloped personalities and it has a significant role in building the immature personality of children. This article focuses on explaining how childhood traumatic experiences turn into violence in light of Bowlby and Ferenczi's theories.