Chapter Twenty-Seven. Abuse And Attacks
Faced with abuse of an ethnic, racial or religious nature, members of staff in schools hesitate or waver between two attitudes. The first consists in considering them as jokes, juvenile provocations or mere marks of familiarity with no hostile intention, especially if it is a question of interaction between pupils. A second attitude is based on the idea that the insults and abuse are meaningful and that this meaning is alarming. When it is a question of attacks and physical violence of an anti-Semitic nature, schools seem even less capable of dealing with the problems in a satisfactory manner. Anti-Semitism in schools is undoubtedly a reality. But it is exaggerated or, conversely, played down and always twisted as a result of the huge inadequacies of the educational system creating scandals in situations where simple measures, taken locally and internally with a minimum of common sense, should suffice.Keywords: abuse; anti-Semitic nature; physical violence; schools