Some Recommendations for Improving Educational Environment:

A Case of Vietnam Context

Nguyen Thi Thoi

FPT University, Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

Keywords: Consequences, Family, School, Students, Violence.

Abstract: The rapid increase in school violence partly reflects the serious deterioration of social ethical values. It's time

to pay more attention to this issue and enhance positive values in the pedagogical environment. School

bullying is the use of physical and mental violence in a school environment from individuals to collectives

caused by students as well as the teachers. This problem is a worry for many countries and Vietnam is not an

exception. Bullying at school is a difficult problem for the education sector in particular and the whole society

in general. This problem leads many bad influences to students, family, school and society. The causes of

school bullying incidents often occur from many sides; from the students themselves, from the irresponsibility

of the school and even their families. This paper study found out causes of this problem and mentioned e few

solutions, thereby limiting as much as possible the consequences of the school violence. The paper was written

with the support of 50 respondents who are secondary school students and some are university students who

have experienced school violence. The article uses direct interviews and surveys; the results reflect that school

violence has a number of causes and requires special cares from school, family and society.

1 INTRODUCTION

According to Phuong Thao (2018), school bullying is

defined by the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention as “aggressive, unwanted behavior of

school-age children related to an imbalance of

strength. That behavior is repeated or likely to be

repeated over time”. Sometimes bullying crosses the

boundaries of harassment, which is based on racism,

ethnicity, sex, disability, sexual orientation, national

origin or other background (Phuong, 2018).

According to Tran Duc et al. (2018), violence is

defined as the behavior of a person or group of people

intentionally inflicting injury on those who cannot

protect themselves. This behavior is repeated many

times, possibly in the form of: physical violence

(punching, kicking, taking items from the victim);

verbal violence (ridicule, insult); social violence

(discrimination, isolation, boycotts) and indirect

violence (spreading rumors) (Tran and Shukri, 2018).

Therefore, bullying at school becomes one of the

serious problems and is the prerequisite in the current

youth education, especially for adolescents.

Moreover, this problem is becoming more and more

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6033-4294

sophisticated and it not only occurs in school

environment but also on social media. It is becoming

a rather common phenomenon in Vietnam.

According to Van Cong et al (2018), the rate of

cyberbullying in Vietnam has been reported in a

number of studies in recent years. Results of a study

of 736 middle and high school students in Hanoi, Ha

Nam and Hai Duong province showed that 24% of

participants were victims of at least one form of

cyberbullying. Another study performed on 493

students in 3 high schools in Hanoi, Ha Nam and Hai

Duong showed that 35.7% were victims of

cyberbullying (Van Cong et al., 2018). Its causes

include both objective and subjective causes, then

clearly analyze the details of each cause and then give

subtle and suitable measures to solve this problem in

a moderating way so that we can minimize negative

outcomes.

It should be confirmed that school violence

existed many years ago, but over time there has been

a negative change in severity. Some of us might have

witnessed a friend being abused by other students and

that made the victim feel frightened and the results

dropped dramatically.

626

Nguyen, T.

Some Recommendations for Improving Educational Environment: A Case of Vietnam Context.

DOI: 10.5220/0010595006260632

In Proceedings of the International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure (ISSDRI 2021), pages 626-632

ISBN: 978-989-758-519-7

2 RESEARCH CONTENT

2.1 The Concept of Bullying at School

According to Machová et al. (2014), bullying is an

extremely dangerous form of violence that threatens

the implementation of the principles and goals of

school education. It leads to a loss of aversion to

student safety and negatively affects the harmonious

development of a student's personality and academic

performance. Bullying is dangerous, especially

because it is often hidden, and even low intensity can

lead to severe psychological trauma with long-term

consequences in a student being bullied (Machová

and Boledovičová, 2014). In the simplest sense,

school bullying is physical and health-damaging

behaviors such as the use of force, and acts that are

offensive to the spirit, honor and dignity such as

cursing and insults.

2.2 Research History

School bullying in the world in general and in

Vietnam, in particular is always being noticed and

discussed. The problem is so widespread that experts

assume that most students experience bullying at

school for a period of time, be it bullies, victims, or

witnesses. Many children show fear of going to

school due to bullying or witnessing things. Many

parents today are very concerned about the recent

increase in school violence. Verbal insults are the

most common, but “cyber threats” (which often

happen outside of school) are becoming more

common (Tran and Shukri, 2018). With the growth of

social media, school bullying is moving to a new

form, although it is not happening on campus, maybe

when students are home. Bullying happens not only

between students, but also between teachers and

students and vice versa. Many children feel scared, or

ashamed, when teachers use violence or humiliation.

Many victims of this problem dare not report them to

teachers. That reinforces the bullying behavior of

students who frequently make trouble with others. At

the same time, many children are bullied but cannot

confide in adults, leading to fear, depression, and

declining academic performance. More dangerous is

that when students are bullied, students witness a

tendency to follow and bully other victims, making

the problem even more common (Nguyen et al.,

2020).

The study relating to school bullying in Hanoi

city, Vietnam was carried out using a survey method

on 392 students. The study results showed that, within

6 months prior to the study time, the proportion of

students who had ever participated in acts of bullying

/ physical violence was 17.1%. Boys are more likely

to engage in this behavior than girls. Factors related

to bullying / physical violence are not living with or

lacking parental support, poor family relationships,

no friends, close friends involved in bullying /

physical violence substances, having risky behaviors

such as smoking, drinking alcohol, carrying weapons.

The advice in the study is that we should pay more

attention about family-school coordination in school

(Nguyen et al., 2020).

2.3 The Current Situation of School

Bullying in Vietnam

According to the most recent data released by the

Ministry of Education and Training (Education and

Training), in one school year, there were nearly 1,600

cases of student fighting inside and outside of school

(about 5 cases / day). ). For about 5,200 students

(students), there is a fight; one out of 11,000 students

was forced out of school because of a fight; one out

of every nine schools has students fighting.

More worrying, according to statistics from the

Ministry of Public Security, more than 1,000

teenagers commit crimes each month. Previously,

crimes between the ages of 30 and under 45

accounted for the highest number. Now, it is about

34% when comparing with 41% of the age group 18

to under 30 (the age from 14 to under 18 accounts for

17%). These figures really become alarm bells for

families, schools and society, and we need to pay

attention and take appropriate measures to reverse

this problem. Therefore, the propaganda about the

alarming situation of school violence is very

necessary and practical (Phuong, 2018).

2.4 The Causes of School Bullying

Students who are bullied are usually those who are

psychologically weak, have limited social skills, have

a self-protective ability, and have a different

appearance from others in the class. They might have

a good academic record or have a rich or well-off

family background (Linh et al., 2020).

Students who bully others tend to be

psychologically aggressive and violent, have poor

anger control, lack of sympathy for others, are

intolerant or unacceptable (Le et al., 2017). Parents

commit violent acts in the family that cause

psychological impact on their children. The family

lacks interest or creates a relationship with their

children; Non-homogeneous family education

measures such as extreme relaxation or violence.

Some Recommendations for Improving Educational Environment: A Case of Vietnam Context

627

Students are abused, mistreated, intimidated, or

humiliated by teachers or school staff; spurned or

bullied by friends; the teacher does not care about the

psychological and emotional life of the students;

Strict managements by teachers and schools are

inconsistent, too permissive, or harsh (Linh et al.,

2020).

Lack of attention by schools and teachers to

student’s leads to students being bored and unwilling

to learn. One more reason is that schools have no

positive contacts with students' families. The issue of

ethical education for students has not been given

adequate attention, and there is a lack of close

coordination between family and school (Seda Donat

Bacıoğlu and Oya Onat Kocabıyık. 2019).

2.4.1 Causes from the Students Themselves

The first reason can be said is the psychological

change of the students from 12-17 years old, this is

the stage of character formation in human, along with

the unstable psychology. During this period, only the

bad stimuli from the outside world will cause the

children to follow. Due to the incomplete

development, lack of personality, lack of self-ability

and immaturity in life skills, wrong attitude in life

leads to wrong attitudes in perception and action.

They have not yet formed an ideal for themselves, so

they are easily depressed (Le et al., 2019).

2.4.2 Causes from the Home Environment

Humans are born, but their personalities, qualities,

and religions are formed by education. The first

setting each child comes into contact with is the

family. Grandparents and parents are the first and

most important influences on the formation of

children's character, personality and direction.

Therefore, the way of education and living

environment in each family plays a decisive role,

affecting how the child grows up and how to live

(Levent Var and Bekir Barış Cihan. 2019). Therefore,

shortcomings in the home environment are

considered to be a part affecting modern retail.

Students witnessing fathers being alcohol or drunk

and yelling at others in the family for "domestic

violence", physical abuse of children, and child

sexual abuse teaches children that acts of violence is

acceptable, here domestic violence is almost a bridge

for violence.

From the ways of teaching a child through harsh

parental discipline, the child's character becomes

more aggressive. Children's exposure to a violent

cultural environment such as movies, books and

violent games has a negative impact on many

students, fosters an increase in their aggressiveness

and student (Machová and Boledovičová, 2014).

Parental imposition and children's adverse reactions

to coercive behaviors also affect the development of

aggressive behavior in young children such as

shouting, fighting, starving, confinement, the family

has limitations, lack of social cognitive skills that

affect how to teach children.

2.4.3 Causes from the School Environment

Educational content must ensure basic,

comprehensive, practical, modern and systematic;

attach importance to education ideological and civic

consciousness; inherit and promote good traditions,

national cultural identity, absorb the cultural essence

of humanity; consistent with the development of

learners' psycho-physiology and age. Thus, for all

teachers, who are in charge of educational

management, their responsibility not only impart

professional knowledge but also educate ethics,

lifestyles, formation and development of learners'

personality qualities, and literacy must go hand in

hand with teach people. As for the class leader, they

must grasp the comprehensive quality on all aspects,

not only learning but also the cultivation and training

of the students.

2.4.4 Causes from the Social Environment

The social environment or the neighboring

environment and the residential community where the

families of the teenagers live are also many causes of

modern retail. Most modern retail cases usually

happen to young people living in residential

communities with poor living environment, low

literacy, poverty, and shabby houses, etc. Many

students who dropped out of school early wandered

around and played; where there are many social evils,

the crime rate is high, there are many drug addicts,

football betting, gambling, violent games on the

Internet”. When exposed to those bad objects. many

times had a negative impact on them, gradually

introduced into the school environment and interacted

with other students in the school.

Through the above analysis, it shows that modern

retail space occurs with many different reasons. Due

to the age-prone psychological physical development

of students and students; moral degradation; not

equipped and trained in life skills; the indifference,

indifference and irresponsibility of many parents

towards their children; family's false education

methods; educational methods, management, school

education environment; weaknesses in the economic,

cultural and social development process; the legal

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system of modern retail in our country is still

incomplete; the negative effects of modern media

such as violent games, websites with violent content,

and the media; Negative influence from the reverse

side of international integration all the problems that

have been posed to the whole society must have

effective measures to promptly prevent and prevent

this situation.

2.5 The Consequences of Bullying in

Schools

Bullying at school has many serious consequences.

This problem has negative effects on the person being

bullied, the person bullied, the family, the school and

society.

Negative effects on psychology: School bullying

negatively affects relationships of victimized

students. The psychology of fear, anxiety, insecurity,

resentment and obsession are common conditions that

most of the students experienced. Students who are

victims often show behavior disturbances, loss of

confidence, fear of going to school leading to being

taciturn, quiet, always in a state of anxiety, fear of

contact with people, reluctance to go to school, even

developing neurological problems. In some cases,

students become depressed, have low self-esteem,

fear, and lead to students committing suicide to free

themselves (Van Cong et al., 2018).

Bullying students themselves also suffer the

negative health, psychological, personality

development, and academic consequences of their

work. Students who commit violence will also

become objects of hatred and hate by the victims and

their classmates. Besides, there is also the worry of

retaliation from the victim, the victim's family and

friends (Le et al., 2017).

Negative effects on learning: Students who are

victims of school bullying often tend to neglect their

studies and cannot attend class.

2.6 Research Method

The method used in in the research is survey method

in which some questions were designed so that some

respondent (teachers) can complete via internet. The

scope of the survey is in some primary and secondary

schools in Vietnam with the support of 50 students.

Most of the students answered the questions which

were designed with the paper forms.

2.7 Results and Discussion

School violence directly threatens the safety of young

people in very familiar settings. The current situation

of school violence tends to increase and it is very

complicated. The problem of school violence has

become a pain in the education sector and the whole

society (Phuong, 2018). Current school violence is

becoming a hot spot that deserves attention of many

parents, teachers and schools, the concern of the

whole society.

Figure 1: Bullying behavior in school when witnessed by

survey participants.

The phenomenon of violence is not a new

phenomenon, but recently it occurs more

continuously in schools that show a more dangerous

and serious nature (Van Cong et al., 2018). It is

worrisome that the reasons for violence are

sometimes as simple as collisions while playing, on

the way to school, contradictions on each other on

forums, social networks. From the figure, we can see

that the opinions of respondents when they witnessed

bullying at school, the behaviors are rather minor and

unimportant (Figure 1).

Figure 2: Victims’ frequency of being bullied at school.

Some Recommendations for Improving Educational Environment: A Case of Vietnam Context

629

The chart shows that bullying is a common

phenomenon among students. Two-thirds of the

students surveyed experienced this act of violence in

the position of being bullied. Bullying at school takes

many different forms: from emotional violence such

as insults to physical violence such as beating and

sexual harassment. There was also the case of being

robbed of money by a classmate (Figure 2).

Figure 3: Respondent's opinion on form of bullying.

The above chart shows the survey respondents'

opinions about the form of bullying, most of which is

abusive and at least sexual harassment. Violence in

schools has been and is happening often around the

world at all different levels of education and

classrooms. School violence not only occurs among

boys but also among girls; not only student-student

violence, but also student-teacher violence, and

teacher-student violence. The consequences (in any

forms) cause both physically or mentally, directly

affect students' work and future if there is no timely

intervention. (Figure 3).

Figure 4: Respondent's mood about being bullied.

The moods of the surveyed students included

feelings of anger, fear, grief, and shame. In which the

feeling of anger and anger is most experienced by

students (chart 4). As a result, students are unable to

study with the best possible results. Then, excessive

psychological stress can force a student to end his or

her studies and their future will not be positive.

Figure 5: Respondents' responses to being victims of school

bullying.

In the survey about the actions of students who are

victims of this problem, most of them choose to

retaliate and then report to the teacher or the school,

quietly accepting bullying and dropping out of school

(figure 5). School must be a safe place but in the eyes

of many students, this is still far away. When being

abused, students often endured silently because they

thought that if they told the teacher they would be

beaten more. They thought they weren't strong

enough to say that, therefore they endured it silently.

3 PROPOSED SOLUTION

Firstly, for pupils and students, it is necessary to raise

awareness, awareness of actions and consequences of

such violent impact. In the classroom, it is necessary

to organize companionship groups such as

configuring mutual improvement partners to raise

awareness, increase understanding, and increase

regular communication and study together, if there

are bad students, it is necessary to create a playground

for children to gently, comfortably analyze and find

suitable solutions. We need to organize lots of useful

playgrounds to create intimacy among children

(Nguyen et al., 2010).

Second, we need to take a look at how some

families educate their children. For a long time, we

have only focused on children's academic results, but

overlooked what they think they need to deal with

their friends. Instead of children having material life,

being companions in the whole human working path,

we should not give children a too rigid cover that will

make the mind depend on and enjoy. We need to take

ISSDRI 2021 - International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure

630

the right responses to set an example for others (Hoi,

2020).

Thirdly, the school needs to actively exchange

information with students' families and local

authorities in order to promptly take measures to

manage and educate students. The homeroom teacher

needs to actively grasp the situation of students'

ideological developments, not let negative or violent

behaviors occur (Hoi, 2020).. With the motto of

precautionary operation, along with teaching, the

school should pay attention to teaching public

education subjects, moral education, life skills, and

building a friendly pedagogical environment, page is

got out the true life for learning for you have an action

beautiful and love each other (Berna Özkut and Saibe

Özlem Kaya, 2019).

Schools work with relevant forces to mobilize the

masses to directly combat active school violence, and

whenever, wherever there is school violence, we need

to promptly stop and notify them go to school, family

to take measures to help limit harmful consequences.

Fourth, local authorities, mass organizations and

local police forces, Youth Union groups, Women's

Union, etc. It is necessary to ensure top leadership,

raise responsible opinions, and promote all their roles

in the school violence room. We need to make good

use of communication methods to prevent school

violence from occurring.

We need to have the right awareness of school

violence, a high determination of the entire education

sector, of the related sectors, and more effective

family-school coordination.

4 CONCLUSION

School bullying is quickly becoming one of the most

painful problems in the education industry today and

tends to become more serious. On the side of teachers

and schools, the lack of responsibility for such serious

incidents makes this situation even more widespread,

in addition, the lack of attention in the family and

proper education of their children makes children

become be negative and mentally and physically

damaged. However, the greatest responsibility must

be with the families of the students, the indifference,

lack of interest and understanding of the changes in

psychology and physiology of the children, leaving

the teaching of children to the school and as a result,

they are lack of family love fostering. Once there is a

problem with the link between family - school -

society, it is the students who are most affected.

Family education should be seen as the foundation.

Parents must pay more attention to their children;

equip them with full knowledge, ethics, and bravery

to integrate in the community environment, school.

Besides, the education sector needs a real reform,

reducing the lack of theoretical subjects and focusing

on fostering more ethics and life skills. Not only that,

students also need to improve their self-esteem, have

a sense of protecting themselves and those around

them as well as equip themselves with positive life

skills to have the courage to say no to violence.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To implement and complete this scientific research

project, I have received support and assistance from

lecturers and students of FPT University.

LIMITATIONS

Hopefully in the future, the future studies will be done

on a wider scale and richer subjects of research.

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