Bullying, school and technology: when the issue was already urgent
With the column 25 years ago today, we travel through the history of the Fondazione Mondo Digitale as if in a time machine, returning to episodes, projects and ideas that have marked our journey. Not to celebrate the past, but to re-examine it in the light of the present and recognise how many of today's challenges were already anticipated and addressed years ago. It is a way of recounting the variety of our actions, the consistency of our method and the foresight of a vision that continues to guide the future.
2006. Bullying, school and technology: when the issue was already urgent
In 2006, long before cyberbullying and online violence were widely discussed, the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, then still known as the Consorzio Gioventù Digitale, dedicated a theme week to a phenomenon that was still hidden at the time, but already profoundly transformed by digital technologies.
At the Città Educativa in Rome, the “Week against Bullying” brought together schools, institutions, experts and students to discuss the new forms of bullying, both visible and invisible, that were affecting relationships among young people.
On that occasion, Tullio De Mauro, president of the Foundation, emphasised a point that is still central today: technology is not neutral, but can become an ally or a multiplier of violence if adults and schools are unable to decipher its languages, codes and practices.
The challenge for schools is to quickly transform sectoral knowledge, codes and languages into knowledge for everyone and by everyone.
Technology must be an ally of those who fight for inclusion and not exclusion.
Rereading those words today means recognising the foresight of an approach that has always brought together education, digital culture and social responsibility. It is also a way of recounting, through concrete examples, the variety and depth of the actions that have shaped the history of the Fondazione Mondo Digitale. Today, the organisation has a management system in place to address and prevent the risk of violent behaviour in minors and young adults, certified UNI/PdR 42:2018 “Prevention and combating of bullying”.
From the press
Il Messaggero, 23 November 2006
