Violence and Harassment in University Students

Bullying is a serious problem that affects countless students in elementary, middle and higher education. This problem has serious repercussions not only for those who suffer it, but also affects the physical and mental well-being of aggressors and witnesses of mistreatment, the sequelae produced by having exercised or witnessed violence or harassment towards any of their peers, sometimes last into adulthood. The study of school bullying is relatively new, beginning with the observations of Dan Olweus (1973), who noticed that some of his students were assaulted by one or more of their classmates. As a result of these observations, the study of school violence and bullying began first in European countries and then spread to Latin America. Most of the studies had focused mainly on elementary school students, because it was believed that only in this group the mistreatment among peers occurred, in more recent investigations have included young people of higher and superior level finding high figures of violence and harassment in them.