Perceptions of the relationship between sexual abuse and bullying from the experiences of adolescents

Abstract

This research aimed to understand the relationship between the effects of two types of violence, sexual abuse and bullying, in the life of school adolescents. This is a case study developed in a public school in southern Brazil. Four female adolescents participated. The instruments of data collection were: Reflexive Interviews and school document records. Grounded-theory was used to analyse the data. The results showed that the participants adopted coping strategies such as denying the role of victims of family violence, with low success in the educational environment. The suffering of sexual abuse showed that being emotionally debilitated made them to be targets for victims of bullying. Nevertheless, they showed an ecological-systemic perception of the interactions of the negative effects of the two types of violence in their lives.