Impetus for the intervention, early stages of planning, and funding

The first thing we should say about educational programmes against bullying in Spain is that, in the beginning, they ran up against the absence of information about the nature of bullying in our culture. Spanish schools, which are mainly public, have developed a very academic educational tradition that has left the aspects of social and emotional development to one side. They have taken little account of interpersonal relationships and the problems that arise within them (including bullying). Teachers were trained to focus their work on the teaching of basic disciplines, such as languages, sciences, or mathematics, within the compulsory education period from 6 to 14 years. As a result, neither our teachers nor our society had been sensitive to the interpersonal problems that we now recognise in our schools. In fact, the word bullying still does not have an accepted translation in our language. This has been one of the most serious problems that we have encountered: the need to explain to teachers and students what constitutes this type of violence, which some students can exercise over others. However, in recent years we have been attempting to develop a global education where socio-emotional aspects and concern for the world of interpersonal relationships have a place, even though this process is still unfinished.