Building Resilience in Schools. A Reflection on Teachers’ Needs and Responses to Protect Students Against Violent Narratives and Actions in the Netherlands

This article reports on the main findings of the research activities undertaken in the Netherlands, within the framework of the H2020 project “PARTICIPATION”. The goal of this research is twofold: first, to gain insight into
the main contentious topics that teachers face in Dutch secondary and vocational schools; second, to provide an analysis of teachers’ challenges, practices, and needs in handling these contentious issues. Two online workshops were held during this participatory research: a “Set-the-Scene” in which teachers provided input on the design of the survey administered to teachers, and a “Follow-up” during which the results of this survey were discussed and understanding of these results was deepened. This article presents a synthesis of the contextual data collected through desk research, after which the main findings derived through the online survey (N=21) are presented. The article concludes with a set of recommendations based on the experiences and perspectives of teachers regarding obstacles, good and bad practices and their perceived needs in improving their ability to address challenges and contentious topics in the classroom.