When educational words become violent. The risk of hate speech within the educational relationship

Abstract

Within the debate around hate speech, the paper aims at examining the role of words within the educational relationship, approaching the risk educators, specifically teachers towards students , have of using – awarely or unawarely– words of hate. The chosen perspective from which the theme will be analyzed, is the one of the international strategies, in defense of children, which, under the label of corporal punishment include the use of any kind of punishment – not only physical– that aims at degrading, belittling, humiliating, menacing, frightening or ridiculing the child (UN, CRC, General Comment n. 8(2008), CRC/C/GC/8). This specification sharpens the centrality of the pedagogical aspect of the issue: it connects words in themselves with the intentionality of who speaks them and with the sense the receiver gives them. Benning from a reflection on the role of words in the educational relationship, it will be possible to approach a pedagogical analysis which will question the pedagogical implications of hate speech by the teacher, as well as the conditions and contexts that allow the perpetration of hate speech, more or less consciously, by adults that have educational roles and task.