7 - When Schools Become Gang Turf: Schools and Government-Sponsored Prevention Programmes in El Salvador

Summary

Introduction

Diminishing gangs’ influence and violence in society have been a long-time public security concern in El Salvador that has spilt over into the education sector. The National Council for Education (Consejo Nacional de Educacion [CONED]) has assigned schools the role of being ‘the central pillar of violence prevention’, but recognizes that violence related to gangs directly affects students and teachers and admits that local schools do not have the resources to confront these challenges (CONED, 2016, pp 31, 35). During the last two decades, various government agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), supported by international agencies, have implemented numerous school-based violence and gang prevention programmes to counteract close relationships between students and gangs. However, little is known about how the school-based prevention programmes based on international models interact with the challenges of educating students directly or indirectly related to gangs in the Salvadoran context.

This chapter asks how local efforts, national programmes, and international models intertwine to prevent violence and gang influence in public schools in El Salvador. It juxtaposes the government-sponsored efforts – inspired by international models – to prevent violence and gang influence in school1 with the challenges local teachers face when trying to avoid disrupting behaviour and conflicts with gang-related students in the classroom. It examines the ideas of prevention behind these programmes and their pertinence to the local context in order to understand their relevance. It concludes that, by employing a public security perspective that emphasizes individual decisions and responsibilities, these programmes typically disregard the social dynamics of the school, the families, and the nearby community. Although they can create the sensation that things are more or less under control, they can do little to prevent students from getting closer to gangs or to diminish gang influence in schools.

This analysis is based on the results of the Education in Risk and Conflict Situations research programme (2018– 2022) at the Universidad Centroamericana Jose Simeon Canas (UCA) in El Salvador. The research was directed at public primary schools with gang presence in the adjacent areas through a multiple-case design. Twenty-five public schools in seven regional departments were studied. A total of 177 semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers, principals, parents, local organizations and stakeholders of government-sponsored prevention programmes.