Victimization and school: Young people’s experiences of receiving support to keep up with their schoolwork

Abstract

Victimization early in life can have several serious consequences, one of which concerns young people’s schoolwork. The present study therefore aims to investigate what support young people need to keep up with their schoolwork, based on their needs following victimization. The material consists of narrative interviews with 19 young people who were the plaintiffs at trials when they were 15–19 years old. The results show that several of the young victims did not want to go to school due to the risk of meeting their perpetrator, and because of that their grades declined when they were not physically present in school, they lost their motivation to study. There is also variation between the young victims about whether they perceive that the schools supported them and/or made adaptations to make sure they could continue with their schoolwork. The schools have a responsibility to make some adaptations, but it is not clear how far this responsibility stretches or to what extent the young victims themselves have been a part of the process. For this reason, they might not have perceived the potential adaptations and support they received from their schools as supportive. Suggestions are given concerning what the schools and other authorities need to think about when working with young victims of crime to make sure they continue with their schoolwork as much as possible.

Introduction

According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet, 2020), around half of all 15-year olds (9th graders) in Sweden have been victims of theft, physical assault, threats, robbery, or sexual crimes during the most recent 12-month period. Victimization can result in numerous harmful consequences such as depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, substance abuse, and criminality (e.g. Cater et al., 2014; Fergusson et al., 2008; Jennings et al., 2010). In addition, the most common location to have been physically assaulted was the school environment, with the victim’s home being the most common location of sexual crimes, and Internet/social media the most common location for threats (Brottsförebyggande rådet, 2020). Not being able to take part in school, either because the crime occurred there, the perpetrator is there every day, or the crime took place outside school but has affected the individual to the point where he or she cannot focus on school, can result in long-term consequences. For example, research on youth intimate partner violence (YIPV) shows that victims have less education as adults than non-victims, which also affects their earnings (Adams et al., 2013; cf. Banyard and Cross, 2008). Similar results exist for other types of childhood maltreatment/victimization and poly-victimization (e.g. Duncan, 2000; Elliott et al., 2009; Fergusson et al., 2013).

As victimization seems to affect young people’s schoolwork, young victims might need support to be able to keep up while they process their victimization. In Sweden, the responsibility for providing support after criminal victimization lies with the social services (Chapter 5 § 11 Social Services Act, 2001:453), but the schools also have a responsibility to support children and young people so they can keep up with their schoolwork (see Chapter 3 Education Act, 2010:800), regardless of the reason why their schoolwork is affected. Regarding victimization connected to school, there is also a distinction between bullying and criminal victimization. Schools are responsible for making sure that bullying does not occur. However, Lunneblad et al. (2016) describe a change in public discourse, with schools categorizing more bullying incidents as crimes and reporting them to the police. From having been bullying victims, the young people are accordingly redefined as victims of crime. In turn, this can shift the responsibility for providing support from the school to the social services. This pinpoints the vagueness surrounding how victims are defined in relation to the school context (cf. Odenbring et al., 2015a).

Adding to this, when it comes to supporting victimized young people, there is often a need for collaboration between different authorities. Nevertheless, based on Odenbring et al. (2015b), it seems that when the victimization takes place out of school, the school personnel see it as an external problem for other public authorities to solve, such as the social services. This would also suggest that the collaboration between authorities regarding victimized young people needs to be improved. If schools do not consider young people’s victimization to be their issue to handle because it took place outside school or has been reported to the police, it can have consequences such as undermining the relationship between the victimized young person and the school personnel. Young people might interpret the school personnel’s lack of interest in supporting them as non-recognition of their victimhood. It is not uncommon for a person’s victimhood to be assessed in terms of the discourse of the ideal victim, which requires the victimized person to be without responsibility for the crime having occurred (e.g. not having put oneself at risk) (Christie, 2001). Similarly, there is also a discourse that can be described as belief in a just world, where victimization is believed only to happen to those who have done something bad themselves (Lerner, 1980). Good people are not victimized, on this view. This is just as much a fundamental delusion (Lerner, 1980) as the idea of the ideal victim, because victimization can happen to anyone, and regardless of the reason behind it, the victim might need support to process the experience. Still, these discourses can influence how victims are viewed. Therefore, a young person’s victimhood might be questioned if it does not ‘fit’ the discursive definition of a victim (Thunberg, 2020a; cf. Van Dijk, 2009). Based on previous research, not being recognized as a victim of crime affects whether young people perceive that support is available to them, meaning that this recognition is important to making sure that young people feel supported (Thunberg, 2020a; Thunberg and Andersson Bruck, 2020). Recognition in this case refers to being acknowledged as both a victim and a competent actor who can define his or her need for support.

Being young and being victimized by crime can separately and in combination result in several obstacles, the most noteworthy of which is not being listened to carefully enough when it comes to what kinds of help one might need to be able to process the victimization. For example, it is not uncommon for young people to feel that the adults around them, both their parents and social workers, psychologists or other professionals, make all the decisions for them, without ensuring that they feel they are part of the process (McCafferty, 2017; Thunberg, 2020a, 2020b). Instead, young people want, as much as possible, to be treated as equals, to be part of the decision-making process regarding how to handle their victimization, without adults making decisions over their heads (Källström and Thunberg, 2019; Thunberg, 2020b). Leaving the young people out of decision-making can make them feel that they are excluded from the social context and their opinions are not valued. Relevant to this are the concepts of agency and communion, which can be described as comprising a dichotomous interaction that is fundamental for human existence (Abele and Wojciszke, 2014). Agency focuses on interactions such as feeling respected and being in control of a situation, while communion places more emphasis on shared moral values, being understood by others, compassion, and being part of a social group. Considering that victimization can be an exclusionary process (see Van Dijk, 2009), it is important that young victims are included in all matters that concern them, even if the intention behind excluding them might be to protect them from further difficulties and to make sure they receive support. If they are not a part of the process, there is a risk that they will not perceive supporting measures as supportive (Thunberg, 2020b). From this perspective, it is important to involve young people as much as possible to make sure that they feel they have the agency they need to act and to feel that they are a part of their social context (Thunberg, 2020a; cf. Pemberton et al., 2017, 2019).

Aim of the present study

The present study aims to investigate what support young people need to keep up with their schoolwork, based on their needs following victimization. This is important because previous research shows that victimization, regardless of type, can have far-reaching consequences for young people and their schoolwork. Less is known, however, about how to support these young people to make sure they can both process their experiences of victimization and continue with their schoolwork. This is especially the case because Swedish law requires physical presence in class, with absence only being granted restrictively during the school year (Chapter 7 § 17–18 and Chapter 15 § 11 Education Act, 2010:800).

Method

The present study uses narrative interviews with young victims of crime, focusing on their experiences of victimization and support. Narrative interviews are a good method for trying to investigate individuals’ experiences and place those experiences in a social context (Plummer, 2001; Riessman, 2008), for example, when attempting to understand which areas of a person’s life, such as schoolwork, have been affected by the victimization. The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Uppsala (Dnr 2016/236 & 2016/236/1B) before it began, and informed consent was obtained from all participants.

The process of recruiting participants to interview began with the perusal of district court verdicts from 2013 to 2015. The plaintiffs in all collected verdicts were between 15 and 19 years old, and the crimes they had been victims of included assault, harassment, robbery, and property crime. For ethical reasons related to the distress that might have been caused by the victimization and the judicial procedure, approximately 3 years should have passed between the trial and the interviews to reduce the risk that the participants were still processing their victimization. For similar reasons, more severe crimes such as rape and attempted murder were excluded, as emotional recovery from those crimes might take longer. From the verdicts, 270 potential participants could be identified and informed about the study by letter. In the letter, they also were informed that they would be contacted and asked whether they wanted more information or wished to participate. Sixty-five individuals responded that they wanted more information, of which 19 consented to participate. Eleven were female and eight male. They were between 18 and 22 years old at the time of the interview, and 11 had been victims of assault and/or threats, one of robbery, three of theft, two of harassment, and two of YIPV.

Based on the information in the verdicts, individual interview guides with open-ended questions were constructed. This was done to make sure that the participants could tell their narratives as freely as possible. Still, the guides had similar structures and included questions on their background, other instances of victimization, experiences of support, and current view on life. The interviews took place where the participants felt comfortable, and locations included participants’ homes, public places, and the university. The interviews lasted between 20 and 120 minutes, with an average of 48 minutes, and were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.

A narrative thematic analysis was used, focusing on what was said in relation to the school context. The idea behind narrative thematic analysis is to view a narrative as a whole when trying to understand participants’ construction of the meaning of certain events (Riessman, 2008). This makes it a back-and-forth process, going between detailed descriptions of the event and the narrative as a whole, which in this case made it possible to identify patterns regarding what was and was not supportive for the young people in relation to their school context. Quotations are used here as examples of these patterns, to analyze how the participants’ schoolwork was affected by their victimization. Each of the interviews was analyzed separately, and each participant’s narrative was organized into a chronological sequence of events before we began to look at what the narrative represents (cf. Riessman, 2008). The themes are analyzed in terms of the school’s legal responsibilities and the concepts of agency and communion.

Results

This section consists of three themes: effects of the crime on schoolwork, effects of the judicial process on schoolwork, and support to keep up with schoolwork. These themes illustrate a process young people go through in relation to their schoolwork after criminal victimization, although it differs to some extent between individuals. The process starts with the direct effects the crime has on victims’ schoolwork, continues with how the judicial process influences the schoolwork, and ends with specific needs for support based on the young people’s situation. In some cases, the crime has a clear connection to the school in the form of being the place where it happened; in other cases, the connection is less clear, but the school personnel played an integral part in the young victims’ handling of their victimization.

Effects of the crime on schoolwork

Although not all victimizations took place at the school, in most cases the participants described their schoolwork as having been affected to some extent. Exactly how much differed, however, depending on what injuries the victims had sustained, who the perpetrator was, and what forms of support the young victims were able to receive from school personnel and/or their friends in school. In Emilia’s case, she received a death threat during a physical education class, in front of her classmates as well as her teacher. They were all stunned by what happened and did not know how to handle it. The threats continued afterwards, and Emilia described,

I come out of the classroom, and I see her further ahead with her friends and think ‘now I’m scared’, and then I walk behind [her] together with one of my friends, and then I hear her say ‘all Swedes should die, and her first’. I think ‘now it’s bad’, so I call my mother and run away from the school after a while, because I’m so scared. (Emilia, threats)

The quote illustrates the fear Emilia felt, and that it resulted in her not feeling safe at school. Emilia also describes how she and her mother had a meeting with the principal, which led to the principal reporting the incident to the police due to Emilia’s fear of being in the same room as the perpetrator. The quote also reflects previous research findings (Brottsförebyggande rådet, 2020; Lunneblad et al., 2016) that schools are an arena for criminal victimization. The teacher, as described by Emilia, seems to have been shocked by the situation, and did not know how to handle it. This can in turn be interpreted as the teacher not being fully equipped to handle that kind of situation.

In Elliot’s case, he perceived that he faced a choice: either he must return to school or he will have to drop out. Elliot had been a victim of a serious assault and needed to take a lot of pain medication to function. As a result, he had trouble concentrating and fell behind the rest of his class. He described,

No, I think I tried . . . You had to be present a lot as well, so I tried to study at home, if I could do anything at home. But yeah, it didn’t work, they said. I could at least concentrate some when I sat alone and focused, but the medication and everything that had happened and everything else in a classroom with all the commotion, it was too much. So yeah, then with my motivation at rock bottom . . . It felt meaningless to study. (Elliot, aggravated assault)

The quote illustrates how Elliot lost his motivation to study because he was unable to attend school. This can be related to the rules and regulations governing schools (e.g. Chapter 12 § 1–3 Regulations for Upper Secondary School, 2010:2039; Chapter 15 § 11, 16 Education Act, 2010:800). The choice Elliot felt he faced can be viewed as an ultimatum, something that under these circumstances did not enhance his motivation. Another victim of aggravated assault, Michael, described similar feelings of low motivation and meaninglessness caused by physical injuries preventing him from taking part in school. As Elliot described, being absent can result in various consequences, and this is also illustrated by the experiences of Michael, whose grades could be affected by his absence because Swedish law requires the physical presence of students (Chapter 7 § 17–18 and Chapter 15 § 11, 16 Education Act, 2010:800). Shorter absences spanning over a couple of days or a week, which other participants described, did not seem to cause problems catching up, but if students were away longer than that, they began having problems catching up with their classmates and maintaining their grades. The lack of flexibility regarding the rules may also cause young people’s victimhood not to be recognized.

Because school could be an arena for crime or because of the risk of meeting the perpetrator, school could be a source of anxiety and fear. This could lead to young victims developing strategies to handle the risk of meeting their perpetrator every day in school. Julia described,

The first thing having to do with the threats and threat of rape affected me quite a lot because I was only in eighth grade, so I wasn’t so big myself. [. . .]. After the threats I didn’t go to school on my own. And I didn’t want to go to school because I was afraid he might be standing there in the schoolyard. I didn’t go out any more, and if I did, I had to have someone to drive me back and forth all the time, because I was scared of running into him, because he knew where I lived. (Julia, assault, and threats)

This quote illustrates how fear of encountering the perpetrator while walking to and from school resulted in feelings of not wanting to be in school. This can be problematic for young people’s education in the long term, if it results in them not going to school at all. From the quote, it becomes clear that being young and a victim of crime is complicated, as the perpetrator is often someone your own age, and someone that you might have to see and work with every day in school. This can make the situation stressful, as you never know if you will be victimized further. On top of having to handle the risk of running into the perpetrator, there are also bystander effects. Several of the participants described how rumors about their victimization spread at school. Linda and Michael described,

It was quite a small school, so word got around quite quickly. So, the students knew quite soon. I remember that I received a lot of Facebook messages on Messenger when I got home, [from people] that weren’t even at the [youth center]. [. . .] They wanted to know what had happened. They didn’t want to know how I felt; they wanted to know what had happened. The teachers also found out that way. I haven’t . . . my class mentor came and asked what had happened, and then I got to tell, but there wasn’t anything more to it than that. (Linda, robbery)

Well, at first it was like . . . it was what everyone was talking about. It was . . . you came to school and the corridors got quiet. They talked about it, but not when I was around. Most were, well the friends who were with me that night and . . . they were pretty helpful. They gave me . . . well, they stood up for me quite a lot. A lot of others had a hard time understanding why I did what I did, and it led to me being seen as either the hero or this guy who just wanted attention. (Michael, aggravated assault)

These rumors could concern what happened, who did it, how the victim reacted and acted, and how the victim should act afterward. The process began more or less immediately after the incident, with people asking questions because they were curious. The spreading of rumors can have a negative effect on victims’ schoolwork, because knowing they are the subject of talk, as indicated by Michael, but feeling that it is not out of care or concern for their well-being, as indicated by Linda, might cause them to feel left on their own and excluded from a social context (Thunberg, 2020a, 2020b; cf. Van Dijk, 2009), and affect their feeling of communion (cf. Abele and Wojciszke, 2014). Similarly, the rumors can be understood as judgments about the young people’s victimhood, deciding whether they are to be considered real victims or not (cf. Christie, 2001; Lerner, 1980; Thunberg, 2020a; Van Dijk, 2009). For this reason, support is necessary to make sure that the victimization can be handled alongside keeping up in school. Here the school has a major responsibility to make sure to provide a safe environment for all students. However, as Lunneblad et al. (2016) show, it can be difficult for school personnel to determine who is the victim and who is the perpetrator, and therefore they may choose not to recognize a person’s victimhood (cf. Lerner, 1980). This in turn can result in feelings of exclusion, that adults do not care, and that the perpetrator is considered more trustworthy (Thunberg, 2020a; Van Dijk, 2009). Furthermore, if the victimization has taken place out of school, it might be viewed as an external problem in which the school should not get involved; it is up to other authorities to solve (Odenbring et al., 2015b).

When it comes to participants’ choice of education programs, their victimization was a bit of a curve ball that forced some of them to make other decisions than they had originally planned. Injuries sustained in the incidents influenced what kinds of courses they applied for in upper secondary school. Elliot, for example, planned to take a technical program, a subject he was interested in. However, the program was advanced, and with his injuries, he did not think he would be able to keep up with the schoolwork. For that reason, he chose an economics program instead. He says,

I chose a different program so I would have it easier. I thought of doing a technical [program], like space is cool. So, I thought about that kind of program, as I was pretty good at physics and math in compulsory school, but I chose economics instead because it was easier. So, I would be able to graduate more easily. That didn’t work either. So . . . So now I’m thinking about doing an adult education program and starting over from the beginning. (Elliot, aggravated assault)

Based on this quote, Elliot’s life took a new turn. Although he said he was still interested in economics, and he developed an interest in studying law, it was a technical program he really wanted to study. This change can be interpreted as a way of trying to remain in control of the situation, showing agency and adapting to the specific situation he was in (cf. Abele and Wojciszke, 2014). His plan did not work, however, as he did not receive the help and support he needed to keep up with his schoolwork while healing from his injuries. The participants in the present study were also at an age when they moved from compulsory school (Sw. grundskola) to voluntary upper secondary school (Sw. gymnasium). This change involves a shift in responsibility to some extent, as the students have to take greater responsibility for their education in upper secondary school than in compulsory school. Still, the quotes presented illustrate some of the problems that might arise for students after their victimization. Collaboration between schools, the police and social services could be a solution (Odenbring et al., 2015b), but in practice it is often difficult, which leads to collaboration not being used in the way that was initially planned. Still, involving all parties that are a part of the processes around the young victim might help them coordinate their efforts to support the victim’s schoolwork as much as possible.

These differences in school personnel’s reactions and actions that are illustrated in this section could be a result of different discourses being in play that simultaneously affect the organization (Lunneblad et al., 2016) and the individual (Thunberg, 2020a). The schools face a dilemma because both the victim and the perpetrator have the same right to education. Although a school can suspend students (Chapter 5 § 14 Education Act, 2010:800), that option should be used restrictively due to the potential harmful consequences for the person who is suspended. Still, failing to recognize young people’s victimhood may cause them to feel disappointed with their school and the school personnel, and also to feel that they cannot receive from them the support they need to keep up with their schoolwork (cf. Thunberg, 2020a). In turn, the young victims might also stop going to school out of fear of the perpetrator. The discourse concerning the ideal victim is problematic, but to some extent it is still used to judge whether a person is to blame for their victimization (Christie, 2001; cf. Thunberg and Andersson Bruck, 2020). Recognition of one’s victimhood can make all the difference between perceiving that support is available or that one must cope on one’s own (Thunberg and Andersson Bruck, 2020). This is something that school personnel, as well as other people, need to keep in mind, as it might also be crucial to gaining the young person’s trust.

Effects of the judicial process on schoolwork

The judicial process also directly or indirectly affects young people’s schoolwork. This is because having to be available to answer questions from the police can place further stress on the young victims, who already have to combine processing their victimization and keeping up with their schoolwork. Maja described,

I had two police investigations going on at the same time. In that way it was quite heavy, and I missed quite a lot of school. I couldn’t concentrate and [I] was away a lot, and [there were] a lot of [police] interviews, and so on. Every other week, I was at some interview. So yes, the investigations were going on at the same time, and luckily enough I had the same investigator for both cases, which made things easier. (Maja, sexual harassment, and harassment)

The quote illustrates some of the issues that might arise in the intersection between attending school and being involved in a police investigation. Of course, adults are also affected by police investigations, and might need to be absent from work, but in Sweden they have different rights than young people regarding sick leave or vacation days. Adults might not want to use these days for a police investigation, but they have the possibility to do so. For young people, it is not so easy. They too can apply for absence, but it is more restricted, as they have longer breaks during and between semesters, and they are required to be physically present in class (Chapter 7 § 17–18 and Chapter 15 § 11, 16 Education Act, 2010:800). This means that taking part in the police investigation may adversely affect the young people’s schoolwork. Also, as Maja expresses, their concentration may be affected when they are in school, as their thoughts are on other things than the schoolwork.

However, based on the interviews, this does not seem to be something that the justice system takes into account during criminal investigations. Based on the young people’s descriptions, the schools do not seem to take it into account either. Therefore, it can be hard for the young people to remain in control of their lives and exercise their agency (cf. Abele and Wojciszke, 2014), when other people/authorities have taken over. This could also be described as an intersection between different discourses, that of the justice system and that of the school system. The young victims are placed in this intersection, and in many cases it is up to them to manage the discrepancies between the discourses on their own. Put differently, they need to be in control of a situation they cannot control. For this reason, adults need more awareness of the systems that a young victim is drawn into, and the consequences that the interplay between them can have on an individual. This is to make sure that young victims of crime are recognized both as victims and as young people who have schoolwork to do. The pressure to participate in several processes at the same time needs to be taken into account, and adults need to include young people more in the planning of what will happen next (Abele and Wojciszke, 2014; Thunberg, 2020a).

Support to keep up with schoolwork

Because the need for support varies between individuals based on their previous experiences, it is difficult to identify general support forms that work for all young victims of crime. This is also apparent from the interviews; what was considered supportive in relation to schoolwork differed, with some individuals needing to talk about what has happened and others needing more practical help. Regarding support provided by the school, whether the experiences were positive or negative varied. A recurring theme in the interviews was an emphasis on practical help and finding pragmatic solutions to be able to keep up in school. For example, Elliot, Emilia, and Maja said,

It made me somewhat disappointed that some . . . there were a few teachers that tried to help me, I remember that. I especially remember, I think it was a science teacher, she was great. She tried to make it work for me. But some teachers, the physical education teacher for example, she thought you can just do something else. [. . .]. So . . . it seemed like they didn’t care. (Elliot, aggravated assault)

I think that, except for the principal, the teachers didn’t take me seriously. Because if I said that I was afraid to go into the lunch hall, they’d say ‘you’re just messing around’. If I asked if she was in class so I could go and buy a sandwich in the cafeteria, they told me ‘Now you need to straighten up and pull yourself together’. [. . .] So, it was . . . I didn’t experience it as good support. The counselor was really nice, she understood immediately. I never went to her, but she came to me and understood and talked to me about what had happened a bit in passing. (Emilia, threats)

I told them several times that I didn’t want to be in the same group as him when we had group assignments, or when they split up the group for other reasons, but somehow I always ended up in the same group as him either way. (Maja, sexual harassment, and harassment)

These quotes illustrate disappointment with the school personnel and how they handled the situation, suggesting that they did not see any issues with the victim and perpetrator working in the same group, or acknowledge the fear that might come after victimization. This might have to do with school personnel not wanting to take sides, or viewing the victimization as a problem that does not involve them (Lunneblad et al., 2016; Odenbring et al., 2015b). However, by not recognizing the young people’s victimhood, personnel might make them feel excluded from their social context, affecting their communion negatively (Abele and Wojciszke, 2014; Pemberton et al., 2017). In contrast to these experiences, Fiona and Johanna expressed a more positive view:

They sometimes asked me how I felt. [. . .] I got a bit of special treatment, I received that because we had some physical education class at upper secondary school where we were supposed to have a dance performance together [. . .] because it’s a part of the curriculum that you’re supposed to perform a coherent dance together, but I didn’t want to do that in front of a lot of people. [. . .] So, I could do it on my own and record a video and send it in. (Fiona, assault)

He violated the restraining order several times, he came to my school and went around starting fights there. But all the teachers had talked with the police, so they knew, they sort of knew they needed to protect me. So, he never came into the school building. [. . .] The teachers were really nice and sent him away and made sure he didn’t come in. And they accompanied me if I needed to go somewhere, if I was going to eat, they accompanied me in case he would have got inside. (Johanna, harassment, assault, threats connected to YIPV)

These quotes show that schools can make adaptations in the schoolwork to make it easier for the young victim to participate in school. Vera, a victim of threats, expressed similar experiences to Johanna: school personnel accompanied her if, for example, she wanted to go and buy something from the shop next door. These kinds of actions by the school personnel illustrate how the victim can be included in the social context, strengthening their communion (Abele and Wojciszke, 2014; Thunberg, 2020a). They can also be understood as the school personnel trying to make the young victims’ schooldays as ordinary as possible, that is, to make them similar to what they were like before the victimization. In addition to school personnel, friends were also identified as a source of support by the participants. Still, when the participants reflected on what could have been improved, they described the role of the school personnel and other students in their recovery process. Michael and Zack said,

The problems began when I started at upper secondary school, where I didn’t get . . . well, the teachers didn’t know I had memory problems, which they should have been informed about. This led to them not making any extra effort really. There was quite a lot of talk about it after my first semester, because my grades got worse and worse and my mother wondered why. She talked to the principal and then all the teachers got the information. [. . .] It was maybe half of them that gave really good help, I spent a lot of time staying behind at school after the day was over just to study with a teacher [. . .] The other half, they knew but didn’t really care. The curve for grades was pretty nice depending on which teacher it was. (Michael, assault)

I would have liked it if the school would have thought about it more. Like me and this guy were in the same class, and they didn’t do anything about it, and we sat almost next to each in the classroom. That’s what I would have liked a solution for most. That we could sit in different rooms or that he would have been suspended or something. (Zack, assault)

The quotes illustrate that the young victims expected the school and the teachers to do more to support them so they could keep up in school. However, this did not happen; instead, they expressed feelings of disappointment. Michael tried to do what he could by staying behind after school to do schoolwork, while Zack continued to go to school although the perpetrator sat almost next to him in class without the school intervening.

Vera also stressed the need for more preventive measures, such as that the school personnel should make sure that all students are okay by seeking contact with the students, and not just wait for the students to make contact themselves. Taken together, the quotes in this section illustrate that there is room for improvement. The legislation for both compulsory and upper secondary school offers some leeway to make adjustments in individual students’ schooling, and the quotes from those who were satisfied with the support they received show that adaptations can help young victims continue with their schoolwork. Making adaptations could strengthen the young victims’ communion, and if school personnel also include them in the discussion concerning what kind of support they would like and the school can offer, then the young victims’ agency can also be strengthened (Abele and Wojciszke, 2014; Thunberg, 2020a, 2020b). Recognition of one’s victimhood is important to feeling included in a social context after victimization.

Still, not all young people shared experiences of adaptations being made for their sake. As Lunneblad et al. (2016) argue, several different discourses are in play in schools, which might also affect what possibilities the schools feel they have to adapt the instruction. This issue is probably not unique to victims of crime, but affects other groups of students as well, such as bullying victims. Even so, the school has a responsibility to help students with their studies and give them the opportunity to pass, which includes making various forms of adjustments (Chapter 3 Education Act, 2010:800). Budget constraints can be a reason why individual solutions are not always available to the extent that the young people expect, as the cost would depend on how many students need it, and statistics on victimization for this age group in Sweden indicate that around half of all young people have been victimized at least once during the last 12-month period (Brottsförebyggande rådet, 2020). Therefore, a lot of young people might need help to keep up in school. Still, some actions might be cost-effective. The young people interviewed, as illustrated in the quotes, wanted to be acknowledged as victims, feel that adults care about them, and build relationships of trust (Thunberg, 2020b; cf. Abele and Wojciszke, 2014). This is something that all schools and school personnel should be able to do without any extra resources, to make sure that their students feel supported and can take part in school.

Discussion

The present study aimed to investigate what forms of support young people need to keep up with their schoolwork, based on their needs following victimization. The results show that most of the young people felt that their schoolwork had been affected by their experiences of victimization, though to different degrees. For some the impact was minor, for instance, having to stay home from school for a couple of days to heal from injuries, while others changed their way of life, lost their motivation to study, or had to be absent from school for longer periods. As a result, some victims’ grades were affected, because the law requires students to be physically present at school. It also became clear from the results that the flexibility to accommodate the victimized students by making adjustments differed between schools, with personnel at some schools attempting to make the students feel safe enough to attend. Still, a dilemma for the schools is that both the victim and the perpetrator have the same right to attend school and receive an education. The threshold for suspending a student is quite high. The school’s task of supporting young victims of crime and making adjustments to enable them to continue their education can therefore be quite complex to carry out.

Odenbring et al. (2015b) found that the schools in their sample had quite clear boundaries between their own and the social services’ responsibilities regarding children who are victimized by their parents (i.e. outside the school), and that it was the schools’ responsibility to report suspicions of abuse to the social services. Anything beyond that was not their responsibility. This is somewhat correct. They are not responsible for ‘solving’ the problem with victimization, but they are responsible for making sure the students are able to continue with their schoolwork even though they have been victimized. On the one hand, victimization outside school is an external problem that does not require intervention by schools; on the other hand, it is a problem that might affect the victim’s schoolwork, meaning that schools do need to be involved. Based on the negative experiences described by some of the participants, there seems to be room for improvement. This is not to say that the schools have not made any effort to help, but only that actions or offerings that the schools define as support might not be perceived as supportive by the young victims. It is important that school personnel and students discuss the situation and come up with solutions together, if actions are to be perceived as supportive (Thunberg, 2020a). In addition, if schools view the victimization as an external problem, there is also a risk of the young people’s victimhood not being recognized, making them feel excluded from their social context (Abele and Wojciszke, 2014; Thunberg, 2020a). Young people’s situation after victimization and different authorities’ responsibilities need to be viewed from a holistic perspective to make the situation as good as possible for the students, and not just as a big puzzle where each authority only focuses on its respective piece without reflecting on how it fits into the bigger picture.

It is also important to address young victims’ situation of being in the intersection between the justice system’s logic of crime investigation, and the school system’s logic of mandatory attendance in class and having to be able to concentrate. The younger people interviewed in this study were in the transition from compulsory school to upper secondary school, and the older participants were transitioning into employment or higher education. This developmental period involves increased responsibility and independence from parents (Geldard et al., 2016), and at this time young people often start to handle more things on their own without involving their parents. Hence, they may want or feel expected to handle things on their own, without involving adults who might be able to help and support them. For this reason, all authorities that are involved when young people become victims of crime need to acknowledge that their work will affect other parts of the system, meaning that there needs to be flexibility concerning such things as, for example, when to hold police interviews to avoid interfering with schoolwork if possible. Sometimes interviews need to take place during school hours, but at least discussing the scheduling with the young person would be a way of including them in the case and ensuring them some sort of agency (Thunberg and Andersson Bruck, 2020). At the same time, authorities need to ask what forms of support the young victims have around them, for example, a social network that helps them feel that they are not alone. This could help the young people feel that they are somewhat in control over the situation and are respected for the situation they are in, thereby benefiting both their agency and communion (Thunberg, 2020a, 2020b cf. Abele and Wojciszke, 2014).

Related to flexibility, the interviews illustrate that the schools varied in how flexible they were when trying to make sure that the young victims could continue with their schoolwork. As previous research shows, schools are an arena for crime (Brottsförebyggande rådet, 2020). The young victims also have to handle being part of several different discourses (Lunneblad et al., 2016) that sometimes complement and sometimes compete with each other. Having the flexibility to make adjustments to accommodate a victimized young person is a clear example of this, for example, in cases where both the perpetrator and the victim attend the same school, and the school needs to make sure that both receive the education to which they are entitled. This can be a complicated matter, as victims might want the perpetrator to switch to another class or even change schools out of fear of meeting him or her. Still, based on the interviews, some adjustments do seem to be possible. Specific tools that school personnel, but also other people that meet victimized young people, can use include trauma-informed practice. Trauma-informed practice focuses on acknowledging that trauma might affect a person long term, and, for example, how they act in certain situations (Knight, 2015). In a school setting, this practice can put relational aspects more in focus, where the school personnel are more aware of how different traumas might affect young people’s ability to learn (cf. Morgan et al., 2015). Building trustworthy student–teacher relationships may help young people feel acknowledged related to their experiences of victimization, even though they must be in the same context as their perpetrator.

Schools might need to communicate with each other more to learn how to handle these kinds of situations and try and make the situation as good as possible. An example of this could be exchanging experiences of how to work within the rules and regulations while still making sure that the victim feels safe and able to take part in school. Related to this, training in restorative practice might be beneficial based on its core principles on focusing on the harm done, promoting caring communication and relationships, and facilitating dialogue among those involved (Vaandering, 2014). Although this can be difficult in a school context due to the school structures (Vaandering, 2014), the core principles can enable a focus on problem-solving to make sure that neither the victim’s nor the perpetrator’s schoolwork are affected. However, this cannot be at the cost that the victimization is reduced to a conflict between two people, as that can contribute to the young people not feeling that their victimhood is recognized. Still, because of the risks relating to work life when entering adulthood without a complete education (Adams et al., 2013; Fergusson et al., 2013), the problem cannot be ignored. The dilemma of a shared school context needs to be discussed and solved to make sure schoolwork is affected as little as possible.

Limitations of the study and future research

The type of sample in the present study limits the possibility of generalizing the conclusions. In addition, even though the sample consists of 19 interviews, the participants’ descriptions of how their schoolwork was affected differed, meaning that not all the narratives receive the same amount of attention in the presentation of the results. Similarly, the present study can only report the young people’s experiences, and not whether the schools believe that they did enough. The present study contributes new insights into how young victims of crime are affected by victimization related to their school situation, which is a sparsely researched area. More research is needed concerning how criminal victimization both inside and outside of school affects young people’s schoolwork and what strategies are used to support the young people in processing their victimization and continuing with their schoolwork. More research is also needed concerning how schools handle these kinds of situations, to gain an organizational perspective on the possibility of making adaptations.