All analyses on violence at schools and universities corroborate the existence of a scientific, political and social awareness about that problem. Recent European data on this regard illustrates how violence, particularly gender-based violence and bullying, is commonly maintained along the life-span of children, adolescents and young people (FRA, 2014; Currie, Zanotti, Morgan, Currie., de Looze, Roberts & Barnekow, 2012). For instance, a survey conducted by UNICEF (2006) with a significant international sample shows how around 20% of young women suffered sexual harassment when they were 10 to 14 years old (Pinheiro, 2006).

 However, it has been less studied and approached the attacks that people who defend these victims normally suffer. This problem, known internationally as second order of sexual harassment - SOSH (Dziech & Weiner, 1990; Vidu, Valls, Puigvert, Melgar & Joanpere, 2017), has recently been translated into the forefront of the educational debate. This debate pays attention on the relevance to identify forms to overcome gender-based violence and bullying in order to assure that SOSH could be more visible and then survivors feel protected.

 To date the support given to survivors has been small. In addition, people use to normalize to remain silent in front of harassers and this causes more emotional pain to survivors (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000). Nevertheless, in the last years this situation is changing and civic society and social movements have started to break the silence in different academic contexts and they are supporting the victims with more strength (Vidu et al., 2017).

 This process of breaking the silence has led to promote different educational programmes that start from the involvement of the entire community, placing the focus on the role of bystanders (Cares, Banyard, Moynihan et al. 2005; Twemlow, Fonagy, & Sacco, 2004; Twemlow & Sacco, 2013). Research on this issue has considered bystancer intervention as one of the most important aspects to consider in schools aimed at promote “witness-related” behaviours: either being a passive bystander who, knowingly or not, colludes with and supports bully-victim behavior or being  an upstander who, directly or indirectly, says “no” to bully-victim behavior (Thapa et al 2013, p. 362). Similarly, recent research has explored how children adopt upstander behaviour from early ages in order to prevent violence in next stages (Tremblay, Gervais & Petitclerc, 2013;). These investigations have encouraged the implementation of educational actions based on zero violence from early childhood education (Oliver, 2014)

This paper will shed light on this debate providing some elements to consider in the scientific study of SOSH.  The research presented here aims at provide transformative knowledge that can be useful to combat gender-based violence and bullying in different educational contexts; principally presenting elements connected to bystander intervention and zero tolerance to violence which are contributing to overcome SOSH in Spain.

Banyard, V. L., Plante, E. G., Cohn, E. S., Moorhead, C., Ward, S., & Walsh, W. (2005). Revisiting unwanted sexual experiences on campus: a 12-year follow-up. Violence Against Women, 11(4), 426– 46, doi: 10.1177/1077801204274388 Cares A. C., Banyard, V. L., Moynihan, M. M., Williams, L. M., Potter, S. J., & Stapleton, J. G.(2015). Changing Attitudes about Beinga Bystander to Violence: Translating an In-Person Sexual Violence Prevention Program to a New Campus. Currie, C., Zanotti, C., Morgan, A., Currie, D., de Looze, M., Roberts, C., ... & Barnekow, V. (2012). Social determinants of health and well-being among young people. Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study: international report from the, 2010, 271. Retrieved from http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/163857/Social-determinants-of-health-and-well-being-among-young-people.pdf FRA, E. (2014). Violence Against Women: An EU-Wide Survey. Main Results Report. Luxemburg, Retrieved from: http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra-2014-vaw-survey-at-a-glance-oct14_en.pdf Gómez, A., Puigvert, L., & Flecha, R. (2011). Critical communicative methodology: Informing real social transformation through research. Qualitative Inquiry, 17(3), 235-245. Pinheiro, P. S. (2006). World report on violence against children. New York: UNICEF Retrieved from http://www.bvsde.paho.org/texcom/cd045364/acabar.pdf Thapa, A., Cohen, J., Guffey, S., & Higgins-D’Alessandro, A. (2013). A review of school climate research. Review of Educational Research, 83(3), 357-385. Tremblay, R. E., Gervais, J., Petitclerc, A. (2008). Early childhood learning prevents youth violence. Montreal, Quebec. Centre of Excellence for early Childhood Development CEECD. Twemlow, S. W., Fonagy, P., & Sacco, F. C. (2004).The role of the bystander in the social architecture of bullying and violence in schools and communities.Youth Violence: Scientific Approaches to Prevention, 1036, 215-232. doi:10.1196/annals.1330.014 Twemlow, S.W., & Sacco, F.C. (2013).Bullying Is Everywhere: Ten Universal Truths About Bullying as a Social Process in Schools & Communities. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 33(2), 73-89. doi:10.1080/07351690.2013.759484 Vidu, A., Schubert, T., Muñoz, B., & Duque, E. (2014). What students say about gender violence within universities: Rising voices from the communicative methodology of research. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(7), 883-888. Vidu, A., Valls, R., Puigvert, L., Melgar, P., & Joanpere, M. (2017). Second Order of Sexual Harassment-SOSH. Multidisciplinary Journal of Educational Research.