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Pupil violence directed at peers, teachers, and other school staff represents a serious and growing challenge in contemporary Norway. In 2024, one in four Norwegian primary school teachers reported having experienced violence or threats in the workplace. Such behaviour undermines the safety, wellbeing, and learning conditions of other pupils, while also negatively affecting teachers’ rights, job satisfaction, and working conditions. This is significant not only for teachers themselves, but also because it may adversely affect the quality of education and, consequently, children’s right to education and development.

Despite the increasing prevalence and potentially serious consequences of violence in schools, there is still limited research on the Norwegian legal framework governing these situations. While important advances have been made in pedagogical, organisational, and relational approaches, comparatively little attention has been paid to the legal dimensions of the issue and to the rights of those involved. Both pupils’ and teachers’ rights are protected under Norwegian law and international human rights instruments, yet situations involving violent pupils may give rise to conflicts between these rights and create difficult legal and practical dilemmas.

This highlights a pressing need for greater knowledge about how the rights and interests at stake should be identified, balanced, and implemented in practice, as well as how appropriate legal and procedural safeguards can be developed. The field is particularly complex because it involves multiple rights holders, intersecting legal frameworks, and several sectors operating according to partly divergent rationales. We argue that three areas, in particular, require urgent scholarly attention in order to support the development of a more coherent and inclusive legal framework for educational rights, which defines the three secondary objectives. 

1. To identify gaps in the current Norwegian legal framework;
2. To generate knowledge about how the legal framework is perceived by teachers and pupils; and
3. To develop strategies for addressing both actual and perceived regulatory gaps, as well as improving knowledge and awareness of educational rights.

These three objectives will be handled through the project's work packages. 

Work packages

INCLUDE will explore and advance the legal framework and local guidelines implementing the framework that governs interventions when pupils behave violently along three lines of inquiry, organised as three work packages: (WP1) the supranational level of children’s and human rights, (WP2) the national legislation and regulations implementing the legislation, and (WP3) regulations as teachers, child welfare workers and pupils perceive them.

 The three lines of inquiry will be further developed into recommendations and tools along two lines of output, organised as two further work packages: (WP4) recommendations for improving the legal framework and (WP5) education materials on educational rights. Additionally, a sixth work package (WP6) is devoted to project management.