Do the same social mechanisms explain bullying in different classrooms? A commentary on Madhavi & Smith and Atria, Strohmeier, & Spiel (original) (raw)

2007, European Journal of Developmental Psychology

This paper reviews two studies on between-classroom variation in bullying by Mahdavi and Smith and by Atria, Strohmeier, and Spiel in this issue. Both studies demonstrated large variability between classrooms in the prevalence of bullying and the distribution of participant roles. The authors of the original studies consider this variability at odds with the influential participant roles and scapegoating approaches to bullying. In contrast, this review proposes that the essence of these theoretical approaches is to explain variance, both within and between classrooms, and over time. More explicit theorizing concerning determinants of between-classroom variance and assessment of classroom-level variables implicated by this theorizing are called for. The two papers concerning bullying in this issue have a lot in common. Both address variance between classrooms in bullying with crosssectional designs and both refer to the influential participant role approach (Salmivalli, Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist, Osterman, & Kaukiainen, 1996). The most striking resemblance between both studies to me, however, is their ambition to falsify a theoretical approach. Atria, Strohmeier, and Spiel (this issue) aim to falsify the basic tenets of the participant role approach by demonstrating a degree of between-class variability that they believe the participant-role approach cannot accommodate. Madhavi and Smith (this issue) aim to falsify the so-called scapegoating hypothesis by demonstrating that a considerable proportion of classrooms have no scapegoat. This