Editorial: In search of a pedagogical perspective on school bullying (original) (raw)
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Research Expanding Current Understandings of Bullying in Sweden
Pensamiento Psicológico, 2015
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Literature Review of School Bullying 1 Literature Review of Bullying at Schools
EDUA 7740: School Bullying Literature Review of School Bullying 2 Bullying and Harassment at Schools Bullying and harassment are not new issues that students and schools face. In fact, over the years, it has been viewed as being so commonplace in schools that it has been overlooked as a threat to students and reduced to a belief that bullying is a developmental stage that most youth will experience then get over (Ross, 2002, p. 107). But not everyone gets over the personal trauma that can come with bullying both for the victim and the bully. This is why it is seen happening by adults in work places, in homes, and in the community. Therefore, this harassment is not isolated to schools alone. But schools are the best place to actively intervene. Teachers, administrators, counsellors, and even students have the greatest access to the most students through a school system. It is here that school staff can intervene, support and educate students about ending bullying behaviours directly and indirectly; breaking the bullying-cycle. This paper will address bullying in general at all grade levels, but its intervention focus will be at the high school level. Harris & Hathorn, (2006, p. 50) state:
The power of the word: students' and school staff's use of the established bullying definition
Background: Previous research has found that bullying is often defined differently by students, staff and researchers, leading researchers to call for a more consistent use of the term in practice to enable better intervention and measurement. However, little is known about the consequences of a more consistent use of the term in school. Purpose: The article examines the consequences of schools adopting an exact definition of bullying. Sample: Twenty Norwegian primary and lower secondary schools were selected from a survey (n = 455). The schools were characterised by a strong culture of bullying prevention, and their staff and students knew and used the same authoritative bullying definition. Four schools were then selected for closer ethnographic study. Design and methods: Interviews were conducted with students, teachers, support staff and school management. The interviews were analysed qualitatively, using a grounded theory approach. Results: For school staff, the term ‘bullying’ was construed as rigid and possessing an inherent power that is manifested through the way the term controls adults’ actions. Teachers viewed students’ use of the term as too wide. They emphasised the need to teach students the established definition, as students’ overuse of the term may lead to the word’s diminishing impact for those who are in real need of help. Nevertheless, many of the educators stated that few students report bullying. Both school staff and students displayed a sense of certainty when identifying what counts as bullying. Students’ recognition of the power of the word was apparent in the way they used the term as a tool for social positioning. Conclusions: By way of the status of a bullying definition as an established, research- based definition, it gains a potent power for management, teachers and students. Its power lies in the fact that the use of the term gives rights and responsibilities, determines guilt, and confers blame and status. Unwanted effects of a strict control of the bullying term may involve the risk of missing cases and the risk that students use the term as a tool in the power relations between the students themselves.
2017
Bullying in Schools A special feature of school classes, as intact social entities, is that members share certain values (Boehnke & Schiefer, 2016). Saarento, Garandeau and Salmivalli (2015), argue that the influence of classroom-and school-level factors on bullying involves demographic, structural, peer contextual and teacher-related dimensions. Swearer et al. (2014) use a theory of "homophily and bullying" to argue for a homophily hypothesis where within group similarity leads to bullies physically or relationally rejecting those who are different and withdrawing any social support for victims. However, Saarento, Garandeau and Salmivalli's conclusion (op.cit.) was that the contributions of demographic, school structural and school-class characteristics remain inconsistent. On the other hand, recent Swedish research (Thornberg et al., 2015 & Thornberg et al., 2016), after controlling for factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, school-class size and gender composition, found that relational climate and experience of moral disengagement within school-classes was a significant predictor of between-class variation in victimisation. Victimisation was less likely in classes characterised by supportive relational patterns and lower levels of moral disengagement in the classroom, a result confirmed by Grundherr (et al., 2016). The research reported here builds on a presentation at ECER 2016 (Gill, Larsson, Matton, Simonsson & Levin, 2016) that explored some consequences of systematic reductions of prevalence of bullying at school. It was argued that Swedish anti-bullying programs are being delivered at the later phases of an implementation research continuum (Chalamandaris & Piette, 2015). Uncovering new or persistent cases of bullying becomes more difficult as prevalence of bullying reduces (successful implementation). Being bullied at least 2 to 3 times a month between 2009-2015, among 200,000 children in 1500 Finnish schools (grades 1-9) decreased from 17.2% at baseline to 12.6% after six years of implementation of the KiVa program (Herkama & Salmivalli, 2016). Even though creating reliable measures of bullying prevalence is difficult (Vivolo-Kantor et al., 2014), Finnish prevalence is considerably higher than in Sweden, national average is about 7/8%, which in turn, is higher than the average in the municipality where this research has been carried out (4.9%, Spring 2016). With prevalence rates at this level it is possible to envisage realistic "zero-vision" and "zero-tolerance" strategies. (For a critical review of zerotolerance, see Borgwald & Theixos, 2013 and James & Freeze, 2006). Any goal of reducing a low prevalence of bullying in Sweden, even lower, is mediated by the discovery, from individual-level, longitudinal data, where successful cases of ceased victims are regularly replaced by new victims (Flygare, Gill & Johansson, 2013: Hellstedt, Johansson & Gill, 2016), revealing a cyclical replacement of victims. While up to 75% of victims at one time will self-report not being victimized at one-year followup, rates at cross-sectional measurement may remain the same (typically 7/8% in Swedish schools, op.cit.). The Norwegian "Zero Program" (Strohmeier and Noam, 2012) is based on a "zero-vision" manifesto. Köhler (2006) in outlining health indicators for Swedish children argues that while some ideal zero-outcomes might not stand up as credible operational targets, using "zero vision" as a reference point may be reasonable in some cases. In the municipality that is the focus here, evidence is emerging that some schools and school classes are coming closer to a zero-vision reference point. In a school with 200 children, in 8 or 9 classes, a point prevalence rate of 3% would indicate that at least two, possibly three classes in that school had no victims of bullying. It is argued that this circumstance creates new challenges for prevention strategies. Therefore, it is important to delve deeper into changes in "the Program Adaptation, Dosage and Fidelity Bopp, Saunders and Lattimore (2013) use the term "tug-of-war" in explicating the notion of fidelity versus adaptation in a "life cycle" of program implementation. There is an in-built assumption in regard to the efficacy of program implementation parameters such as delivery, dosage and fidelity.
VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSION IN SCHOOL: WHAT BULLYING IS, WHAT IT IS DANGEROUS AND HOW TO FIGHT IT
The article focuses on various forms of aggression and violence in the child and adolescent environment (bullying). At the same time, the emphasis is placed on one of the pressing problems of modern school -harassment in student communities. The author considers the reasons for bullying, its manifestations, and peculiarities give statistics of bullying for different countries, as well as gives a characteristic of bulling participants and determines measures of its prevention.