Students’ perspectives on bullying: Challenging the existing means of preventing bullying in school

Author(s):

Anna-Leena Riitaoja(presenting / submitting)Gunilla Holm(presenting)Ina Juva

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

05. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

05 SES 12, Paper Session

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-26

09:00-10:30

Room:

OB-E0.01

Chair:

Benjamin Denecheau

Contribution

For the last 10-15 years most schools in Finland and many other countries have introduced anti-bullying programs in their schools (the two most popular programs in Finland are KiVa and VerSo) The programs, one (KiVa) developed by Finnish researchers and the other (VerSo) by a Finnish NGO have become not only nation-wide but also internationally expanding programs against bullying. Based on the research results regarding these programs (e.g. Kiilakoski 2009; Gellin 2011; Kärnä et al. 2011; Salmivalli et al. 2011), the programs promise significant decrease in the amount of bullying in school.

In this paper we examine students’ perspectives on bullying and on the existing means to decrease and prevent bullying in school. The means range from the schools’ own conflict resolution methods to the procedures of anti-bullying programs the schools follow. We ask, how students talk about bullying and the ways to prevent as well as intervene in bullying in their school? What are the problems according to the students themselves?

Instead of us posing this topic, the theme came up as part of the action research process where the aim was to study how students wanted to change their schools and their exclusionary and marginalizing practices. Bullying arose as a theme connected to exclusion and marginalization, and the students pointed to the limits of the anti-bullying programs in preventing bullying. In this paper we discuss those limits. We examine the limits as questions of social differences and power and not only as question of implementation or management of the anti-bullying programs. We analyze bullying as a complex phenomenon that has to do with the construction of bullying as an issue of ‘problematic’ individuals. As Walton (2011) argues, bullying is in anti-bullying programs often considered as a behavioural and interpersonal issue instead of seeing it as a point where social differences and hierarchies are culminating (see also Herne 2014). A study in the Canadian context (Winton & Tuters 2015) argues that at the policy level bullying is constructed as a problem of individuals. Furthermore, bullying is considered a cause of concern because it compromises learning, academic goals and students’ becoming part of the workforce, not because it is wrong to mistreat people. (Winton & Tuters 2015.)

We ask what are the possibilities or limits of the anti-bullying programs to tackle bullying in relation to wider processes of othering and constructions of ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’ resulting in exclusion and inclusion in educational institutions. Even more, what are the possibilities or limits of the anti-bullying programs to grasp how the constructions of ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’ become tools for othering, bullying, discrimination and also tools of wider social exclusion and marginalization? Based on previous research disabilities, long-term diseases and non-heterosexual gender or sexual identities, migrant background, ethnicity, racialization, but also any deviance in one’s appearance or ways of behaving makes young people vulnerable for bullying in schools and other educational institutions but also in their leisure time (Aaltonen et al. 2009; Huotari et al. 2010; Kankkunen et al. 2010; Grunewald 2013).

We suggest that the research on bullying would benefit from going beyond psychological and social psychological perspectives examining bullying as an individual or social phenomenon (e.g. Simole 2014) toward wider epistemological, societal and cultural-historical context in order to understand how the systems of norms and values participate in the construction of an ideal subject and in difference making between ‘normality‘ and ‘abnormality’ (see Walton 2005).

Method

The basis for this paper is a research project that examines marginalisation and belonging in two urban lower secondary schools in the capital region of Finland in 2013–2015. Part of the project was action research-oriented and aimed to make visible and change the excluding and marginalising processes taking place at school. There were three researchers that interviewed the students both individually and in small groups they had chosen themselves. The first academic year (2013–2014) of the research project was an ethnography of the processes of inclusion and exclusion and the second part (2014–2015) was action research study with students defining exclusionary and marginalising issues and practices in their schools as well as identifying inclusionary ones and suggesting changes for the exclusionary practices. We interviewed the students as part of the first year, at the beginning of the second year and at the end of the second year. During the second year some of the students participated in actions for changing their schools and we were doing participant observations of their engagement. The paper is based on content analysis and discourse analysis of students’ individual and group interviews in addition to fieldnotes on group discussions that focused on marginalization, exclusion and inclusion in school as well as manuals of anti-bullying programs and other related material. We read students’ interviews and anti-bullying program materials together and contrasting them against each other. We also include interviews and fieldnotes from the discussions with teachers in so far as they are related to bullying and anti-bullying programs by asking how the problems in the programs pointed out by the students are seen by teachers.

Expected Outcomes

Confirming results of some previous research critical of bullying (e.g. Walton 2011; Winton & Tuters 2015) also our schools of investigation used to locate the reasons for bullying in individual students and in bad group dynamics. The students in our study offered detailed analysis on the structures fostering bullying which challenges the notion embedded in individualized perspectives on bullying implying that the students lack ability to deeply analyze the reasons for bullying. Bullying is seen by teachers as a problem of the individual student who is bullied which means that the structures behind the bullying do not change because they are never questioned. Some of the students pointed out, that instead of questioning and changing the norms, attitudes or the power relations between students, the result of anti-bullying programs is that the students learn to perform the expected behavior in place of discussions and actions that challenge behavior patterns, school structures (such as rules, norms, teaching situations and methods) and the culture that enable the bullying. The power relations are built upon social differences such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity and (dis)ability that enable or make impossible certain subject positions. Hence, in some cases the limitations of the anti-bullying programs have to do with conceptions of normality and deviance and the way individuals are constructed as problematic. The results show the school as a place that produces certain subject positions by teaching and rewarding students for talking and acting in certain ways such as apologizing for bullying others. Consequently anti-bullying programs can regulate the rules of social interaction but they have no tools to change the reasons behind bullying.

References

Aaltonen, M., Mikko Joronen, M. & ja Villa, S. Susan Villa (2009). Syrjintä Suomessa [Discrimination in Finland] . Helsinki: Ihmisoikeusliitto. Gellin, M. (2011). Sovittelu koulussa [Peer mediation in school]. Jyväskylä: PS-kustannus. Grunewald, S. (2013). The Student's Perspective: Exploring Ethnic Group Variances in Bullying Behavior Using Mixed Methods Research. Dissertations. Paper 518. http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/518. Herne, K. (2014). ‘It’s the parents’: re-presenting parents in school bullying research, Critical Studies in Education, DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2014.988635 Huotari, K., Törmä, S. & Tuokkola, K. (2010). Syrjintä koulutuksessa ja vapaa-ajalla: Erityistarkastelussa seksuaali- ja sukupuolivähemmistöihin kuuluvien nuorten syrjintäkokemukset toisen asteen oppilaitoksissa. [Discrimination in education and free time: Focus on youth belonging to sexual and gender minorities]. Kankkunen, P., Harinen, P., Nivala, E. E. & Tapio, M. (2010). Kuka ei kuulu joukkoon? Lasten ja nuorten kokema syrjintä Suomessa [Who does not belong to the group? Discrimination experienced by children and young people in Finland]. Yhdenvertaisuus Etusijalle (YES3) –hanke. Helsinki: Ministry of Interior. Kiilakoski, T. (2009). Parempihan se on että sovitellaan ku että ei sovitella. Vertaissovittelu, konfliktit ja koulukulttuuri. Vertaissovittelun ulkopuolinen arviointiraportti [The external evaluation report of peer mediation in Finland]. Helsinki Nuorisotutkimusverkoston Nuorisotutkimusseuran verkkojulkaisuja 30, 2009. Kärnä, A., Voeten, M., Little, T., Poskiparta, E., Kaljonen, A., & Salmivalli, C. (2011). A large-scale evaluation of the KiVa antibullying program: Grades 4-6. Child Development, 82, 311–330. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01557.x Salmivalli, C., Kärnä, A., & Poskiparta, E. (2011) Counteracting bullying in Finland: The KiVa program and its effects on different forms of being bullied. International Journal for Behavioral Development. Published online before print July 25, 2011. doi: 10.1177/0165025411407457 Simone. P. (2014). Beyond Bullying: Researching student perspectives. Routledge Research in Educational Psychology. London: Routledge. Walton, G. (2005). The Notion of Bullying Through the Lens of Foucault and Critical Theory. The Journal of Educational Thought 39 (1), 55–73. Walton, G. (2011). Spinning our wheels: reconceptualizing bullying beyond behaviour-focused approaches, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32 (1), 131-144, DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2011.537079 Winton, S. & Tuters, S. (2015). Constructing bullying in Ontario, Canada: a critical policy analysis. Educational Studies, 41 (1-2), 122-142, DOI: 10.1080/03055698.2014.955737

Author Information

Anna-Leena Riitaoja (presenting / submitting)

University of Helsinki

Institute of Behavioural Sciences

Lohja

Gunilla Holm (presenting)

University of Helsinki, Finland

Ina Juva