Bullying is a widespread phenomenon, internationally defined as repeated violence against victims with difficulties in defending themselves (Olweus, 1993). Bullying is increasingly seen as the result of a group phenomenon, in which several students are involved (Salmivalli, 2010; Saarento & Salmivalli, 2015). This phenomenon operates according to a discriminatory and exclusionary logic, which hinders the possibility of the emergence of respect for diversity among students.

Respect for diversity is more difficult to work on during the period of adolescence, because of the need for students to be socially accepted and recognized by other peers as one of their own (Ragelienė, 2016; Hernandez & al., 2014). Therefore, bullying rates tend to increase during this period (Salmivalli, 2010), especially its verbal form (insults, mockery, etc., Moody & al., 2020). This need for social acceptance and recognition can be explained by the loss of bearings that students may feel, due to their identity development and the changes of school, teachers, and friends they must deal with during their transition from primary to secondary school. This loss of bearings among students accentuates their tendency of conform to each other to increase their chances of being socially accepted and recognized. Conforming means that students observe each other and gradually adapt their ways of thinking, doing and being to those of their peers (Harkins & al., 2017). 

Bullying then becomes a means of compensating for the loss of bearings, by bringing students together around a common goal and making them conform. This gathering reinforces the social cohesion between some students, i.e., the strength that emerges from their interactions and keeps them together as a group (Schachter, 1951), making a social function of bullying emerge (Salmivalli, 2010). Bullying then becomes a driving force for social learning among students, highlighting that they learn through discriminatory logic which is opposed to the aims of an inclusive school. 

In conjunction with the increase in primarily verbal bullying in adolescents (Moody & al., 2020), it is interesting to note the emergence of a language specific to adolescents, described as « youth talk » (Singy, 2014). This language is characterized notably by the frequent use of insults, particularly those that operate on the principle of social categorization (racist, homophobic insults, etc.). This specificity raises questions about the limits between normality and violence between students, but also invites further study of the function of bullying, particularly in its verbal form. As Delalande (2003) notes, students lose a lot of energy in subjecting each other to the social norms in place, i.e. to what can or cannot be done at each age (Verhoeven, 2012; Prairat, 2012). Bullying can therefore have an educational function, allowing students to show each other and even learn what is expected of them. This contribution aims to analyse and describe this educational function, with a particular focus on verbal bullying, and the challenges it poses to an inclusive school.

This contribution uses qualitative methods (individual interviews and focus groups) to interview adolescent students about their experiences of bullying. To get a global view of these experiences and a better understanding of the function of bullying, these experiences come from students with different roles in bullying situations: they may suffer from it (victims), carry it out (perpetrators) or be spectators (bystanders). Individual interviews are used to interview victims and perpetrators, to guarantee a high level of confidentiality. Focus groups are used to interview several bystanders’ students who share relatively similar experiences of bullying, thus encouraging the most introverted ones to speak out. Data were collected from forty-five adolescents (female= 22; male= 23; other= 0) aged between 10 and 17 (M= 14), from heterogenous backgrounds (class, home-language, etc.) in Switzerland. Conversations were transcribed and analysed using three methods frequently used in content analysis - Strauss and Corbin’s grounded theory, Miles and Huberman’s method of qualitative analysis and Paillé and Mucchielli's thematic analysis (Intissar & Rabeb, 2015).

Findings show that bullying can have an educational function, based on inclusion/exclusion processes. Bullying emerges when, after several failed attempts to learn from other peers (which can take various forms, including violence), students fail to acquire and master social norms. Bullying then becomes a sanction against students who end up being perceived by other peers as different. However, it is possible that differences in ways of doing, being or thinking are tolerated if they are not too important. It should be noted that findings do not show whether the educational function of bullying is conscious or not among students; few of them verbalized it spontaneously and consciously. In addition, the results confirm the frequent use of verbal violence between students. More precisely, this violence reflects a normality among students, which reflects « youth talk ». It thus emerges that verbal violence does not serve the same purpose as other forms of violence, suggesting that it may characterize a first attempt at learning between students, making it more complex to deal with bullying. The results obtained are presented in the first part of this contribution. A second part is devoted to reflections on the implications of these results for teaching practices and inclusive schooling. Indeed, the aim of these results is not to legitimize violence, but rather to reflect, in an inclusive focus, on the ways of accompanying social learning between students, which requires an anchoring in their interactions and their uses. More specifically, it raises the question of how to promote a learning logic that favours respect for diversity among students and a sense of inclusiveness in the school community.

Delalande, J. (2003). Culture enfantine et règles de vie. Jeux et enjeux de la cour de récréation. Association Terrain, 40, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.4000/terrain.1555 Harkins, S. G., Williams, K. D., et Burger, J. M. (Eds.). (2017). The Oxford handbook of social influence. Oxford University Press. Hernandez, L., Oubrayrie-Roussel, N., et Preteur, Y. (2014). De l’affirmation de soi dans le groupe de pairs à la démobilisation scolaire. Enfance, (2), 135-157. https://doi.org/10.4074/S001375451400202x Intissar, S., & Rabeb, C., (2015). Étapes à suivre dans une analyse qualitative de données selon trois méthodes d’analyse : la théorisation ancrée de Strauss et Corbin, la méthode d’analyse qualitative de Miles et Huberman et l’analyse thématique de Paillé et Mucchielli, une revue de la littérature, Revue francophone internationale de recherche infirmière, 1(3), 161-168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.refiri.2015.07.002 Moody, Z., Stahel, T., & Di Giacomo, F. (2020). Le harcèlement entre pairs en milieu scolaire en Valais : vécus, manques et ressources (1-6H et 9-10 CO). Rapport à l’attention du Service de l’enseignement du canton du Valais. Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do. Blackwell Publishing, Malden. Prairat., E. (2012). Postface. Comprendre la question de la norme. Dans Galland, B. (Ed.), Prévenir les violences à l'école (p.217-228), Presses Universitaires de France., https://doi.org/10.3917/puf.verho.2012.01.0217 Ragelienė, T. (2016). Links of adolescents identity development and relationship with peers: A systematic literature review. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 25(2), 97-105. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4879949/ Saarento, S., & Salmivalli, C. (2015). The role of classroom peer ecology and bystanders’ responses in bullying. Child Development Perspectives, 9(4), 201-205. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12140 Salmivalli, C. (2010). Bullying and the peer group: A review. Aggression and violent behavior, 15(2), 112-120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2009.08.007 Schachter, S. (1951). Deviation, rejection, and communication. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46(2), 190-207. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0062326 Singy, P., Poglia Mileti, F., Bourquin, C., & Ischer, P. (2014). Le parler « jeune » en Suisse romande : quelles perceptions, Bulletin de linguistique et des sciences du langage, 27, 11-98. https://serval.unil.ch/fr/notice/serval:BIB_95B12B273CCF Verhoeven, M. (2012). Normes scolaires et production de différences, Les Sciences de l'éducation-Pour l'Ère nouvelle, 45(1), p. 95-121. https://doi.org/10.3917/lsdle.451.0095