Bullying and Negotiated Identities: Perspectives of 7th and 8th Grade Girls

The aim of this study is to explore 40 Swedish 7th and 8th grade girls’ perspectives on bullying by listening to how they discuss and understand bullying. Pair and group interviews were conducted and analysed using grounded theory. Symbolic interactionism was used as a theoretical perspective focusing on social processes and interaction. The participants constructed bullying as an identity process involving gendered identities, victim identities and socially‐valuable identities where bullying was located within a gendered order. These identities were negotiated with the concept of self‐confidence, where the girls both aligned with and distanced themselves from the gendered order.     

The Trouble with Bullying – Deconstructing the Conventional Definition of Bullying for a Child‐centred Investigation into Children's Use of Social Media

This article deconstructs the conventional definition of bullying through analysis of its historical context, and identifies blind spots using lenses of gender, culture and setting. We explore theoretical and methodological problems associated with the conventional definition and its axiomatic use in bullying research, with particular reference to online bullying. We argue that because children may use ‘bullying’ to mean many different practices not captured in the conventional definition, using this definition often obscures the very phenomena researchers are aiming to describe. As a result, adults risk missing these practices in research and for interventions that use these studies as their evidence base.     

The Joint Development of Traditional Bullying and Victimization With Cyber Bullying and Victimization in Adolescence

The present study investigated the stabilities of and interrelationships among traditional (i.e., face‐to‐face) bullying, traditional victimhood, cyber bullying, and cyber victimhood among adolescents over time. About 1,700 adolescents aged 11–16 years at Time 1 self‐reported levels of both bullying and victimization in four contexts (in school, outside of school, texting, and on‐line) annually for 2 years. Results indicated that all four dynamics were moderately stable over time. The following variables were found to bidirectionally reinforce and predict each other over time: traditional bullying and traditional victimization; traditional bullying and cyber bullying; and traditional victimization and cyber victimization. These results indicate that bullying and victimhood in both face‐to‐face and cyber‐based interactions are related but not identical interpersonal dynamics.     

Schools,Bullying, and Inequality: Intersecting Factors and Complexities with the Stratification of Youth Victimization at School

Bullying within United States (US) schools is a growing concern among parents, school officials and policymakers. In early 2011, the first‐ever White House Conference on Bullying Prevention was held in hope of addressing bullying within US schools. Although the social, political, and media attention is increasing, it is important to consider the complexities and disparities associated with school bullying. In this article, four of the wide array of influences that increase the vulnerabilities of youth to be a victim of bullying at school are reviewed: (i) race and ethnicity, (ii) being and immigrant, (iii) gender, and; (iv) sexual orientation. Understanding and acknowledging the inequalities associated with school bullying, as well as the policies implemented in response, is instrumental for the US’ efforts towards providing safe, healthy, and democratic learning environments.     

Distressed Bullies,Social Positioning and Odd Victims: Young People's Explanations of Bullying

The aim of the present study was to investigate to what degree teenagers agree with bullying explanation statements that could be categorised as the odd victim explanation, bully's social positioning explanation, or the distressed bully explanation. A second aim was to investigate how these types of bullying explanations might be associated with gender and self‐reported prior bullying roles. Three hundred and fifty teenagers, attending three upper secondary schools in a medium‐sized Swedish town, completed a questionnaire. Although the teenagers were prone to agree with all three types of bullying explanations, they were more inclined to think that bullying occurs because the bully wants power or status. Girls were more inclined than boys to think that bullying takes place because the bullies have their own problems. The more the teenagers thought that bullying occurs because the victims are odd, different or deviant, the more they have been involved in bullying situations as bullies or reinforcers. The more the teenagers thought that bullying occurs because the bully has psychosocial problems, the more they have been involved as defenders and the less as bullies or reinforcers in bullying situations.     

Bullying Victimization Trajectories for Sexual Minority Adolescents: Stable Victims,Desisters, and Late‐Onset Victims

Sexual minority adolescents are bullied more frequently than heterosexual peers. Research is lacking on their rates of general and sexual orientation bullying victimization. The present study identified (1) the rate, onset, and desistance of general and sexual orientation bullying victimization, (2) the rate of bullying victimization trajectories, and (3) risk and protective factors across trajectories. A life history calendar method and thematic analysis were employed with a sexual minority adolescent sample (N = 52, 14–20 y/o). General bullying began at age 5 and declined after age 12, with sexual orientation bullying increasing throughout adolescence. Late‐onset victim (34.6%) was the most common trajectory, followed by stable victim (28.9%), desister (23.1%), and nonvictim (13.5%). Differences in risk and protective factors were found across trajectories.     

Gay‐Straight Alliances,Inclusive Policy,and School Climate: LGBTQ Youths’ Experiences of Social Support and Bullying

Gay‐Straight Alliances (GSA) and school policies focused on support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning youth may reduce bias‐based bullying and enhance social supports in schools. Using multivariate regression, we tested the relationship between youth reports of the presence of GSAs and LGBTQ‐focused policies, independently and mutually, with experiences bullying and perceived support (n = 1,061). Youth reported higher classmate support in the presence of GSAs and higher teacher support in the presence of LGBTQ‐focused policies; the presence of both GSAs and LGBTQ‐focused policies was associated with less bullying and higher perceived classmate and teacher support. The findings indicate that GSAs and LGBTQ‐focused policies are distinctly and mutually important for fostering safer and more supportive school climates for youth.     

Processualizing Data: Variants of Process‐Produced Data

The greatly increased importance of diachronic process perspectives in the social sciences has led to process‐produced data (PPD) becoming one of the main topics of this debate. However, its current use is peculiarly ambivalent. It oscillates between substantialist understandings and self‐evident use. This article stresses the beforehand conceptual decisions made by the researcher that eventually define data, that is, which materials become PPD. Because process‐oriented research rests on heterogenous conceptions of temporality, it is especially these conceptions researchers must make transparent. Drawing on social constructivism, extended by path dependency, happenings, and events, the article exemplifies one conceptual foundation and, using insights from two research projects (historical discussion circles and trajectories of digital infrastructures), a particular specification of PPD. The article thus contributes to the necessary methodological reflection on PPD, and, at the same time, responds to the need for diachronic social research in order to grasp contemporary processes of digitalization.     

Bullying and harassment in schools and the rights of children

By the year 2000, the issue of school bullying has come to occupy a prominent role in the national consciousness of many countries. There has been considerable media publicity, many publications, a great deal of research, and the beginnings of successful school‐based interventions to reduce bullying. In this article I define the term bullying, and discuss the history of the recent upsurge in interest and research. I then overview main findings concerning the nature of school bullying, the school‐based intervention work so far, and the implications for future research and action. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A multi‐faceted power analysis of men's violence to known women: from hegemonic masculinity to the hegemony of men

This article presents a multi‐faceted power analysis of men's violence to known women, by way of assessing two main perspectives on research in men and masculinities: first, that founded on hegemonic masculinity, and, second, that based on the hegemony of men. Each perspective is interrogated in terms of understandings of men's violence to known women. These approaches are articulated in relation to empirical research, and conceptual and theoretical analysis. Thus this article addresses to what extent hegemonic masculinity and the hegemony of men, respectively, are useful concepts for explaining and engaging with men's violence to known women? The article concludes with discussion of more general implications of this analysis.     

Missing Structure: A Critical Content Analysis of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program

School bullying is dominantly understood as an individualistic phenomenon, overlooking the sociostructural environment that creates and maintains it. A critical content analysis reveals that the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program is similarly lacking. The programme labels students as bullies and victims, ascribes these groups’ particular character traits, sidelines issues of bias and at times reproduces norms that foster bullying. The programme hyperfocuses on real‐time manifestations of bullying incidents, attempting to end bullying through universal monitoring of students and student compliance with anti‐bullying rules. It is argued that efforts to reduce school bullying should address both its individualistic and structural determinants.     

Stopping Child Bullying: Educators' Diverse Approaches for School Improvement

This original case-study research investigates educational professionals' answers to survey questions regarding how to eradicate child bullying. Twenty school professionals from two different schools—one school at the elementary level and the other school at the high school level—detailed their own particular bullying problems they see while serving in their own unique leadership capacity role and learning organization and what proactive initiatives they have modeled or participated in either individually or collectively to stop school bullying. Educational professionals were asked to detail any school-based policies already set in place or any procedural guidelines that will soon become implemented regarding stopping child bullying. Of the study results from participants, findings demonstrate that more critically intensive focus should be placed on school bullying by district wide anti-bully programs and being more frequently assessed. The survey is included at the end of this article (see Appendix).     

Newborns' Mooney‐Face Perception

The aim of this study is to investigate whether newborns detect a face on the basis of a Gestalt representation based on first‐order relational information (i.e., the basic arrangement of face features) by using Mooney stimuli. The incomplete 2‐tone Mooney stimuli were used because they preclude focusing both on the local features (i.e., the fine details of the individual features) and on the second‐order relational information (i.e., the distance between the internal elements); therefore, face detection can rely only on a Gestalt representation of a face. Two experiments were carried out by using a preferential looking procedure. Experiment 1 demonstrated that newborns prefer upright Mooney faces to inverted Mooney faces (180° rotated). Experiment 2 showed that newborns prefer a Mooney face as compared to a Mooney‐like object equated for the number of elements in the upper part. Overall, the results indicate that newborns bind and organize the fragmentary parts of the Mooneized face stimulus into a whole and detect the first‐order relations of a face on the basis of holistic processing.     

Bullying Behaviour in Children and Adolescents in Ireland

SUMMARY: This article comprises an overview of bullying behaviour of Irish children. Data from Irish studies are compared with international findings. Results in relation to personality factors of children involved in bullying behaviour are published for the first time. There are also some preliminary results from the author's recent nationwide study of bullying behaviour.     

Conflict Resolution,Restorative Justice Approaches and Bullying in Young People’s Residential Units

Restorative justice has been an increasing feature in the discourses within adult and youth justice criminal justice systems in recent years. This article examines interpersonal conflicts arising from crime, bullying and antisocial behaviour in residential care, and the advantages and disadvantages of utilising such approaches in relation to these forms of conflict, based upon an evaluation of restorative principles and approaches from the perspectives of young people, residential workers and managers. The article sets out how the staff in the units studied modified restorative justice approaches to take into account the specific relationships within group care settings.     

The Social Production of Bullying: Expanding the Repertoire of Approaches to Group Dynamics

Bullying research has widely included group dynamics as contextual factors. However, explanations addressing the causes of bullying predominantly emphasise individual dysfunctions related to aggression and empathy. Analysing qualitative data from Norwegian schools, this article explores four different group dynamics that may produce bullying behaviours as well as deactivate empathy. Drawing on theories of social hierarchies and ingroups/outgroups, the article offers new approaches to understanding the ways in which the intense markings of social distinctions between positions and cliques in peer culture represent significant social driving forces in school bullying.     

International labour migration and tacit knowledge transactions: a multi‐level perspective

Abstract There has been limited research on the role of international migration in the transfer of tacit knowledge, as opposed to skills and capital. In part, this results from lack of engagement between research on migration and that on knowledge and learning, even in debates concerning the relative importance of distanciated versus localized knowledge transfers. However, positioning international migration in relation to the literature on knowledge management opens up new perspectives on its role in the overall transfer of knowledge in the economy. Starting from the premise that all tacit knowledge transactions are socially situated, in this article I set out a multi‐level approach to understanding the role of migrants in knowledge exchanges. The national, the urban and the firm constitute key levels in this study, although these are understood as interfolded rather than as discrete sites of analysis.     

Bullying and ethnic diversity: investigating their relation in the school setting

This particular study investigated school bullying in relation to ethnic diversity in Cyprus. The research involved 469, 8–14 years old pupils of Cypriot origin and 83 pupils of non-Cypriot origin. Two different questionnaires, one for Cypriot and one for non-Cypriot students, were used and data was analyzed using the SPSS statistical package. The findings showed that ethnic diversity seems to be a factor that can precipitate school bullying and victimization in Cypriot primary and secondary schools, that non-Cypriot students feel more victimized than their Cypriot classmates and that they prefer to share their experiences relating to bullying with someone outside of the school. Additionally, the study revealed that verbal and psychological bullying were the most common kinds of bullying that Cypriot and non-Cypriot students faced, and that both groups limit their knowledge of each other to ‘songs, language, food and games’. The study also showed that the teacher’s role in facing and preventing bullying related to ethno-cultural diversity is critical. Finally, citizenship education and the use of mediation techniques are proposed as a means to foster non- Cypriot students’ social inclusion and, thus, prevent their victimization.     

School Bullying as a Collective Action: Stigma Processes and Identity Struggling

The aim of this study was to investigate the collective action of bullying and its stigma processes and influences on identities. In accordance with interactionism, identity is a social process, constructed and reconstructed in everyday social interactions. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in four school classes, investigating six bullying cases. Grounded theory methods were used to explore and analyse data. Co‐constructing differentness was found to be a core process in bullying. Bullying often appeared to function like a self‐serving and socially inclusive ritual in which the bullies co‐constructed the ‘normal us’. Loss of belonging, self‐deprecation and identity struggling followed closely upon the sense of becoming socially discredited. Victims were trapped in the collective action. The findings highlight the significance of addressing peer cultures and the social psychology of everyday school life in anti‐bullying policies and practices.     

Understanding Bullying in an Affluent,Academically Rigorous U.S. High School: A Grounded Theory Analysis

Students and staff members from a U.S. high school were asked to discuss their understanding of bullying within the context of their school social environment. Findings from the grounded theory analysis suggest that understandings of bullying are socially constructed and that how bullying is understood is influenced by context and by the negotiation of identity within that context. Furthermore, subjects focused on drama, a form of social interaction considered far more common than bullying. Findings suggest that research on bullying may benefit from shifting its emphasis on defining bullying and establishing prevalence, to exploring youths' contextual and developmental perspectives.