Bullying is a very painful and difficult topic for all members of the school community. Almost everyone has experience with bullying situations in one role or another, and this experience is usually traumatic, poorly understood and not tied to a consistent algorithm for ending such situations. Despite numerous foreign studies showing the negative consequences of bullying situations for both direct participants and witnesses of bullying, the main strategy for responding to this topic in the Russian context is avoidance and silence.
The most common definition is proposed by D. Olveus: bullying is systematic targeted aggressive behavior if the participants in the situation are unequal in strength/power/status [17]. There are also similar concepts: victimization (USA; the victim's feelings are emphasized, while the intentions of the stalker are almost ignored); mobbing (Scandinavian countries; usually involves group harassment of the victim); ijime (Japan; characterizes not only direct acts of aggression, but also social manipulation) [14].
Due to the fact that the educational process in schools is largely based on competition and assessing children's competitiveness, it is not surprising that there is a lot of aggression in children's groups. It can be implemented constructively, promoting interest in each other and mutual learning, but it can also be destructive, expressed in situations and relationships of bullying between children that are unequal in status, power or strength. Systematic persecution of some people by others usually performs the function of social regulation of statuses (both for children and adults) and has many negative consequences: violation of subjective safety, habit of violence, recognition of power as the main value in relationships, the silent position of witnesses, etc. [2; 9].
Psychological researchers, describing the phenomenology of bullying, distinguish between direct bullying (beating a child, calling him names, teasing him, ruining his things or taking money away from him) and indirect bullying (rumors and gossip about the child, boycotting him, avoiding him, manipulating friendship: “If you are friends with her, we are not friends with you”). However, for someone who is faced with bullying situations and is not a psychologist, the manifestations of direct and indirect bullying obviously have different meanings and completely different levels of visibility. Physical and verbal aggressions are obvious, their negative impact is understandable, and in general, school communities tend to stop them. Indirect bullying is more difficult to see and its impact is not so clearly negative, although it is indirect bullying that leads to more serious consequences [13].
The teacher is a key figure in how the classroom bullying story is constructed. As a rule, it is he who labels situations as requiring or not requiring specialist intervention, and his solution is a kind of prism [1], through which students continue to relate to what is happening: consider bullying an everyday phenomenon, a useful pedagogical effect, or a destructive element of class life.
UK Department of Education documents recommend that teachers “resolutely combat bullying”1. However, as C. Lee emphasizes, the disadvantage of a large number of bullying studies is the default definitions that need to be clarified, approved and transferred from implicit to conventional [14]. Teachers' understanding of bullying creates the basis for further work to prevent and stop it, and it is all the more important that their understanding be consistent with that expected by developers of prevention programs. T.M. Hazler and colleagues [11] and M. Boulton [7] showed that both students and teachers most often identify bullying with physical violence. When ranking signs of bullying, teachers put verbal threats, hitting, pushing and kicking, forcing a child to do something first; ignoring and laughing at someone's failure last [7]. In an extensive study of how schoolchildren and teachers differ about bullying situations and their severity, it was shown that manifestations of indirect bullying are much less likely to be perceived as bullying and are assessed as less serious than direct bullying. School staff tend to define a wider range of situations as bullying and rate them as more serious than students [15].
The general tendency to focus on verbal and physical aggression results in indirect bullying being assessed as less severe and more normative: students are more likely to engage in it and provide less support to the victim; teachers are less likely to learn about it and react to it less often. Verbal attacks and social exclusion that adults do not witness are considered even less dangerous and are even less likely to become a reason for specialist interventions. Sexually colored comments and gestures, discussed by children as frequent and unpleasant, may be seen by adults more as implicit and do not need to be reprimanded [16].
To effectively prevent situations of harassment, teachers need, on the one hand, to understand the main components of bullying, and, on the other hand, to be direct and flexible in recognizing these situations in children's stories, where bullying can appear in unexpected forms. C. Lee believes that the definition of bullying depends on time and culture and needs to be revised periodically [14].
Teachers can face bullying situations not only among students; they themselves are periodically bullied. “The stalker (re) also determines the “norm” and, through control techniques, such as ostracism, pressure, exclusion, successfully manipulates school culture” [10, p. 13]. The presence of bullying relationships in the school's work team almost devalues the results of any bullying prevention program between children, since the idea of desirable positive relationships in the community ceases to inspire confidence among both children and adults.
The organization of the work of the teaching staff has an impact on the prevalence of bullying at school: according to a study by E. Rulland in 15 Norwegian schools, “a direct relationship has been revealed between the quality of management, the cooperation of colleagues and harmony in the team... A low level of school organization contributes to the prevalence of mobbing among students, while a high level, on the contrary, reduces the likelihood of bullying” [6, p. 80]. A study of the relationship between the prevalence of mobbing in the classroom and the quality of class management (assessed by such indicators as individual work with each student, the ability to teach and organize, the ability to control, the ability to intervene in the situation and take active measures) showed that effective classroom management, firstly, directly reduces mobbing, and secondly, it has a positive effect on class structure (relations between students, learning efficiency and social norms), thus, indirectly also contributing to a decrease mobbing in class. “The final impact of competent class management is decisive, which, in turn, can only be the result of effective interaction between school management and teaching staff, and the coordination of work within the team” [6, p. 84].
Bullying ceased to be considered as part of the “normal” path of growing up only in the last 30—40 years, when ideas of learning through cooperation began to develop intensively and the vertical of power in teacher-student relationships became less obvious and necessary. However, myths about school bullying still thrive and contribute to its spread: bullying is a growing up moment; teachers can easily spot and stop bullying; bullying is caused by the child's exclusivity; some children will be bullied in any group, while others will never be bullied. The main tendency of these and similar myths is to grant amnesty to aggressors, blame victims, and support the non-intervention of witnesses [4; 5]. The main responsibility for the presence of bullying at school falls on teachers who directly or indirectly give permission to this form of relationship.
A study by B. Kochenderfer-Ladd and M.E. Pelletier showed links between teachers' beliefs and their ways of responding to bullying situations. Assertive teachers (bullying allows children to learn confidence and determination) tend to support the child in protecting themselves by giving advice and guidance to the child and involving parents. Teachers who accept bullying as the norm are less likely to be involved in bullying situations, are less likely to support the child's self-defense, and are less likely to involve parents. Teachers who support avoidance (there will be no bullying if bullied children avoid rude and aggressive children) are actively involved in increasing the distance between victim and stalker in the classroom space and help the child who is the victim find other schoolmates and play partners [12].
Few Russian works on bullying rarely mention teachers. The role of teachers in the dynamics of bullying is poorly understood. On the one hand, teachers are those who can prevent bullying situations; on the other hand, they can ignore these situations; on the third hand, they can support bullying, thus streamlining children's aggression and making the situation safe for themselves. S.N. Enikolopov, discussing the peculiarities of the situation of bullying at school and the psychological characteristics of persecutors (“bullies”), victims and teachers responding to them, says: “Teachers love such people. That's the whole thing. Bullies are people who, unlike ordinary hooligans who do something in the yard, on the streets, are often seen by teachers because they are nice, good and, most importantly, they know for sure that there is no need to do anything bad in front of regulatory authorities, including teachers. We have to do everything secretly, outside the school, and everything will work out.
Victims distance themselves from their parents, a closed position in communication, an unwillingness to communicate, a feeling of loneliness and indifference. Will teachers love them, and will they stand up for them as actively as they will stand up for bullies? Will they be found in some other way? Therefore, very often we can witness how teachers and teaching staff defend the bully, who was identified as a result of the victim's complaint, but by an external party: either by a psychological service to which they can complain, or by the police, and the teaching staff begins to defend him: he is a wonderful, good boy, and this is such a nasty lonely figure that no one wants to sit at a desk with. That's why he doesn't want to” [3]. This configuration forces children to come to terms with the situation of bullying; having a teacher (role model) who maintains unequal, disrespectful relationships increases polarization in the classroom and greatly increases the level of subjective insecurity among children.
There is currently no systematic work in Russia to prevent and stop bullying at school. The main ways to deal with existing episodes of bullying are working individually with those who find themselves in the role of aggressor and victim, and working with the class community. The main goals in this case are increasing the tolerance and self-regulation skills of aggressors, developing the social competence of bullied children, strengthening the atmosphere of mutual assistance and support, and mutual trust in the classroom.
However, abroad, people are increasingly talking about the need to deal with bullying at the systemic level. The US has begun to adopt laws aimed at stopping bullying: in 2011, 49 states out of 50 already had such laws [18].
Norway has developed the following key principles for effectively countering bullying at the school level.
As E. shows with numerous examples. Roland, the teacher's role in preventing and resolving bullying situations can be very significant. In his opinion, authoritative class management includes: prioritizing learning over socio-psychological processes in the classroom, the teacher's curiosity and methodological competence; building personal relationships with students; setting boundaries and clearly explaining what is unacceptable; gradually delegating responsibility for stopping bullying to students, growing children's initiative to monitor the safety of their classmates — which is especially important in situations where the teacher is absent [6].
Similar principles underlie D.'s world-renowned bullying prevention program. Olveus2: warmth, inclusion on the part of adults; restrictions on inappropriate behavior; coordinated use of sanctions for inappropriate behavior and rule violations; involvement of adults as role models.
Bullying prevention technologies usually include two levels. At the first level, we work with the psychological and pedagogical process as a whole, which simultaneously solves the problems of improving the psychological climate and increasing subjective safety in the classroom, preventing burnout among teachers, improving the quality of the educational process and preparing the school community for thematic work. The second level is devoted to thematic work on the problem of bullying and includes a more or less direct discussion of the topic of bullying and how to deal with it with children, teachers, and parents. It is extremely important that the formation of a clear and consistent understanding among all community members about the phenomenon of bullying and its consequences is preceded by the introduction of technologies to stop and prevent bullying.
As part of working with teachers to overcome the common attitude about the normality of bullying, the following are of great importance:
The involvement of students' parents in this work helps to increase the effectiveness of preventing bullying at school. The ability to recognize and discuss episodes of bullying, developing a joint action plan between teachers and parents to stop it enhances the coordination of adult actions, increases the degree of safety and certainty among children, and dispels the atmosphere of taboo about bullying and the silence about real incidents. Thus, the role of a teacher in preventing and suppressing bullying situations in the classroom can be very important. However, in order to prevent bullying effectively, it is necessary both to work with the beliefs of individual teachers and to coordinate personal pedagogical and administrative strategies and streamline them into a single coherent structure of the prevention system in which students and their parents can also participate. Teachers' silence, suppressed tension and powerlessness regarding bullying situations can be transformed into competent and open ways to respond, but this requires working to develop a clear, consistent and procedurally developed position of school staff, conveying the value of respectful relationships and the need to stop bullying.
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