The article analyzes the views of employees of the educational system, in particular teachers, about school bullying, its causes and consequences in the context of the educational process. Adult response tactics play an important role in escalating or stopping bullying in a children's team, so the article focuses on actual and presumably possible responses reported by respondents. The key conclusion of the results is that experts take the position of an active observer in relation to bullying situations and, despite being aware of how to deal with school bullying, prefer not to take effective actions to stop and prevent it. The possible reasons for this position and ways to transform it in order to implement bullying prevention programs are considered.
School bullying, or bullying, is defined as systematic targeted aggressive behavior, provided that participants are unequal in strength or power [19]. At the same time, the three key criteria for bullying are intentionality; regularity; inequality of power or power [20]. Abroad, this topic is being discussed within the framework of educational psychology as one of the most important: research is being carried out, programs are being developed to stop and prevent bullying, and even thematic conferences are being held. In Russia, the problem of school bullying is just beginning to acquire the status of a subject of discussion and research [3].
Russian studies of bullying mainly characterize its prevalence and do not always use this construct: we can talk about related concepts (for example, psychological violence). According to a study in Volgograd in the early 2000s, 13.5% of schoolchildren experienced violence at school more than once or twice [4]; according to 2009 data, 25% of modern Russian teenagers participated in bullying at least once [8]; about 13% of schoolchildren have the experience of victims of bullying and 20% have the experience of aggressors [5]. Another study showed that 42.8% of students in Moscow did not experience mental or physical violence by their classmates; at the same time, 46.6% occasionally experience mental violence (ridicule, bullying, ignoring) [9; 10].
The phenomenology of bullying in children's groups has been well studied in Europe and the United States, and it is possible to rely on foreign studies of direct and indirect forms of bullying and cyberbullying (bullying in virtual space using modern technologies) when developing intervention programs [13; 16; 19; et al.]. However, the teacher's role in escalating or ending bullying, in particular, the role of his beliefs about his work [1], remains unclear both in Russia and abroad [2].
One of the problems discussed is the lack of a consistent, conventional, common understanding of what bullying is for psychologists and educators. Many texts and instructions contain default terms that, without clarification and agreement, can be interpreted by participants in completely different ways [17]. The guide for school teachers defined bullying as a deliberate, conscious desire to harm, threaten, or make someone afraid in physical, verbal, or emotional ways, including physical trauma, threats, humiliation, teasing, and name-calling, which can be either a separate episode or repeated systematically [17]. However, studies show that both students and teachers most often identify bullying as physical abuse. First of all, teachers identify bullying as verbal threats, hitting, pushing and kicking, forcing a child to do something; last of all, ignoring and laughing at someone's failure [12; 14]. A study of ideas about bullying, using the example of discussing specific situations with the participation of 1302 respondents (teachers and schoolchildren), showed that both are significantly more likely to regard beating, name-calling, threats, damage to things (i.e. direct bullying) as manifestations of bullying than rumors, gossip and social exclusion (manifestations of indirect bullying). At the same time, school staff tend to classify a wider range of situations as bullying than students [18].
The second key topic is teachers' responses to bullying situations. For a long time, school bullying was seen as a natural element of a child's socialization in a study group. Many examples of this can be found in literature describing various educational institutions, including closed and privileged ones. It is only in the past few decades that ideas about the negative consequences of bullying and alternative ways of building relationships through education have begun to gain momentum. However, the myths that accompany the bullying are still valid and find their supporters, amnesty aggressors, accuse victims and support the non-intervention of witnesses (i.e., strengthen the configuration of relationships characteristic of bullying) [6; 7].
In a study of the relationship between teachers' beliefs about bullying and their ways of responding to it, the following patterns were found. Teachers who believe that bullying allows children to learn confidence and determination tend to support children in their ability to protect themselves, give advice, and involve parents in the situation. Teachers who accept bullying as the norm are less likely to get involved in bullying situations, are less likely to support a child who is a victim, and are less likely to involve parents in the situation. Teachers who believe that bullying will stop if offended children avoid aggressors are actively involved in increasing the distance between the victim and the stalker, in finding new deskmates and play partners for the child who has been harassed [15].
The authors of effective applied programs to prevent and stop bullying mainly focus on the psychological climate and interpersonal relationships in the classroom and school as a whole. The D. program, which is actively distributed in Scandinavia and the United States. Olveus [21] involves training all school staff (teachers, administration, cleaners, cafeteria workers, school bus driver, etc.) in respectful relationships and prompt response to bullying situations so that any adult at school can act as a role model for children and communicate without supporting bullying. Danish specialists from Mobbeland [11] focus on the social nature of bullying and, as part of their programs, work with entire classes, without singling out the role of the aggressor or victim.
There are no specialists in Russia who work specifically with the problem of bullying, so teachers are mainly responsible for this problem. Based on the views of researchers such as D. Olveus, K. Salmivalli, E. Ruland, K. Buarafan, B. Cohenderfer-Ladd, M.E. Pelletier, M. Boulton and others, we conducted an empirical study that sought answers to three key questions:
A specially designed questionnaire was used as a method, including 17 open-ended and composite questions, as well as several questions about personal data
The answers were then processed by two experts through content analysis. Since bullying in the school environment is usually a topic that is usually kept silent about, we realized that this questionnaire (in particular, specific leading questions) turned the survey process from a diagnostic procedure into an intervention that legalizes the opportunity to discuss bullying and how to deal with it and focuses respondents' attention on its important aspects (for example, on the consequences of bullying for different categories of participants). Therefore, the answers can be interpreted not so much as the actual views of respondents, from which they base their daily practice, but as a result of their work in the zone of immediate development. When formulated at the time of the survey, these ideas may slightly change the daily practice of respondents in the future towards greater awareness when dealing with bullying situations. Some questions were partly duplicative, and some respondents were rarely answered, so they are not discussed in this article.
The sample consisted of 123 respondents: 104 employees of educational institutions (57 teachers, 21 psychologists, 8 social pedagogues, 4 administrators, 6 kindergarten teachers, etc.) and 19 students of the Faculty of Educational Psychology of the Moscow State Pedagogical University (future psychologists in the education system); 92% of respondents were women. The survey was conducted in a number of educational institutions in Moscow (37 respondents), Novosibirsk (24 respondents) and Lytkarino, Moscow Region (20 respondents), during internship (students), as well as through an online survey (23 respondents). Not all participants indicated their work experience, but it ranges from 0 (students) to 40 years (experienced teachers) and the average is at least 9 years.
Figure 1 lists the signs that indicate to respondents that bullying may be happening in the classroom. Physical and verbal types of aggression are mostly mentioned by them together, or are not differentiated (“aggression”), so they are combined on the histogram. It can be noted that among the most “popular” signs are not only physical and verbal aggression, but also, less obviously, traumatic behaviors, such as humiliation, ridicule, negative comments, neglect and ignoring (mentioned by more than half of the respondents, which differs from foreign studies). As expected, references to gossip and rumors (1 response) and generally negative relationships in class (2 answers) are very rare. In general, we can talk about a wide range of situations defined as manifestations of bullying, and that respondents are quite competent in recognizing bullying.
As mentioned above, there are myths about bullying that support the structure of accusing the victim and granting amnesty to the persecutors. It is important to clarify how these myths are common among educational staff. The survey results showed that, according to respondents, victim characteristics are common, but not the only reason for bullying in the classroom. Answering a composite question regarding the reasons for the escalation of bullying and the reasons for participating in it, respondents mostly mentioned the following (the share of respondents who answered this way is shown in brackets).
[[1]]
Figure 1. Signs of bullying (% of respondents)
In general, two stable patterns can be seen among the most common answers.
During the survey, a complex question was asked about the consequences of bullying for different categories of participants (victims, persecutors, witnesses, teachers), as well as for the entire class and the educational process. At the same time, the focus is deliberately shifting from talking about bullying as a personal history of the relationship between the stalker and the victim to presenting it as a socio-dynamic process that characterizes the entire class. Respondents gave fairly consistent answers, listing a series of consequences that are quite consistent with foreign research data. The most common ideas about the consequences of bullying are listed below (the percentage of respondents giving such an answer is in brackets).
If we look at the contribution of various “targets” to the overall view of the consequences of bullying (Figure 2), we can see that most of these consequences (29%) fall on the victim, which corresponds to everyday ideas that bullying is a traumatic process for the victim. However, quite a few diverse (almost always negative) consequences are considered in relation to the pursuer, witnesses, teachers, and the class as a whole. It should be noted that 18% of respondents say that the situation of bullying faced by school staff provides an opportunity for professional growth and development of their own competence.
[[2]]
Figure 2. Distribution of the mentioned consequences (shares of all mentioned consequences by “targets”)
The most practical issue is the response of adults to bullying situations. Respondents listed a) ways of responding they knew, b) ways of responding that they had personally tried and could describe as effective or ineffective, and c) responses that they believed exacerbated bullying relationships in the group. The most common answers are shown in Figure 3 (as a percentage of respondents who gave such answers).
[[3]]
Figure 3. Ways to respond to bullying situations (% of respondents)
What do you see from this chart? First, it is striking that ideas about how to respond to bullying situations are quite consistent: the answers are not very diverse, but they are repeated many times. Secondly, general formulations are typical: column titles are the result of a generalization of answers that indicate mainly the procedural rather than the substantive aspect of the work. “Class discussion” and “individual conversations” are a form of activity that is free to interpret and does not allow us to judge its potential success. For example, about 20% of respondents tried “one-on-one conversations”, and in a quarter of cases this was considered an ineffective way to respond, but it is impossible to know how these conversations were structured, what they are about, and what determines whether they turned out to be an effective or ineffective tool. Thirdly, the gap between theoretical ideas about how to respond to bullying in principle (the highest columns; almost half of the respondents talk about individual conversations and parental involvement, more than a third talk about classroom discussions, etc.) and real experience
you can rely on and which you can describe.
This is the most important result of the study: there is a serious discrepancy between respondents' ideas about possible behavior and actual behavioral experience when faced with bullying situations. The frequency of mentioning certain methods as possible is much higher than the frequency of mentioning the same methods as tried ones. This gap suggests that there are some factors that stop school staff from actively responding to bullying situations. This can be about different things: lack of competence (the topic of bullying is hardly discussed in the psychological and pedagogical context, and no clear practical response algorithms have been developed); about the secondary benefit of teachers from having a pronounced outsider and leader in the group (aggression is located within the student group, leaving teachers in psychological safety); about the impossibility of overcoming relationships based on inequality of power in the context of school — hierarchical pyramids, where bullying relationships can be represented at different levels; about agreement with the current situation of bullying, etc. This topic needs further clarification. However, we can say that, despite the high level of awareness of educational system employees about the phenomenology of bullying, its causes and consequences, they demonstrate poor schemes for effectively responding to situations of bullying.
Figure 4 shows answers to the question of what behaviors, in the opinion of respondents, contribute to exacerbating bullying situations in the classroom. The consistency of respondents' opinions on this issue is interesting. The first priority is “supporting bullying”, a rubric that recognizes the situation of bullying as normative, humiliating and oppressing a child who is a victim or other children, and demonstrating the value of relations of inequality of power as a tool for increasing status and authority. There are partial over*
[[4]]
Figure 4. Response methods that exacerbate bullying (% of respondents)
sections with the previous list: support for bullying, non-interference (also tested and recognized as ineffective), prohibition of bullying (which about 4% recognized as an effective method), as well as the involvement of the administration, protection and special care of the victim (almost 20% of respondents found effective) are listed as possible ways to respond to bullying that exacerbate it. The consistency of the answers and the partial coincidence with the list of tested methods show that respondents have a well-formed and clear idea of what exactly catalyzes bullying in teacher behavior.
First, respondents generally have an accurate idea of the forms of bullying and its course that is consistent with research data. Their description of bullying includes direct (verbal/physical aggression, ridicule, humiliation) and indirect (rejection, ignoring) forms, which generally indicates a fairly advanced level of recognition of the psychological situation in the classroom.
Secondly, we can distinguish two basic patterns in explanatory constructions in relation to bullying. The causes of bullying are described mainly in diagrams “xenophobia (class) — otherness (victim)” et “the need for power and authority (stalker) — fear of rejection (witnesses)”. Thus, ideas (possibly unreflected) are emerging about the socio-psychological prerequisites for bullying and the role of the atmosphere in the classroom, which can generate a certain type of relationship based on inequality of power.
Thirdly, respondents assume a wide range of negative consequences of bullying, affecting not only the victim and the stalker, but also witnesses and teachers, which indicates that they are likely motivated to avoid bullying situations.
Fourthly, the description of ways to respond to bullying shows a serious discrepancy between respondents' knowledge and their actual experience. The repertoire of possible responses is much broader than what has been tested in real work: theoretical knowledge is hardly implemented in professional practice. The position of school staff in relation to bullying, it can be indicated as an “active observer”: they understand bullying in detail, understand its causes and consequences, and know how to react to it, but their real attempts to respond to bullying situations are rare and ineffective.
As a prospect for further work, I would like to highlight the need to clarify the reasons why school staff are not actively responding to bullying situations, and the need to work with these reasons in order to increase motivation to stop and prevent bullying. They should precede broadband training for education staff and the introduction of a coordinated system for stopping and preventing bullying in schools. Only if there is a conscious and coordinated position of specialists on the inadmissibility of bullying can work to prevent it be effective.
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Source: Social Psychology and Society. 2015. Volume 6. No 1//Applied Research and Practice
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