NEEDS ASSESSMENT AND AWARENESS RAISING PROGRAMME FOR BULLYING IN SCHOOLS :YOUNG PEOPLE S VIEWS IN RE

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NEEDS ASSESSMENT AND AWARENESS RAISING PROGRAMME
FOR BULLYING IN SCHOOLSYOUNG PEOPLE S VIEWS IN
RELATION TO EVALUATION ISSUES AND BEST SCHOOL
PRACTICES
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ISPA 2007 COLLOQUIUM

• IOANNA BIBOU-NAKOU, ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF
  THESSALONIKI ASSOCIATION FOR THE PSYCHOLOGICAL
  HEALTH OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS, GREECE

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Theoretical background

• The study is informed by theoretical developments
  in the sociology of childhood, which emphasize
  children as social actors and as active in the
  negotiation and construction of social reality
  (James, Prout, Qvortrup). It is also prompted by
  developments in social policy, including a focus
  on childrens rights and the need to consult
  children and young people about issues of concern
  to them, principles embedded in the UN Convention
  on the Rights of the Child.

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Why to address students as main informants?

• This is significant because
• Young peoples perceptions of their worlds are
  needed, since actions are dependent not so much
  on what outsiders see as an objective reality,
  but more on how children understand and interpret
  their social worlds.

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• Adults tend to underestimate childrens knowledge
  and experiences. In looking at their ideas
  regarding ways to deal with bullies,
  practitioners can generate intervention models
  adequate enough to tackle the issue

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• Childrens views are intrinsically valuable since
  they reveal how do they explain, experience and
  manage bullying, as social actors.

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• The tendency of adults to dismiss bullying as a
  phase of growing up common to childhood makes it
  doubly difficult for a child to gain recognition
  as a victim (Deakin, 2006).

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• Process
• Access to four schools (one was in a
  disadvantaged area in the western areas of the
  city, one in the eastern area of the city and two
  in the center) was gained from the national and
  local authority education department, followed by
  the head teachers of individual schools.

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• FOCUS GROUPS are distinguishable from group
  interview by the explicit use of group
  interactions. Instead of asking question of each
  person in turn, focus group researchers encourage
  participants to talk to one another.

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• We did not focus on bullying, since we argue that
  what constitutes a problem and therefore what
  constitutes a legitimate issue for which help can
  be sought, is constantly negotiated and
  renegotiated by the stakeholders themselves. We
  did not want to create and impose our definitions
  of the situation and discover the social
  problem of bullying on young people we would
  rather expect from young people to define what
  problems are legitimate, and in consequence,
  problems for which society would expect them to
  seek help (Murray, 2006).

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Focus groups interview

• How do they form their social relationships at
  school, with whom, how do they feel,
• What about their relationships with adults at
  school,
• Who are friends or not, what are they like, what
  feelings do they evoke, ways of cultivating,
  testing and maintaining friendships, and
  developing a social identity
• Issues of disputes and conflict in peer
  relations,
• How are conflicts important in their daily
  activities and peer cultures, issues on
  cooperation and competition,
• Sources of support,
• Incidence of bad experiences in terms of their
  social relationships at school
• How social distance and separation toward peers'
  unfriendly behavior are managed.

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• If the narrative of bullying emerges, the
  interview protocol with children needs to assess
  the following
• Nature of bullying
• Impact of living with bullying
• Adverse impact on relationships and children's
  welfare
• Coping strategies
• Responses of helping agencies
• Long-term impact

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• Fourteen focus groups were run from 4
  high-schools, each comprising from 5-8 children
  (91 young people). Twelve of these were mixed,
  whereas two were only girls/boys.
• Innovative Three focus groups were peer led by
  the young people themselves without an adult
  facilitator.

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• Why in high school children?
• There is evidence to suggest that ages 12-14
  represent the peak of childrens experiences of
  harassment, physical assault and sexual
  victimization (Deakin, 2006. Aye Maung, 1995).
  This evidence may reflect an increase in exposure
  to new and potentially victimizing situations and
  a decrease in the level of adult supervision as
  children experience more independence.

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Preliminary findings from the focus groups with
children

• Schools policy regarding bullying
• In general, there was an absence of policy.
  Whilst warnings about stranger danger posed by
  adults and use of drugs are offered to pupils,
  schools dont offer sensitive, low-key advice to
  students about bullying !!!!!

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• In respect of the extent of bullying stories in
  the 14 focus group interviews, in seven out of
  the 14 focus groups, young people recounted one
  or more incidents of bullying of them or their
  peers, often in considerable detail. The
  prominence of bullying stories in the interviews
  is indicative that young people perceive bullying
  to have legitimacy.

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Friendships constructed as learning morality in
peer groups

• Revealing intimate information leads to awareness
  of two moral issues the issue of norms of true
  friendship and the issue of dilemma between
  conforming to group norms and asserting personal
  opinions.
• The theme of hiding ones feeling was eminent.
  Young people would prefer to keep personal
  matters secret, because once known, they will
  lead to teasing We cant trust people nowadays,
  they would laugh at us, they tease us, there is
  no trust.

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Co-constructing identities and social images

• Different ways in which young people are
  negotiating the pressure to conform to and to
  differentiate themselves from peer norms. We need
  to look into them carefully (preliminary thematic
  units)

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Help-seeking behaviour

• Adults trivialize, dismiss and ignore young
  peoples problems and this was particularly
  evident in respect of childrens relationship
  difficulties, which were not often taken
  seriously by adults, both parents and educational
  staff.

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Preliminary thematic units

• Some young people would struggle for words in
  negotiating victims experiences, especially boys
• Some would talk little about the consequences of
  bullying for victims rather they would
  concentrate on adequate ways of dealing with it.

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Preliminary thematic units

• Bullying was framed as fight playing among
  boys.
• Some young people would adopt bullying in order
  to fit in with the peer group.
• Some children express little sympathy for
  victims, arguing that they should stand up for
  themselves and that bullying toughens up a
  weak child who tends to be passive.

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Preliminary thematic units

• Some would exhibit nervousness by laughing aloud
  at seemingly inappropriate times, or
  underestimating the act itself. Mainly, these
  were boys and being bullied severely during the
  previous school years or had witnessed severe
  domestic abuse.

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Preliminary thematic units

• Fear of doing badly at school or in examinations,
  whilst apparently being unrelated to
  victimization, causes serious concern for the
  majority of children.

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Preliminary thematic units

• Fear of the imbalance of power on behalf of the
  head-teacher and some educators. Young people
  would acknowledge events of victimization and
  racial discrimination on behalf of some of the
  educational staff and would feel helpless
  (prominent in one of the four schools).

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Preliminary thematic units

• The childrens rights are not acknowledged in the
  school setting. An event of school exclusion that
  occurred during the data collection emerged as a
  central issue in the childrens accounts
  regarding school and home relations (1st school).
  Lack of negotiation.

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Gender issues

• Girls tend to have a smaller group of friends
  than boys do. They expect and receive more
  commitment, loyalty and empathic understanding
  from their best friends than boys do, and they
  are more likely to have intimate, self-disclosing
  relationships.

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Gender issues

• Boys and girls tend to use different means to
  settle disputes. Girls would use more
  compromising behaviour and a lot of talk, whereas
  boys employed more direct, physical forms of
  aggression as a means of solving their disputes.

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Gender issues

• Girls struggle verbally with the complexities of
  peer relationships, and they talk at length about
  their situation at school. Discussion and
  compromise appeared to play a vital role. Boys,
  in contrast, answer in short bursts, typically
  referring to a very specific event in their
  interpersonal issues or brief and clear
  statements that they dont understand the issue
  under discussion.

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Gender issues

• Boys and girls are at risk of different types of
  victimization, with boys experiencing more
  physical assaults and girls being more vulnerable
  to other forms of harassment
• Boys spoke of engaging in bully-like behaviour,
  but did not define it as bullying.

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Coping strategies on behalf of the children

• Dead end when a young person is offered no
  resolution to their problem
• I told teacher .. she said that I should not
  be so sensitive.
• Backfiring I told my mum but she started
  shouting at me.
• If I tell my teacher, he would send me to the
  head-teachers
• Circuitous I told Ms Helen, she said its
  nothing, then I had to talk to my parents

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Coping strategies on behalf of the children

• Via an intermediary A girl came over and asked
  me how she could help her friend
• Shaped I want you to come at school but talk to
  the head-teacher and not Ms X
• Direct I went to the head-teachers office and
  he sorted it out.

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DISCUSSION

• Research which seeks the views of children and
  young people themselves reveals that the majority
  of young people seem satisfied with their lives
  a small but significant proportion report serious
  unhappiness revolving around problems with
  friends, tensions with and between parents, and
  problems with school and personal appearance.
• Bullying between them emerges as a significant
  issue for many children.
• There are important differences between them in
  terms of their worries and willingness to express
  these girls tend to report more worries than
  boys while older children tend to report more
  worries than younger children (1st and 3rd
  grade).

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DISCUSSION

• Childrens /young people's help-seeking behaviour
  is determined by the subjective meaning which
  they give to events and this is often at variance
  with what adults might expect. It is not always
  the originating problem which causes the 'worst
  experience' but the secrets and difficulties
  associated with it (Butler and Williamson, 1994,
  1996). A lack of information or explanation and a
  sense of helplessness can create as much, if not
  more, distress than the original problem itself.

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DISCUSSION

• We believe that by listening to the meaning
  imputed to such experiences by the young people
  concerned can those seeking to support and help
  them secure a measure of understanding of how
  these experiences are affecting them and what
  they want done about it. Professionals grossly
  underestimate the meanings imputed to the
  experiences by the key actors, particularly the
  children and young people themselves