What do we mean by bullying?
There have been
many different definitions and theories about what constitutes bullying, but
it’s not helpful to define bullying purely in terms of behaviour, bullying is both behaviour and impact.
Bullying is not about just any kind of injury, nor just any negative
impact. It involves a particular kind of harm. It is aimed at engendering a
kind of helplessness, an inability to act, to do anything. It is an assault on
a person’s agency (Sercombe and Donnelly 2012)
Bullying is a mixture of behaviours and impacts
which can impact on a person’s capacity to feel in control of themselves. This
is what we term as their sense of ‘agency’. Bullying takes place in the context
of relationships; it is behaviour that can make people feel hurt, threatened,
frightened and left out.
This
behaviour can include:
• Being called
names, teased, put down or threatened
• Being hit,
tripped, pushed or kicked
• Having
belongings taken or damaged
• Being ignored,
left out or having rumours spread about you
• Receiving abusive
messages on social media or phone
• Behaviour which
makes people feel like they are not in control of themselves
• Being targeted
because of who you are or who you are perceived to be
This
behaviour can harm people physically or emotionally and, although the actual
behaviour may not be repeated, the threat may be sustained over time, typically
by actions: looks, messages, confrontations, physical interventions, or the
fear of these. Bullying is both behaviour and impact.
Online bullying
Online bullying,
or Cyberbullying, is often the same type of behaviour but it takes place
online, usually on social networking sites. A person can be called names, threatened
or have rumours spread about
them and this can (like other behaviors) happen in person and can happen online.
Advances in
technology are simply providing an alternative means of reaching people – where
malicious messages were once written on school books or toilet walls, they can
now be sent via social media sites on mobile devices making their reach greater,
more immediate and much harder to remove or erase.
Some online
behaviour is illegal. Children and young people need to be made aware of the
far-reaching consequences of posting inappropriate or harmful content on
forums, websites, social networking platforms, etc. If a child or young person is being
treated or threatened in a sexual way or being pressured into doing something
that they don’t want to do, this is not bullying. There are laws to
protect children from this very serious type of behaviour.
Persistence and Intent
Bullying is not defined by persistence or intent. This is
relevant because if you were to look up definitions online and in peer reviewed
articles, the vast majority of these will refer to bullying as persistent and
deliberate behaviour.
We would argue that these are unhelpful criteria to apply to
all situations. So much time can be lost trying to apply a range of situational factors,
many of which are in fact subjective. Many incidents of bullying will include deliberate and repeated behaviour but these are not in our view, essential criteria to define bullying. Making these an essential criteria to be met excludes a significant amount of incidents of bullying that are not deliberate or necessarily repetitive. We know from our work with children and young people , that bullying takes many forms and something need only happen once to have a severe impact.
Let’s look at intent
– if you tell me bullying must be deliberate and then accuse me of bullying,
what is my first response? - That I
didn’t mean it. Intent is difficult to prove. It can tie situation up in knots
and the focus on responding to what someone did and the impact it had is lost.
Schools can waste a lot of time trying to prove intent –I
have been involved in examples when intent is denied the adults are stumped and
do not know how to proceed. We must look at what someone actually did and the
impact it had. If it wasn’t deliberate then they may be in a position to
apologise or make amends sooner – of it was it may merit a more serious
response.
Bullying is usually deliberate but not always – sometime
children use language they hear at home and have no idea of how offensive or
inappropriate it is. We should not get caught up in using this as qualifying
criteria though – it’s too easily re-framed
Let us now consider persistence
– that the behaviour must be repeated before it can be considered bullying –
again this is something we do not agree with and neither do most young people
we have spoken to. Persistence is difficult to define and also, is it more than
once? twice? daily? weekly? Who defines when it’s persistent enough to
intervene? Me, the person it is happening to or the intervening adult?
Something need only happen once and the impact can be severe; a child may not get
changed for PE after one incident were they were picked on, humiliated or threatened.
Is being humiliated by having your shorts pulled down in front of a class with
15 people laughing and pointing, some possibly taking a picture, bullying? Of course
it is, is it repetitive? It doesn’t matter, we focus on the behaviour and the
impact it had.
The fear of repetition can be sustained through looks or
perhaps threats or just the fear of it happening again.
What you do about bullying is actually more important than how you
define it.
We respond by asking;
What was the behaviour?
What impact did it have?
What do I need to do about it?
Every situation is unique. You might over hear some name calling in the corridor and discover this is chat between to close friends who are ‘winding’ each other up; it is not part of any power or dominance game.
What was the
behaviour? Name calling
What impact did it
have? None – made them laugh
What do I need to do
about it? Nothing – perhaps remind them about language or being overheard
You may hear the same name calling ten feet further on but
the person on the receiving end is upset and embarrassed in front of her peers.
What was the behaviour?
Name calling
What impact did it
have? Left someone embarrassed and fearful – who ran off
What do I need to do
about it? Help this person get back into her routine, listen to how she feels
and decide on next steps – you will need to challenge the people who called her
names and look at possible consequences too
This does not mean we only focus on the impact behaviour has
– this means that if someone shouts a homophobic or racist slur at someone and
it bounces off them and they don’t care –this does not mean you do not need to
do anything about the language used and the attempt to bully. Just because a
person is not affected does not mean the behaviour they experienced should be ignored.
Just as not all attempts to bully are successful, people can
feel bullied but not be – it is possible some people over react –you still need
to deal with their reaction and their feelings but you might not need to do
much about the behaviour the experienced – it could have been a harmless
comment not aimed at them but they have assumed it was and got into a terrible
state over it.
Focussing our
response
Bullying and Agency
So when we look at impact – things like feeling hurt, angry,
scared, frightened, that knot in your stomach- what is happening there? What do
these reactions tell us?
Young people have reflected to us over the years in a range
of ways that they feel unable to speak out and feel trapped when bullied – they draw
pictures of themselves in large rooms feeling caged and so on. This learning
helped us articulate the notion that bullying actually takes something away
from people.
All of these feelings which are regularly articulated
reflect a loss of being in-charge of yourself, of being capable of taking
effective action, of making choices and of being an effective actor or agent in
your own life.
When we use our agency, we have a degree of choice over what
we do and how we respond within structures like families, communities and
schools.
Young people get this notion
- as it can be a bit if a head scratcher the first time you hear it -
though when you explain a ‘typical day’ of meeting friends, going to school,
laughing, joining in and knowing what is happening and how you’ll respond most
children and young people recognise this day. Bullied children don’t have the
same kind of day. Someone else is in charge of how they feel, where they go
even or how they will participate in certain things, if they get on the bus or
eat alone. They cannot exercise the same choice nor have the same autonomy as
when they were not being bullied.
We learn from our past
experiences, from imagining what we would do in future similar situations and
what is happening to us now – these elements combine and enable us to make
choices and act – this is agency.
Managing change and responding to challenges requires hope, a
belief you can handle things - and agency and these underpin resilience.If we re-visit the quote -
Bullying is not about just any kind of injury, nor just any negative
impact. It involves a particular kind of harm. It is aimed at engendering a
kind of helplessness, an inability to act, to do anything. It is an assault on
a person’s agency (Sercombe and Donnelly 2012)
- we can see bullying is not even the establishment of dominance. The person
bullying is not satisfied with dominance. Bullying can involve the attempt to deny
another any settled place, even a subordinate one. It goes beyond subjection.
In bullying, the goal is abjection
What does this mean for how we respond?
Considering that bullying is both different types of
behaviour and a particular impact this should re-focusses our understanding of the
dynamic - this can re-define an approach to bullying in a way that helps practitioners’ responds
to feelings and actions. This is always more effective than checking off
criteria and having uniform sanction based responses based on our view of the person who is doing it.
If we can accept that bullying takes something away from
people, that they can no longer take effective action our response must focus
on helping get that back.
This is the real shift in anti-bullying practice – how do I
help someone get back a feeling of being in control of themselves and in a
place to take effective action to feel safe and get on with their day?
Things like moving desks or even just excluding people won’t
on their own help restore agency – young people must be included in what will
happen next and given the chance to steer what direction it goes in. They need
to be asked what they would like to happen and we need to take that seriously.
This is not always easy but it must remain our goal with
every intervention – to help young people get back to a place where they are in
control and can take effective action.
In reality – what does that look like? What does it sound
like? You will need to ask questions like
What would you like to happen?
What do you think will happen if I tell his or her parents?
What will happen if I tell your teacher?
What are you worried about?
Be prepared for them to say
Don’t tell my dad – you will out me to him and I’m not ready
for that
I just want you to know what is happening and if I need you
I will come and get you
If you talk to his dad he will get a doing/beating and it’ll
get worse
So you explore what options they do have and sometimes that
means pointing out that you need to do something as not doing anything is
dangerous
Open conversations
like these promote communication – this promotes positive relationships and
they promote and role model problem solving behaviours –these relationships can
become stronger and children become more resilient to what is happening because
of this strong purposeful relationship – even with just one person.
The process of
listening and consciously trying to get back agency – a sense of being on
control – won’t always lead to a perfect outcome but it will help the person
being bullied
Labelling
Bullying is not defined by the type of person who did it either
Bullying is not defined by the type of person who did it either
Care needs to be taken because labelling is not without its
risks, labelling a child or young person on the basis of bullying behaviour can
result in a confirmed identity as a ‘bully’ or ‘victim’ resulting in ongoing
behaviour patterns based on this identity.
This is not to dilute behaviour but is to keep the focus of
the adult’s responses on the behaviour that is problematic, rather than the
assigning characteristics to those involved. This is a solution focussed
approach that is designed to help people change the way they behave, rather
than attempt to change who they are. We help people change by telling them the
behaviour that is unacceptable, being clear that what they are doing is
bullying and that it needs to stop.
It is a fundamental part of behaviour management that we
tell people what the behaviour was they did, why it is not acceptable and help
them figure out what to do the next time they feel that way.
All of this promotes respectful relationships, this approach
builds a young person’s capacity to respond more effectively, when we are
helping young people learn to negotiate tricky relationships and when we involve
them in finding solutions and repairing those that can be fixed, we help them
to become more resilient.
Brian Donnelly
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