Transcript bullying - The Social Change Agency

Bullying, harassment and violence
Comprehensive support for school communities
Maria Delaney
Social Change Education
www.teachjustice.com.au
ABN: 87 985 351 975
Tel: (07) 3341 6773
Mobile: 0423 193 935
Email: [email protected]
• PhD student – Social justice and policy agency with/in the
education bureaucracy
• Senior Project Officer and Consultant for the national Safe
and Supportive School Communities project and the Bullying.
No Way! website (www.bullyingnoway.com.au)
• Advisory Group Member of the Australian Women Against
Violence Alliance (AWAVA) www.awava.org.au
• National Executive Member of the Association of Women
Educators (AWE) www.awe.asn.au
• Project Officer for the AWE Leading Social Change and White
Ribbon Day Everyday projects
• Project Leader for the Federal Government’s Success for
Boys Professional Learning Program
• Project Officer in the Education Queensland Gender Equity
Unit
• Manager of a migrant women’s shelter
• Board Member and Workshop Facilitator for the Eating
Disorders Association of Queensland.
Overview
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What is bullying?
Race, bullying and violence
Gender, bullying and violence
Approaches to bullying
Pedagogy not programs
Questions
There are no quick fixes
or easy answers
Bullying is a
complex problem
which requires
complex solutions
Reflection
• Think of examples of bullying from your own or
others’ experience.
• How would you define bullying?
• What do you think are the main causes of bullying?
Bullying behaviours
...may be physical (hitting, kicking, pinching),
verbal (name-calling, teasing), psychological
(standover tactics, gestures), social (social
exclusion, rumours, putdowns) or sexual
(physical, verbal or nonverbal sexual conduct)
...may be done directly (e.g. face to face) or
indirectly (e.g. via mobiles or the internet)
Bullying is
the systematic abuse of power...
Bullying involves a more powerful person or group
oppressing a less powerful person or group, often
on the grounds of 'difference’
In other words:
“a wilful, conscious desire to hurt another and put
him/her under stress” (Tattum and Tattum, 1992),
“negative behaviour” intended to inflict “injury or
discomfort” (Olweus, 1993),
“repeated oppression, psychological or physical, of a
less powerful person by a more powerful person”
(Farrington, 1993).
Power
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Socioeconomic status
Cultural and linguistic diversity
Religious diversity
Gender
Sexuality
Disability
Ability
Personal characteristics such as body size and
physical appearance, age, marital status or parenting
status.
We are all likely to take discrimination and inequity
for granted. We may tend to accept that there are no
girls on the football field, or that Aboriginal
students quit school in the middle of the year, or
that the boy in the wheelchair is better off sitting
outside the principal's office every lunchtime
because at least he won't be bullied there.
It is in everyone's – and every group's – interest to
understand the deeper issues and the connections
between discrimination and bullying and violence.
Race, bullying and violence
What kids say about racism:
“Racism is teasing people about being from a
different background. Discrimination covers all the
racism so it’s not so obvious.”
“It’s not just black and white but also religion and all
different kinds of things.”
In a 2009 survey about community attitudes:
36% felt that some groups do not fit in to Australian
society, such as Muslims and Asians
(Paradies, 2009)
Global integration and migration, and Australia’s
increasing diversity, has heightened awareness of the
general need for tolerance.
In a report from the Australian Human Rights
Commission, teasing and name-calling by fellow
students was the most common form of racist
bullying behaviour.
Students described how bullies often picked on their
ethnic background, language, religion or their
parents’ nationality to put them down and make
themselves feel ‘cool’, ‘superior’ and ‘powerful’.
Teasing and name-calling sometimes escalated into
physical attacks.
How much bullying is going on?
• This is difficult to measure
• Generally, the level of bullying in schools has been
gradually declining however the level is still
seriously high.
• In a large scale Australian survey (Cross, 2009) it was
estimated that 1 in 4 students reported being bullied
during the previous few weeks
What about our response?
Unfortunately, many approaches and programs are based
on psychological and individualistic frameworks that
neglect social and structural factors.
For example, the majority of programs do not identify the
fact that girls and young women are the most likely
victims of many forms of violence (dating violence, child
sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment and child
sexual exploitation).
Gender non-conforming youth are subject to
homophobic bullying and violence.
Gender, bullying and violence
What is ‘successful’ masculinity?
Positioning of women
in relation to ‘successful’ masculinity
Young people and the social
construction of gender
Bratz "Twiins" Roxxi and Phoebi
Pole dancing kit - comes with a garter and play money
Thong made to fit girls as young as 7contains the
words "Eye Candy" and "Wink, Wink."
National Safe Schools Framework
• “...boys bully more than girls do and are more often in
the role of assisting or reinforcing those who are
bullying.”
• “Schools that do not address the problem of bullying
can become breeding grounds for a process whereby
the more aggressive and powerful dominate the less
powerful, a process that underpins violence, domestic
abuse and child abuse”.
• They [boys] can hurt so much. We give up. We try as hard
as we can. I myself get very scared of them 'cos I know
they can make it so hard for me. (Year 7 girl)
• Boys tease you about your period, breasts and what's
going to happen to you. If they can, they flick your bra
strap. We tease back but they start it. They say: "Look at
her. She's a dog". They pat their leg and say: "Come
here". (Year 6 student)
• I'm pretty heavy up top and I went home one day and I
was crying and that. All these boys were picking on me,
you know, saying turn your headlights off and all these
stupid comments and I went home and I was crying…
(Female student)
Alloway, Just Kidding
Young women face high risks of violence, particularly
sexual violence.
One in seven girls and young women aged 12 to 20
(14 per cent) have experienced rape or sexual assault.
26.6 per cent of sexually active Year 12 girls have
experienced unwanted sex.
Substantial numbers of boys and young men use
physical or sexual violence, or report a willingness to
do so.
Pornography
• The average age of a boys’ first exposure to
pornography is 11.
• In a 2006 study of 13 to 16 year old school students,
93 percent of males and 62 per cent of females
reported being exposed to pornography online.
• It has become more mainstream, but also more
hardcore.. a 2010 study found that 88 percent of
scenes contained physical aggression, mostly
directed towards women.
In an Australian study (Flood 2007) among 16 and 17year-olds:
• 84 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls had been
exposed accidentally to ‘sex sites’
• 38 per cent of boys and only two per cent of girls had
searched the Internet for sex sites
• One in twenty boys watched X-rated videos on a
weekly basis.
• More than one in five watch at least once a month.
Exposure to pornography helps to sustain young
people's adherence to sexist and unhealthy notions
of sex and relationships... intensifies attitudes
supportive of sexual coercion and increases their
likelihood of perpetrating assault.
Sex-based harassment is endemic in Australian
schools – including physical and sexual intimidation
such as misogynistic name-calling, showing female
students pornographic images, and inappropriate
touching, groping and grabbing of particular girls.
Non ‘masculine’ boys and LGBTI youth are also
heavily targeted.
Approaches to bullying
Proactive and Reactive Approaches
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The reactive or interventive approach targets
those individuals or groups who are actually
involved in bully/victim problems, focusing on what
needs to be done when cases arise
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The proactive or universal approach targets
everyone in the school community in an attempt
to stop bullying ever happening
Discipline and punish
• Example of a reactive approach
• At best punishment produces compliance and not a selfsustaining ‘change of heart’
• The bullying commonly does not stop - those punished
often engage in less conspicuous but equally hurtful
forms of bullying
• It is difficult - if not impossible - to provide the necessary
surveillance to ensure the victim’s safety
• The positive reinforcement of the bully’s supporters may
be more powerful than any negative reinforcement the
school can provide
• According to students, in about 50% of cases reported by
students to a teacher the situation does not improve
• In 10% of cases the situation gets worse
• Such interventions are less successful with older
students
Psychological approaches
Individual-focused and psychologically based approaches
include:
• programs and activities for developing greater resilience,
assertiveness and social skills e.g. You Can Do It, The
Helping Friends Program, Power Up, Rock and Water and
Reach for the Stars
• resolving specific personal and interpersonal issues, for
example, through mediation and problem solving,
counselling, protective behaviour and the management
of emotions
Caution
Disciplinary, psychological and individual-focused
approaches have been favoured in schools.
However they do not generate all the changes
needed to ensure trusting, equitable relationships.
The pro-active, sociological approach
• The most important influences on bullying behaviour
are our social beliefs and attitudes. These can
change.
• Across all areas of school life, school communities
need to critically engage with and debate these
deeper issues
• Engage in whole community action research
• Collect and analyse data about the incidence and nature
of discrimination, bullying and violence in your school:
...among whom it is happening
...in what years or classes
...in what areas at the school
...involving which groups of students
How students are feeling about it
...those who are being targeted
...other students
• Engage the whole community in examining cultural
influences on attitudes and behaviours, such as popular
stereotypes around gender and sexuality.
• Consider bullying and violence in terms of beliefs and
prejudices on the basis of:
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Socioeconomic status
Cultural and linguistic diversity
Religious diversity
Gender
Sexuality
Disability
Ability
Personal characteristics
Pedagogy
• Teachers can engage students from an early age as
active, empowered learners able to critically read the
social and political world about them
• Dominant groups and power relations, and normative
narrow and restrictive beliefs and identities, can be
continuously analysed, debated, and challenged through
the everyday curriculum and life of the school.
• Teachers provide students with the frameworks,
language and the tools to recognise, critically examine
and confront discriminatory attitudes and behaviours.
Keddie (forthcoming)
Productive Pedagogies
• Supportive (e.g. when classroom relations are mutually
respectful, supportive and inclusive);
• Connected (e.g. when learning is connected to students’
backgrounds and the world beyond the classroom);
• Intellectually Demanding (e.g. when students are
engaged in higher order thinking, deep learning, deep
understanding and a critical view of knowledge
construction); and
• Valuing of Difference (e.g. when students’
understandings of identity are broadened to appreciation
difference and diversity)
Bystander behaviour
• Bystanders are usually present when bullying occurs
• Typically they stand by and watch
• When a bystander actually expresses disapproval of
the bullying, on about half the occasions, the
bullying stops.
We try to tell the teachers, miss, we try to tell them
when the boys are teasing or hitting us, but most
times they just ignore us.
The boys get worse then because they know they can
get away with it.
We know the teachers are really busy and don't have a
lot of time… but it makes it very hard.
We try to put up with the teasing but when we can't
take any more we just have to stand up for ourselves.
When this sort of thing keeps happening, it makes us
feel sad and angry and then we can't do our best
work. (Indigenous girl)
(Alloway, Just Kidding)
• Research reveals that many teachers do not possess the
requisite knowledge or skills.
• ‘teachers report lower prevalence rates of bullying than
students do’
• ‘interactions involving physical aggression was labelled as
bullying more often, viewed as more serious and
considered more worthy of intervention than verbal
aggression’
• ‘pre-service teachers considered relational bullying to be
less serious than other forms of bullying’
• 83% of GLBTI youth said that their teachers rarely or
never intervene when hearing homophobic remarks
(Meyer 2008)
Inaction on the part of educators sends the
message that the institution of the school and
society as a whole condones this activity and
supports the discriminatory attitudes that
cause bullying and violence in the first place.
Reflection
• At your school do you think students who are being
bullied usually approach staff members for help?
• When staff are told, how much help do you think
they are to students?
• Do you think your school’s approach to bullying is
adequate?
• Do you feel that you are adequately prepared?
• Do you need more training and support?
To summarise
Sustainable change requires:
• A broad and evidence-based approach to building
safe and supportive environments
• supportive leadership by both system and school
leaders
• commitment to professional learning
• participatory action research involving the whole
school community
• continuous monitoring and evaluation
• integration of responsive and preventive approaches
• maintaining a focus on critical social understandings
Questions?
Bullying, harassment and violence
Comprehensive support for school communities
Maria Delaney
Social Change Education
www.teachjustice.com.au
ABN: 87 985 351 975
Tel: (07) 3341 6773
Mobile: 0423 193 935
Email: [email protected]
References
Alloway, N. Just Kidding
http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/media/downloads/schoolsgender/learning/yrk12focusar
eas/gendered/justkidding.pdf
The Queensland Schools Alliance Against Violence
http://education.qld.gov.au/studentservices/behaviour/qsaav/index.html
Working Together: A toolkit for effective school based action against bullying
Addressing Bullying in Queensland Schools: Vodcasts and Support Materials
Bullying. No way! website www.bullyingnoway.com.au
Racism. No way! website www.racismnoway.com.au
Association of Women Educators website www.awe.asn.au
Flood et al, 2009, Respectful Relationships Education
www.education.vic.gov.au/healthwellbeing/wellbeing/respectrel.htm
Flood, 2003, Youth and Pornography in Australia. Evidence on the extent of exposure and likely effects.
www.tai.org.au/file.php?file=DP52.pdf
Paradies et al, 2009, Building on our strengths: A framework to reduce race-based discrimination and
support diversity in Victoria http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/en/Programs-and-Projects/Freedom-fromdiscrimination/Building-on-our-strengths.aspx
Report from the Australian Human Rights Commission
www.humanrights.gov.au/racial_discrimination/isma/consultations/meetings/august_primary.html
Cybersmart, from The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) www.cybersmart.gov.au
Games for Change www.gamesforchange.org
Thank you