A summary of international research on the bullying points out that most definitions of bullying imply a negative connotation; unfriendly and aggressive actions, imbalance in the power, take place over time and the intent is more or less deliberately to inflict harm on the victim (Roland 2014). However, some researchers have pointed out the importance of adding the victim’s subjective experience of bullying to the
definition. The key issue is how the individual experiences bullying regardless of whether it is often or rarely (Storfjord & Storfjord 1997; Hansen, Henningsen & Kofoed 2013; Staksrud 2013). Isolated events that individuals experience as bullying can be scary enough and maybe even incapacitating.
Several researchers have advocated for expanding the perspective on bullying.
Already in 1995, Zelma Fors highlighted the power perspective and the importance of emotions in her analysis of bullying in her doctoral thesis at the University of Gothenburg. A growing number of researchers focus more on conditions such as belonging, solidarity, communication, power, friendship, emotion, triggering environmental factors and conflicts in general (Björk 1999; Søndergaard 2009; Haavind 2013).
Björk (1999) analyzes bullying from a relational accounting perspective. The people involved consider pros and cons regarding the existing relationship. She claims that the source of power is the uncertainty that is created in these negotiations. It is close to what the xBus project put in the term of power.
In a recent article, Hanne Haavind (2013) maintains that it is not sufficient to study just bullying, but also the social patterns that precede the actual bullying.
As a rule, bullying activities occur where no adults are present, or in manners that may not immediately be recognized as bullying.
Previously we have mentioned the xBus program (Exploring Bullying in School) with Dorthe Marie Søndergaard as the leader. The program was carried out in Denmark in the period of 2007-2011. It is a comprehensive cross-disciplinary research project with
representatives from different fields like pedagogy, philosophy and law. The research group has a comprehensive production in the form of articles, anthologies and an informative web page.
In a publication in English in 2013 the following definition of bullying is presented: ‘Bullying is an intensification of the processes of marginalisation that occur in the context of inclusion/
exclusion, which are dynamics that shape groups. Bullying happens when physical, social or symbolic exclusion becomes extreme, regardless of whether such exclusion is experienced and/or intended.
One of the central mechanisms of bullying is social exclusion anxiety, which may be alleviated by the production of contempt. This contempt for someone or something may be expressed by behavior that, for example, humiliates, trivialises or makes a person feel invisible, involves harm to person or property, abuses social-media profiles or disseminates humiliating messages via technological communication. Although some members of the social group may experience these marginalising processes as positive, in robbing individual(s) of the social recognition that is necessary for dignity, these processes can be a form of psychic torture for those who are targeted’. (Schott & Søndergaard, 2013.)
The definition is somewhat different compared with definitions by Olweus and Roland, referred to earlier. The definition includes cyber bullying, which is discussed in another article in this publication. The new perspectives highlight the dynamics, played out in social settings where the sense of belonging and anxiety to be excluded is imminent among the young people present. The way we interpret Schott and
Søndergaard (2013) the key insights to understanding bullying lie in the processes within a youth group. Only when the inclusion and exclusion processes are extreme, can we talk about bullying. According to Søndergaard (2009) bullying is not primarily intended to cause harm to others, but to try out, process and retain social relationships.
The attitude is that it is necessary to legitimize social exclusion in order to adapt and consolidate the balance in the children’s group; bullying might be the consequence. Throughout the xBus project it became clear that bullying is a complex process and that it is necessary to include both school-home relationship, pupil-parent relationship, teacher-pupil relationship, and not the least the interpretation and design of the school’s mandate. In the following, we will discuss some strategies and approaches in the anti-bullying- work in the light of earlier and more recent research.
Individual vs. group
The need for friendship and sense of belonging is being claimed to be greater in adolescence than elsewhere in life.
Belonging in a group satisfies both social and emotional needs, and is looked upon as a basic need, and can be thought of as an existential condition. The anxiety to be excluded appears accordingly severe.
(Storfjord & Storfjord 1997; Søndergaard 2009; Haavind 2013). Because the sense of belonging to a group is crucial for children, the situation might be analyzed in the frame of frustration-aggression hypothesis as well. The school is perhaps the most important arena where relationships are
established among the youth.
Accordingly, is it critical for a young person, who does not establish friendships or will be excluded from the group. In the social interaction that takes place, Søndergaard (2009) uses terms such as: inclusion- and eject mechanisms, social exclusion that merges into social anxiety panic, relational manipulation, power of definition, contempt-production etc. She describes this as ‘think about technology’ and those are the concepts that can be productive for understanding the processes that lie behind bullying. In her opinion, it is necessary to gain insight into the inner processes that take place between the students in a group in order to be able to explain the causes of bullying. According to Søndergaard teenagers’ comments on each other’s clothes, perfume, cellphones, etc. are not incidental, transitory and indifferent.
‘They constitute positioning tools in the social-emotional landscape, which the school- children maneuver in and where withdrew and limitation as paths and movements, which can be associated with both hope and anxiety, exist’.
[Author’s translation] (Søndergaard 2009.)
The way we interpret Søndergaard (2009) is that it is not only the victims of bullying that are the victims. The anxiety of being socially excluded is as big for everyone, and the individual can go far in his or her strivings to be included.
Group members, who feel their position threatened, can start harassing a person who is considered weaker. The
individual’s actions and priorities in a group are controlled by the
expectations, which either may be stated openly or have to be interpreted/guessed upon.
According to Søndergaard, such processes develop what she calls contempt-production, another aspect of bullying. Søndergaard claims that it is likely to hold out the anxiety and the individual gets confirmed for his or her being and existence. This internal dynamics between youth have validity for both the bully victim, bully performer and the fellow traveller. Activities in a group might be considered as a power struggle to keep the position of the group.
Development of friendship
Friendship among youth varies for various reasons. Hanne Haavind (2013) points out that children are developing in a different pace and for that reason have different interests. They can lose interest for each other without causing a sense of exclusion. Adolescence, therefore, is a testing out of who they are and who they might be, and young people are building their identity in this way without necessarily being excluded.
Children are, according to Haavind (2013) observant of the social groups at school; some groups are closed, others more open, some are overlapping, and some individuals are completely isolated.
Common to them is that they change by who is included and who is not.
Regardless of how the friendships change, dyads (two and two) serve as effective protection against bullying. When children have more than two friends, they are more at risk to be excluded. (op.
cit.)
To be aware of one’s own resources also protects against bullying and helps to ignore bullying signals in their environment. Those children might also
be aware of such negative signals, but their inner peace, general attitudes and behavior show that they do not need to be confirmed by others. Haavind states that children are sensitive to the signals about what goes on in a children’s group. They might reorient themselves according to the social landscape; find other friends, thus preventing bullying. (Haavind 2013).
According to Forsman (2008), schoolchildren can with academic and social status lead and carry out bully activities. It is possible for the school to utilize this kind of personal qualities that some schoolchildren have. They might be important helpers in anti-bully-work.
History of the school class
One of the themes in the xBus project has been the class environment and the class role, and a function described with the concept of class culture (Hansen et al.
2013). In their analysis, Hansen et al developed a score for the class’s culture based on the students’ experiences of belonging, interaction, community, environment, etc. It is a kind of class index that can be viewed as a predictive factor of bullying. A statistical analysis of the material showed significant correlation between positive class environment and small instance of bullying. (op. cit.)
Søndergaard (2009) argues that the teacher has a central role. The teacher is the key figure in creating class culture and norms of relationships that will be the standard in the class, and the teacher must establish the framework for the development. The teacher should in other words be a clear norm-setting role model for behavior and relationships. If the class does not have this ‘continuous adult
sparring partner’, which Søndergaard says, the situation will be interpreted by the pupils as signals of indifference, and the pupils themselves will establish the framework for the development of relationships in the group. If the class’s history is characterized by frequent change of teachers and unstable instructors, according to Søndergaard it is a critical point because there is not someone who is fully familiar with the responsibility to develop the class environment. The children feel that the adults in the school are indifferent, and Søndergaard believes that this helps to deprive the children of their dignity.
Even with a system established for information and academic and social continuity of the classes, this is not enough. For the kids the social, emotional and academic processes are linked together, and the ‘dignity production’, will be productive through these tangled processes. (Søndergaard 2009.)
In social settings as the school, the class, and the group the pupils continuously make experiences with each other. They are participating in the social processes and they succeed and fail. Søndergaard held that the pupils experiences in the class and with the group are suitable for evaluation together with the teacher, and she claims that the teacher’s function is a ‘. ..qualified and continuous adult sparring partner’
(Søndergaard 2009, 49).