Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 2010, 25(1)
From the Guest Editor
Tanya N. Beran
University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
I am pleased to present this special issue on bullying titled “School Bullying: Insights From Canadian Researchers”, which features contributions by several internationally published Canadian researchers. After nearly 40 years, the sophistication of research in this area has increased considerably, both in terms of methods and research outcomes. The articles collected here impressively exemplify this progress, spanning a diverse range of topics that uniquely build on our understanding of school bullying, and inform all types of intervention. I would like to thank Drs. Joseph Snyder and Don Saklofske for their invitation to edit this special issue of Canadian Journal of School Psychology.
Despite years of research on attachment theory, few studies have explored the attachment experiences of children who are victimized and/or who bully. Walden and Beran elucidate the role of attachment theory in understanding how children develop expectations for behaviors through early interaction with caregivers, and in later years with children and other adults. This study provides empirical evidence of the importance of early attachment and addresses many of the methodological limitations of the few articles published decades earlier on its relevance to bullying.
In addition to parent–child relationships, Konishi, Hymel, Zumbo, and Li present evidence of the impact of children’s relationships with their teachers. Using a sophisticated analytic method known as multilevel modeling, they demonstrate that teachers can provide a buffering effect of bullying on school achievement. This study adds to the already accumulating evidence that children involved in bullying are at risk of poor achievement but that this risk can be mitigated by supportive behaviors from teachers.
Another school factor implicated in bullying is location. Vaillancourt et al. examine systemic issues of how and where bullying most frequently occurs at school. By analyzing responses from a large cohort of students, these authors demonstrate the importance of teacher supervision in areas children consider to be unsafe at school. The implication for intervention is simple, yet it may dramatically decrease opportunities for bullying at school.
Haner, Pepler, Cummings, and Rubin-Vaughan evaluate a very different type of intervention. They design an operatic story, “Elijah’s Kite,” as an arts-based program to increase children’s knowledge of bullying and decrease victimization. Using a longitudinal design, the authors find indications of successful outcomes of the program, which demonstrates its value (alongside other comprehensive school- and community-based strategies) to provide support for children to build healthy relationships with one another.
Daniels, Quigley, Menard, and Spence conduct a close examination of peer relationships to determine the degree to which victimization occurs in reciprocated friendships.
Using several indicators of friendship, they provide sobering insight into children’s real experiences of friendship. Although the support derived from a reciprocated friendship may protect children from victimization, for many the friendship is actually the source of the victimization. Abusive friendships may be particularly damaging to children’s sense of trust in close relationships. Thus, this article raises awareness of potential pitfalls or even danger lurking in these highly regarded relationships.
Given that friendship support may not always be beneficial, researchers have also looked at individual coping strategies that children can use to deal with bullying. Shelley and Craig examine children’s attributions of and coping responses to bullying events. By conducting a series of cross-sectional and longitudinal regression analyses, they provide insight into the complexity and consistency of attributions and coping strategies in relation to the frequency of victimization children experience. Their results indicate that many attributions and coping strategies need to be considered and that these are differentially related to victimization for boys and girls.
Donnon’s work has similarly direct implications for intervention and support for children. This study compares several models of resilience to determine why some children are at high risk for perpetrating bullying. From administering a multidimensional resilience scale to several thousand adolescents, it was shown that children with many developmental strengths engage in less bullying. Thus, strategies aimed at improving children’s personal strengths will likely increase their capacity to use effective coping behaviors, thereby reducing their aggressive and bullying behaviors.
In addition to reducing the perpetration of bullying, bullying can be impacted by the manner in which bystanders respond to such acts. Trach, Hymel, Waterhouse, and Neale examine a variety of bystander responses that may serve to maintain or cease incidents of bullying. They find that positive responses vary between younger and older, and between male and female students. Ultimately, their findings indicate that support for intervening in bullying be developed for specific groups of students.
Leenaars-Kastronic and Rinaldi direct their attention to another group of students—those in university. Where the first article in this issue focuses on experiences in the first years of life, this last considers adults. These researchers argue and present empirical evidence that indirect forms of aggression occur among many people in this age group. Furthermore, they provide detailed accounts of how young adults are negatively affected in a way that, at a glance, appears rather similar to the impacts of bullying reported by children.
In summary, readers will find within this cover a variety of approaches to examining bullying at the individual, family, peer, and school level, accompanied by new insights into this complex phenomenon. When transformed into active support, this knowledge has the potential to ensure that children are able to develop a sense of safety and to build positive relationships in their lives.
http://cjs.sagepub.com/content/25/1/3.full.pdf+html
Comentários
Por
Katia Brandão Cavalcanti
em 31 de Julho de 2010 às 20:16.
Children’s Bullying Experiences Expressed
Through Drawings and Self-Reports
Eleni Andreou and Fotini Bonoti
Department of Primary Education, University of Thessaly,
Volos, Greece and Department of Pre-school Education,
University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece
Abstract
Traditionally, studies assessing children’s experiences of bullying and victimization have focused on the use of questionnaires and peer-nominations. The present study aimed to investigate this phenomenon by using two complementary assessment tools, namely self-reported questionnaires and children’s drawings. The sample consisted of 448 boys and girls drawn from the 4th to 6th grade classrooms of ten primary schools in Central Greece. Children were asked to: (a) draw a scene of peer victimization taking place in their school and (b) complete self-reported questionnaires regarding bullying behaviour, victimization and participant roles in bully/victim incidences. Although the results showed that the relation between drawing and self-report measures is not a straightforward one, they do reveal some interesting associations primarily related to gender differences. In other words, it was found that boys outnumbered girls in both bullying behaviour and victimization. Regarding the employed forms of victimization, boys tended to depict themselves in more physical aggression scenes than girls, while girls tended to draw themselves in more verbal victimization scenes than boys.
key words: bullying; children; drawing; victimization
School Psychology International - 2010, vol. 31(2)
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