Rethinking School Bullying: Towards an Integrated Model

240 Pages·2011·1.726 MB·English

by  Roz Dixon, Peter K. Smith

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Rethinking School Bullying

What would make anti-bullying initiatives more successful? This
book offers a new approach to the problem of school bullying. The
question of what constitutes a useful theory of bullying is considered
and suggestions are made as to how priorities for future research
might be identified. The integrated, systemic model of school bully-
ing introduced in this book is based on four qualitative studies and
incorporates theory from systemic thinking; from cognitive, social,
developmental and psychoanalytic psychology; and from sociology,
socio-biology and ethology. The possible functions served by bully-
ing behaviour are explored. Consideration is also given to the poten-
tial role of unconscious as well as conscious processes in bullying.
The model suggests a number of causal processes within one-to-one
relationships and peer groups, and highlights factors within individ-
uals and schools that shape the form, intensity and duration of bully-
ing behaviour in practice. The issue of ‘difference’ is also addressed,
focusing on childhood deafness.
roz dixon is Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Assistant Dean in
the School of Science, Birkbeck College, University of London. She
has over twenty-five years’ experience of working in the voluntary
sector, the NHS and higher education, as a counsellor, patient advo-
cate, campaigner, programme director and manager and has written
a number of articles on bullying.
peter k. smith is Professor of Psychology and Head of the Unit
for School and Family Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of
London. He is the editor of Violence in Schools: The Response in Europe
(2003) and co-editor of several other books on bullying in schools,
including Bullying in Schools: How Successful Can Interventions Be?
(2004) and Bullying in the Global Village (forthcoming 2011).

Rethinking school bullying
Towards an integrated model
Roz Dixon
with an introductory chapter by
Peter K. Smith
cambridge university press
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Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press,
New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521889711
© Roz Dixon 2011
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2011
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Dixon, Roz.
Rethinking school bullying : towards an integrated model / Roz Dixon;
with an introductory chapter by Peter K. Smith.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-521-88971-1 (hardback)
1. Bullying–Prevention. 2. Bullying in schools. 3. School children–
Conduct of life. 4. School violence. I. Title.
LB3013.3.D59 2011
371.5′8–dc22
2010045747
ISBN 978-0-521-88971-1 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in
this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Dedicated to my parents
and to Campbell Graham

Contents

Acknowledgements page viii
Introduction 1
1 Bullying in schools: the research background 22
2 Understanding schools as systems 38
3 Bullying in groups: ostracism and scapegoating 80
4 Developing an integrated, systemic model of school
bullying 118
5 Building personal bodies of knowledge to support
research and practice 141
6 Building a public body of knowledge to support
research and practice 174
7 Conclusion 201
References 210
Index 225

vii
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Peter Smith for his expert mentoring over many years,
and for contributing the first chapter of this book; the students, staff
and parents who took part in the school study; the adults who took part
in the retrospective study; and the applied psychologists and experts on
bullying who took part in interviews, sharing their valuable experience
and insights.
Thanks also to Birkbeck College (University of London) for giv-
ing me time to complete this work and my colleagues at Birkbeck for
patiently supporting my research.
And finally, my thanks also to the Economic and Social Research
Council, the Gulbenkian Foundation, the Central Research Fund
(University of London), the Tregeskis Bequest and the Higher Education
Academy Psychology Network.
Roz Dixon
viii