In this paper we use the idea of tensions to describe the ways the Chilean Ministry of Education, schools, and families fail to converge over the enactment of anti-bullying policies and the demands that they place on each party. Although schools have always been charged with prescribing appropriate norms for peer behaviour, a contemporary characteristic of this moral order is the prescriptive and controlling nature of anti-bullying policies. We use a figurational social-ecological perspective to analyse qualitative interview data with teaching and professional staff generated in 12 schools across two Chilean cities. Our findings are focused on staff members’ divergent expectations about the effectiveness and exigencies of anti-bullying policies, and their subjective ideas about childhood and behavioural norms and tendencies. We find they are almost unanimous in reproducing a blame culture that makes socially deprived homes and communities responsible for poorer conduct. In effect this leads the schools to view themselves as disconnected from their surroundings, despite the anti-bullying policies requiring them to have ever-greater chains of dependency with these communities. By combining a figurational perspective with a social-ecological model, we identify webs of action and interdependence across multiple levels (and times) of society affecting how anti-bullying policy is implemented. 

This paper explores how school-built factors and organisational dimensions contribute to bodily exposure, degrading treatment and bullying in school changing rooms. The findings in this study stem from an ethnographic research project exploring the relations between school bullying and the institutional context of schooling. The project focuses on the perspectives of teachers and pupils from pre-school class up to grade eight (i.e. approx. ages 5-15). In this particular study, we focus on participant observations and semi-structured interviews conducted at three elementary schools and one lower secondary school in Sweden.Analysis of the data was guided by constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) [Constructing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Sage].Findings reveal how the changing room was a vulnerable and unsafe space associated with an ever-present fear of experiencing bodily exposure, degrading treatment, and bullying. Our findings illuminate how social-ecological elements such as the physical design of the space and organisational factors such as staffing and scheduling can both increase and decrease the risk of experiencing bodily exposure, degrading treatment, and bullying in the changing room. This demonstrates that much more consideration needs to be given to how social interactions and experiences within school changing rooms are influenced by school-built factors and the ways in which they are organised within the different social-ecological systems beyond the microsystem setting.

While teachers are obliged to report and investigate incidents of bullying, harassment, and degrading treatment in Swedish schools, research suggests that they sometimes struggle to decide which incidents to report. In this study, we investigate Swedish schoolteachers’ reflections on dealing with bullying, harassment, and degrading treatment, and on balancing their pedagogical work with juridical demands to report. The study is based on qualitative interviews conducted with teachers at three comprehensive schools in Sweden, which were analysed in relation to Bronfenbrenner’s social-ecological framework. The findings demonstrate that teachers make judgement calls regarding which incidents to report and that these influence and are influenced by micro-, meso-, exo-, macro- and chronosystem factors. The findings also suggest that increasing demands for professional accountability negatively affect the professional responsibility of teachers and may lead to them making judgement calls that are not always in the best interests of the children for whom they have responsibility. 

In this article, we contribute to a discussion of ethics within school bullying research by reflecting on our own recent ethnographic study into the relations between school bullying and the institutional context of schooling conducted at three elementary schools and one lower-secondary school in Sweden. We argue for a reflexive, responsive, and flexible adult researcher role when conducting ethnographic research into school bullying; what we term the caring adult role. The caring adult role provides a means of ethically conducting research by helping to facilitate access, navigate power relations, provide a consistent starting point for deciding when to intervene in ethically questionable situations, and a way for adult researchers to differentiate themselves from those adults in schools who may be perceived by students as non-caring. We argue that this is an ethically sounder approach than one that suspends all adult-like characteristics and avoids directing or correcting the behaviour of children.

While the efforts of teachers are crucial for preventing and stopping degrading treatment, harassment, and bullying in schools, research has found that teachers’ understandings of such terms may vary significantly. In this qualitative study, we take a social-ecological perspective to investigate Swedish schoolteachers’ understandings of the terms degrading treatment, harassment, and bullying. The study is based on ethnographic research, which included participant observations and interviews conducted at three schools. The findings demonstrate not only the ways in which teachers blurred the conceptual boundaries between degrading treatment, harassment, and bullying, but also how such blurring was influenced by factors within the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem, and how the juridification of degrading treatment and harassment encouraged teachers to construct hierarchies of what they perceived to be more or less serious incidents.

This theoretical article addresses the compound word school bullying by asking the question, ‘what’s school got to do with it?’ Despite a vast amount of research into the phenomenon of school bullying, there has been relatively little focus on the importance of the school half of the open compound. Taking a critical educational perspective to school bullying (Horton, 2018), the article considers the importance of school to school bullying by discussing the social ecology of school and particularly the importance of the school environment (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). In doing so, the article uses examples from a recently completed ethnographic research project conducted in Swedish schools to elucidate the importance of key features of schools (Duncan, 2013; Eriksson et al., 2002), the different layers of schools (Gordon & Lahelma, 1996), as well as the environmental and structural elements of schools (Zumbrunn et al., 2013). The article provides an empirically-based theoretical framework for critically addressing the school in school bullying and argues that school bullying cannot be adequately addressed by only focusing on the behavioural side of the open compound. School is not simply the setting for school bullying. School means more than that.

W artykule podjęto temat złożonego zjawiska bullyingu – prześladowania i dręczenia szkolnego. Postawiono pytanie: „Co ma z tym wspolnego szkoła?” Pomimo licznych badań nad bullyingiem w szkole, stosunkowo niewiele uwagi poświęcono roli, jaką kontekst szkolny odgrywa w powstawaniu i utrzymywaniu bullyingu. Przyjmując krytyczną perspektywę edukacyjną (Horton, 2018), autor rozważa rolę szkoły w tym zjawisku, analizując społeczną ekologię, w szczególności złożone środowisko szkolne (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). W artykule wykorzystano przykłady z niedawno zakończonego etnograficznego projektu badawczego przeprowadzonego w szwedzkich szkołach, aby wyjaśnić znaczenie kluczowych cech szkół (Duncan, 2013; Eriksson i in., 2002), rożnych warstw i poziomów w szkołach (Gordon & Lahelma, 1996), a także elementów środowiskowych i strukturalnych (Zumbrunn i in., 2013). Artykuł dostarcza teoretycznych ram opartych na badaniach empirycznych, które pozwalają na krytyczne ujęcie roli szkoły w zjawisku bullyingu. Argumentuje, że nie możemy skutecznie zapobiegać bullyingowi, skupiając się jedynie na behawioralnym aspekcie zjawiska. Szkoła to coś więcej niż tylko miejsce, w którym dochodzi do bullyingu – jej rola jest znacznie bardziej złożona.

In this paper, we draw on the concepts of figurations, capital, and hegemonic masculinity to analyse a bullying relation involving two fifth-grade boys at a Swedish comprehensive school. The findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork, which included participant observations and group interviews with eight teachers and fourteen students (seven girls and seven boys) from the same class. Our findings demonstrate the complexity of the relation between the boys and suggest that rather than constituting a straight-forward bullying situation involving a problematically aggressive 'bully' targeting a less powerful 'victim', it is part of a more complex figuration involving interdependent social relations that are tenuously balanced in terms of power dynamics and where the boys position themselves and are positioned in relation to the long-term symbolic norms of status dominant within their specific school field.

The school environment profoundly influences children’s development, behaviours, and attitudes. This chapter delves into the relationship between school design and architecture, and their impact on bullying, victimisation, inclusivity, and student well-being. Research underscores the significant impact of school design on student social dynamics, advocating for collaborative efforts among stakeholders to craft effective anti-bullying policies. Regular safety assessments and updates are crucial for identifying and implementing necessary improvements. Enhancements may encompass better lighting, improved acoustics, playground configurations, and alterations to schedules and teacher-student ratios. Additionally, school design plays a crucial role in integrating immigrant students and accommodating diverse cultural needs. Existing guidelines in Europe and Asia concerning school design and student well-being and bullying lack comprehensive coverage and consistency. Despite challenges such as budget constraints and academic pressures, further research is essential to garner legislative support for improving school design and fostering student well-being. Well-designed school environments play a pivotal role in mitigating bullying, cultivating positive relationships, and establishing inclusive and supportive learning atmospheres. Strategies include designing playgrounds to minimise bullying risks and ensuring inclusivity for all students. Future endeavours aim to conduct a comprehensive country review and provide tailored recommendations to optimise school design for student well-being and safety.

We investigate the importance of spatial, material, and organisational factors to gendered peer relations on the school football pitch. The study is part of an ethnographic research project exploring the relations between school bullying and the institutional context of schooling, focusing on the perspectives of teachers and pupils from preschool class up to grade eight (approximately ages 5-13). The findings in this study are based on participant observations and semi-structured interviews with pupils at three schools in Sweden. Our findings illustrate how social-ecological elements of spatial, material, and organisational factors such as school design, the material construction of the pitches, and the temporal organisation of the space through scheduling promote gendered positioning and fevered interactions which influence peer relations and sometimes contribute to degrading treatment, harassment and bullying. Our study demonstrates how these processes need to be understood as complexly related to social-ecological factors beyond the football pitch setting.

Skolmobbning är ett utbrett problem som fortsätter att negativt påverka livet för skolbarn, föräldrar och skolpersonal. Trots mycket forskning kring fenomenet är forskning om skolmiljöns betydelse för skolmobbning eftersatt. Syftet med projektet var att undersöka hur olika skolfaktorer påverkar skolmobbning och skolpersonalens förmåga eller vilja att ingripa samt vilken betydelse genus har för mobbning och ingripande mot mobbning.