Examining the lived experience of bullying: A review of the literature from an

Australian perspective

Donna Mathewson Mitchell and Tracey Borg

School of Teacher Education, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia

Bullying in schools is a significant and continuing issue in education. This is despite widespread

attention within the professional education community and beyond, into the wider public arena. In this

paper we review the existing literature on bullying in schools, with a particular focus on the Australian

secondary school context, to develop a position that questions the bully/victim binary pervading public

discourse and educational research In doing this we identify common themes within the literature

including: definitions of bullying; responses and interventions to bullying; discourses of bullying in

schools; and the role of stakeholders involved in managing and responding to bullying incidents. Based

on this review, we argue that much of the literature approaches the topic from an individual and

psychological point of view and there are multiple problems related to both methodology and

representation. There appears to be an absence of research about the broader social contexts and

processes in which bullying occurs , while there is a strong argument for its importance. From this

basis we briefly speculate on alternative approaches that potentially address such concerns and allow

for new approaches to a continuing problem, in Australia and internationally.

Key words: bullying, schools, literature review, lived experience.

Introduction

Bullying in schools is a significant and continuing issue in education. This is despite

widespread attention within the international professional education community and beyond,

into the wider public arena. Governments are increasingly directing their gaze into policy

development and implementation and anti-bullying policies are now compulsory in all

schools in Australia (MCEECDYA, 2010). Definitions of bullying within the literature vary

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widely, however the commonly held view is that bullying is “long standing negative

behaviour conducted by a group or an individual, and directed against one who is not able to

defend him/herself in the actual situation” (Roland & Galloway 2004, 242). While reports of

incidences vary, Batsche & Knoff (1994) have concluded that 15-20% of all students will

experience a degree of bullying during their time in schools. Nansel, Overpeck, Pilla, Ruan,

Simons-Morten & Scheidt (2011) cite an international survey whereby incidence rates for

adolescents who reported being bullied at least once in a school term, ranged from 15% to

70% in some countries. In addition, the serious psychological harm experienced by victims of

bullying have been well documented (Rigby, 2003). This includes both short and long term

effects such as school avoidance, poor academic performance, increased levels of fear and

anxiety and later delinquency and depression (Olweus 1993; Batsche & Knoff 1994; Swearer,

Espelage, Vaillancourt & Hymel 2010).

Over the past 15 years there have been significant changes in policy, practice and

knowledge about how systems and schools have approached the issue of bullying (Samara &

Smith, 2008). Integrated, whole-school approaches that encompass policy development,

environmental improvements, curriculum exercises and counselling work with individual

bullies and victims have been recommended as interventions that work toward decreasing the

levels of bullying in schools (Elsa & Smith 1998; Hong 2009; Olweus 1994). However,

reports on the sustained effects of these approaches yield mixed results (Bauer, Lozano &

Rivara 2007; Cross, Hall, Hamilton, Pintabona & Erceg 2004; Merrell, Gueldner, & Isava

2008; Rigby & Bagshaw 2003; Smith Scheider, Smith & Ananiadou 2004).

As Australian teacher educators, with recent experience in Australian schools as

classroom teachers and leaders in pastoral care roles, we have had insights into the way

policy plays out in terms of the lived experience of bullying and responses to bullying by

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students, teachers, school leaders, parents and carers. Despite a plethora of empirical research

on and around the issue, both the literature and our personal experiences indicate that

bullying remains a pervasive problem with significant implications that need to be considered

deeply and broadly. In this paper we will explore the issue of bullying as represented in the

existing literature. As we do this we will review the literature in terms of evident themes and

specific absences in conceptual approaches and understandings, and the inclusion (and

exclusion) of particular viewpoints. Attention will be paid to how students, teachers, school

leaders and parents / carers are represented as stakeholders who are confronted with the

realities of bullying as part of their lived experience. How the relationships between these

stakeholders are represented will also be examined. It is important to note that we have been

strategic in identifying recent and relevant literature in relation to bullying in schools, and

consequently we acknowledge the partialness of the picture we are creating. We also

acknowledge the absence of discussion specifically about cyber-bullying. While cyber-

bullying is an important contemporary issue related to bullying, in this paper we are not

addressing specific forms of bullying or particular mediums through which it occurs. In

addition, as Australian researchers, we have been keen to examine the particular context in

which we are working. While we recognise the particularity of the Australian context, we

have drawn on international research and speculate that the issues discussed are of

international interest and concern..

In what follows we will outline the methodology used in this review and discuss the

key themes uncovered. We will then speculate on alternative conceptual and methodological

approaches.

Methodology

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Using an adaptation of a realist synthesis method (Wong, Pawson and Owen, 2011; Pawson,

Greenhalgh, Harvey. & Walshe 2004) we engaged in a systematic search and review of the

research on bullying, specifically in the context of schools.. This approach interpreted and

applied realist synthesis as gathering together existing evidence in relation to particular

research questions to build up a picture of what is already known, and how it has come to be

known. It involved the systematic review of evidence following a number of stages as

outlined by Pawson, Greenhalgh, Harvey. & Walshe (2004, vi).

The first stage involved definition of the scope of the review. It encompassed the

identification of research questions and the purpose of the review. The research questions

were: How is school bullying investigated and represented in educational research? How are

the stakeholders implicated in school bullying, and the relations between those people,

explored in the research? How might research more effectively address bullying in schools?.

The purpose of the review was to create an understanding of the knowledge that exists in

relation to school bullying and to identify how that knowledge has been developed and might

be further contributed to. Stage one also involved the identification of a theoretical

framework aligned with phenomenology and the examination of the lived experience as the

foundation for future research. Phenomenology was seen to be consistent with research that

aims to question the ways in which the world is experienced and to examine what it is to be

in the world ( van Manen, 1990).

The second stage involved searching for and appraising the evidence. Three types of

searches were initially conducted: a manual search of education journals, an electronic search

of appropriate databases and an opportunistic search through professional association sites

and networks (Pattison & Harris 2006). In each case the search was bounded by the following

parameters: topic (bullying); year (primarily, but not exclusively, research between the years

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2000-2010); context (non- tertiary schools- excluding early childhood settings, with a

particular but not exclusive Australian focus); language (English); format (open document

source with an emphasis on substantive presentation); resources (catalogues, databases,

internet). Searching was an iterative process that continued for an extensive period of time,

including prior to and during the writing of this paper.

The third stage of extracting and synthesizing findings effectively followed two

phases. Articles were initially sorted according to broad underpinning research paradigms and

broad, recurrent themes. This review led to the formulation of a provisional framework of

themes that were then examined and tracked in the remainder of literature. As we identified

and examined these themes we engaged in constant dialogue to confirm and question our

understandings of the literature and the inferences being made. . Themes were also recorded

and tracked through use of a spreadsheet as an overview. This process of data handling was

repeated for new sources as they were found. In synthesizing this data, we investigated what

the articles and the identified themes were indicating in relation to our understandings of

bullying as the subject and site of educational research. In this way the realist synthesis

involved both theoretical thinking and empirical evidence as found within the literature as a

form of ‘sense-making’.

Finally, in the fourth stage we drew the conclusions and recommendations we are

reporting on in this paper. We also developed plans for future research that will take those

recommendations further.

Discussion of themes

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Our review of the literature around bullying in schools identified the following key themes:

definitions of bullying; interventions and responses to bullying; discourses of bullying; and,

stakeholders involved in bullying incidents. The following discussion takes up each of these

themes in turn with a focus on examining how the lived experience of bullying is

represented..

Definitions of bullying

Olweus’s (1993) definition of bullying, arising from his seminal studies on bullying and

bullying interventions in Norwegian schools, has been the one primarily adopted (or iterated)

by researchers over the past two decades (Smith & Brain 2000). According to Olweus (1993,

9) “a person is being bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative

actions on the part of one or more persons”. The defining features of this definition are the

emphasis placed on bullying as a repeated and aggressive behaviour characterised by an

imbalance of power (Smith & Bain 2000).

Our review of the literature however reveals multiple issues of slippage, and in some

cases, an excess of meaning in the use of this and other definitions of bullying. Swearer et al.

(2010) specifically cite the challenge of defining the term ‘bullying’ in relation to culture and

language groups. This challenge is compounded when researchers, across international

contexts, attempt to measure incidences of bullying and evaluate the success of interventions

using standard survey instruments (for example, the Olweus Questionnaire) translated into

different languages. In the English language alone, terms like teasing, harassment and abuse,

and the connotations and understandings people associate with them, can cloud the issue even

further (Smith, Cowie, Olafsson & Liefooghe 2002). For example, in a study of children and

teachers Mishna, Pepler and Weiner (2006) found confusion about whether teasing was

6
bullying. They found that when the term ‘joking’ was introduced into a discussion of

bullying, in terms of “I was only joking’ or “it was only a joke”, opinion was divided.

It has also been speculated that individual characteristics like age and gender may also

affect a person’s interpretation of the term ‘bullying’ (Madsen 1997). Certainly reports in the

literature support gender differences in the use of direct (physical) and indirect (psychological

or relational) forms of bullying (Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz & Kaukiainen 1992). In addition,

students, teachers and parents have been found to hold quite different perceptions of these

forms when reporting and responding to incidents of bullying in schools (Smith & Levan

1995; Boulton, Trueman & Flemington 2002; Mishna, Pepler & Wiener 2006; Lee,

Buckthorpe, Craighead, & McCormack 2008).

The presence of differing understandings of the term ‘bullying’ and individual

perceptions of bullying as a construct, has implications both for measuring the levels of

bullying in schools and for the responses and subsequent interventions of stakeholders to

bullying incidents. As noted by Laws and Davies (2000), simply defining bullying from a

rational, humanist position does not do justice to the complexity of this predominately social

issue. . Given this, it is speculated that a broader, more ecological approach (Swearer and

Doll 2001; Swearer, Espelage, Vaillancourt, & Hymel 2010) is needed to address the

complexities of understandings of bullying in the school context. In addition, rather than

attempting to define the terms around bullying, effectively simplifying and reducing

complexity, it would seem potentiallye productive to work to problematise the concept

through alternate research positions that move beyond an assumed nature of truth embedded

in many of the terms and concepts surrounding discussions of bullying. Such research

positions could encompass, for example, post-structuralism, criticalemancipatory approaches

or interpretivist approaches such as phenomenology.

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Interventions and responses to bullying

As previously discussed, there are numerous studies that have examined responses to, and

interventions in bullying (Bauer, Lozano & Rivara 2007; Cross, Hall, Hamilton, Pintabona &

Erceg 2004; Merrell, Gueldner, & Isava 2008; Rigby & Bagshaw 2003; Smith Scheider,

Smith & Ananiadou 2004). In response to reported existence of the phenomenon, approaches

to reducing the incidence of bullying in schools include; peer support programs involving

conflict resolution, befriending and counselling-based schemes (Cowie 2000), non-punitive

sanctions (for example, the Pikas Method), transtheoretical computer interventions (Evers,

Prochaska, Van Marter, Johnson & Prochaska 2007), whole school policy initiatives (Olweus

1993) and eclectic interventions that incorporate ecological perspectives to link curriculum

initiatives with school ethos improvement (Ruiz & Lera 2000). Rigby (2011, pp. 275-280)

further identifies: mediation, strengthening the victim, the traditional disciplinary approach,

restorative practice, the support group method and the method of shared concern. Such

initiatives encompass both preventative and corrective measures. In fact, as noted by Rigby

(2011), it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of anti-bullying programmes because they

are often comprised of multiple elements.

In exploring the literature that evaluates the effects of school anti-bullying efforts in

schools, results were found to be mixed. In an evaluation of several major programs, Smith,

Pepler and Rigby (2004) claimed that success in reducing the levels of bullying in schools

ranged from zero to 50%. The average reduction in reported victimisation after the

implementation of such programs was about 15%. Historically, a monitored intervention

campaign in England, known as The Sheffield Project (1991-1994), was shown to produce

reductions in bullying in most of the participating schools. Those schools that made

concentrated (and sustained) efforts, in terms of focused work with individuals and groups,

8
curriculum and playground work and policy development, made the most progress (Smith &

Bain 2000). Following on from this project Samara & Smith (2008) carried out longitudinal

surveys to assess the English government’s anti-bullying pack, Don’t Suffer in Silence, after

anti-bullying policies become a legal requirement in schools. Most interventions associated

with this resource were rated as moderately useful and schools reported that bullying was

slightly decreasing as a result.

In a meta-analysis of 14 whole-school anti-bullying programs, Smith, Schneider,

Smith and Ananaidou (2004) reported small to negligible effect sizes for reductions in

victimisation incidents. In some cases, program effects were negative with increased levels of

bullying being documented. In 2007, Vreeman and Carroll looked at the findings of 26

studies that evaluated school-based anti-bullying efforts. Whole school efforts, incorporating

rules and consequences, conflict resolution strategies, curricula changes and teacher training

yielded the most promising results. A more recent meta –analysis of anti-bullying programs,

conducted by Merrell, Gueldner, Ross and Isava (2008), found positive effect sizes for only

one third of the variables in the study (changes in knowledge, attitudes and perceptions).

There were no changes reported for bullying behaviours in the sample schools. Interestingly

though, a third analysis involving 30 bullying intervention studies in Sweden, reported a

reduction in bullying and victimisation of 17% to 23% in experimental schools compared to

control schools. Reductions were primarily associated with increased playground supervision,

classroom rules, disciplinary methods, home-school communication and parent training

(Ttofi, Farrington & Baldry 2008).

In any discussion evaluating the overall effectiveness of interventions in reducing the

levels of bullying in schools there are several limitations raised within the literature. Firstly, it

is recognised that much of the research into bullying prevention relies on anonymous self-

9
reporting measures with a clear focus on measuring incidences, rather than direct

observational methods aimed at determining both incidence and improvement through

behavioural change (Swearer et al., 2010). An absence of a “gold standard for objective

measurement” and concerns around the sensitivity of self reporting measures and pressures

from teachers to report after the implementation of some interventions are also noted in the

literature (Evers et al. 2007, 412).

Secondly, there is very little research that has assessed the sustainability of the

treatment effects of bullying programs and interventions in schools and the long-term effects

on constructs like school culture (Evers et al. 2007). The conclusions from the DFE Sheffield

Anti-Bullying Project stress the importance of maintaining the momentum of anti-bullying

work beyond the initial implementation phase (Eslea & Smith 1998).

Thirdly, the limitation around teachers’ differing perceptions of what constitutes

bullying and their varied responses to reported incidents is often raised in the literature. In a

study by Rigby and Bagshaw (2003), students who had been bullied were less confident than

others that their teachers had the necessary skills to resolve conflicts and were found to be

disinclined to seek teacher help after an incident of bullying. Rigby & Bauman (2007)

contend that there are still disagreements among teachers as to whether bullied students

should be assisted to defend themselves against bullies more effectively and that there is still

a high percentage of teachers who favour punishment in dealing with even minor incidents of

bullying in schools. They also noted that many teachers did not feel that it was appropriate

for parents to be involved in school responses.

Finally, as previously outlined, most anti-bullying policies are reliant on

psychological approaches that see bullying as a problem of individual development

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psychology and subsequent interventions often disregard socio-cultural considerations

(Ringrose 2008; Jacobson 2009). Swearer et al. (2010, 42) contend that one of the reasons

that whole-school approaches are relatively ineffective is that many of them fail to “direct

interventions at the social ecology that promotes and sustains bullying perpetration, such as

peers and families”. This again leads us to direct our gaze towards research that focuses on

exploring the lived experiences of stakeholders in terms of their experiences, values and

attitudes towards bullying and how this might in turn frame their responses to incidences of

bullying and shape the success of planned interventions.

Discourses of bullying

Associated with the definition of bullying is the language recurrently used in relation to

bullying. Throughout the literature there is persistent use of the terms ‘bully’ and ‘victim’

setting up a bully/victim binary. Use of the terms in research and more broadly, in the public

domain, suggests a person-centred, psychological focus that effectively labels children as

either bullies or victims. The psychological perspective tends to see power as owned by an

individual acting out, attributing cause to psychological characteristics. This further

reinforces the bully/victim binary, attending to the individual as a singular accountable agent

and implying a belief that bullying can be controlled through modification of the individual.

Even in those studies that recognise the problems of definition, the terms are still often used

un-problematically (Swearer et al. 2010). Such uncritical use of the terms ‘bully’ and ‘victim’

to label behaviours (and subsequently label individuals who engage in those activities) is seen

to create a false dichotomy between bullies and victims that does not account for the large

numbers of children who move between the two groups (Smith, 1991 in Swearer and Doll

2001, 11). Ringrose and Renold (2010, 574) have identified this “binary logic of protection

and vilification” as the foundation of a bullying discourse. They assert that the bullying

11
discourse derives from the definition and works to effectively individualise and other-ize

bullying as a pathology. The discourse creates, iterates and reiterates a set of norms and

descriptors with bullies and victims then being produced by those descriptors (Ruitenberg

2007). This is recurrently judged to be a simplistic and reductionist perspective that is viewed

as failing to address situational and socio-cultural dimensions of bullying (Ruitenberg 2007;

Ringrose and Renold 2010; Swearer et al. 2010).

The bullying discourse has intensified in recent times, becoming a highly visible

regulative phenomenon that circulates within and beyond schools. The effects of the labelling

and positioning that is constructed by bullying discourse is explored in post-structural

approaches to researching bullying (Renold and Ringrose 2010; Ringrose and Renold 2009;

Ringrose 2008; Laws and Davies 2000). While this body of literature is relatively small, it

represents an alternative approach that questions and challenges research, policy and practice

that has established and is reliant on bullying discourse. Post-structural approaches thus

present a perspective that explores the discursive practices of power that are implicated in

bullying.

Jacobson’s work is illustrative of such a Post-structural focus. In his work he

employs a Foucaldian post-structuralist lens to the discourse of bullying. In doing this he

asserts that schools and bullying are part of a “process of individuation- the creation of

subjects measured by the gaps between them” (2009, 13). He states that schools themselves

are complicit in the making of bullies and victims, and that they provide the space for

bullying to become a viable option. This is attributed to dividing practices and a hierarchy of

social power that is normalised. The discourse of schooling itself and the discourse of who

counts and who does not count, becomes a discourse of comparison that relates to who

dominates. Rather than seeing bullying as delinquency, Jacobson (2009) suggests that

12
bullying is a narration of the cultures within which it exists, mirroring the dividing practices

of schools and the hierarchies that exist within schools. This creates a situation of

contradiction and counteraction.

Laws and Davies (2000) likewise identify schools as social institutions that are

characterised by a humanist discourse that takes up the notion that all children choose their

action. The labelling of behaviours and individuals creates repertoires of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’

that are available to individuals within these institutions. Thus choosing to do the right thing

in terms of available, acceptable and normalised repertoires makes a child a ‘good child’.

When children don’t take up these repertoires and instead challenge the power of school

rules, they are judged and positioned by the developmental/categorising psychological

discourse.

Gender differentiation is clearly addressed within the literature, but is often treated in

uncritical ways. Researchers assert that there are different expectations of the behaviour of

boys and girls that rely on normative ideals of masculinity and femininity, which are

differentially applied and labelled as bullying (Lahelma 2010). Feminist post-structural

approaches challenge this view of gender difference (eg, Ringrose 2008). In discussing the

issue of discursive framing of incidences as bullying, Ringrose and Renold (2010) argue that

what gets named as bullying tends to be that which violates heteronormative gender

identities. They state: “...often the ‘normative cruelties’ of doing gender through the practices

of differentiation and Otherisation are legitimised... what is identified as ‘bullying’ tends to

be that which transgresses normative performances of masculinity and femininity” (Ringrose

and Renold 2010, 577).

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 In further discussing the discursive framing of bullying and the related issues of who

labels an incidence as bullying, and on what basis, Ringrose and Renold (2010) argue that the

concept of bullying has become the dominant discursive framework through which conflict is

interpreted and intervened in. Blackman and Walkerdine (2001) likewise comments on the

creation of a heightened awareness and moral panic (as cited in Ringrose and Renold, 2010),

while Ringrose (2008) similarly asserts that the bullying discourse often misses the original

problem and potentially escalates conflict and heightens anxiety

Ringrose (2008) calls for analysis of the discursive effects of the conceptual

framework of bullying and an understanding of the nuances of how and why bully discourses

are mobilized, what bully discourses miss and what they activate in practice. In this context,

it is important not to consider the bully as an individual agent, but rather to consider bullying

as a systemic problem. This requires action to disrupt circulating discourses- action which

needs to be based on an understanding of those who stand to lose and win in any instance of

bullying, that is, the stakeholders.

Stakeholders involved in bullying incidents

There are a number of stakeholders that can be identified in relation to school bullying. These

stakeholders are the children who are involved in instances of bullying and the adults who

have primary responsibility for them. They include teachers, school leaders, other school

staff, and parents and carers. Clearly the focus of the literature pertaining to bullying in

schools is on children as bullies and victims. This is consistent with the individualisation

evident in the psychological approaches that dominate this literature. There is also recurring

reference made to peers and peer support, in relation to incidences of bullying (Swearer and

Doll 2001; Swearer, Espelage, Vaillancourt,& Hymel 2010). Teachers are also noted as

14
significant stakeholders, with research tending to focus on teacher attitudes and teacher

responses to bullying (Lee, Buckthorpe, Craighead, McCormack 2008; Hughes, Middleton &

Marshall 2009; Lahelma 2010). While school leaders are dealt with in relation to school

culture and policy development (Roland and Galloway, 2004; Swearer and Doll 2001;

Samara and Smith, 2008), their direct relationship to bullying is rarely identified or dealt with

in any depth. Other school staff are rarely noted although one journal article notably focuses

on school support staff (Maunder, Harrop & Tattersall, 2010). Parents, carers and families

are often identified as having an important role to play as partners for schools, although the

nature of that role is rarely explicitly articulated. This is supported by literature that agrees

that interventions must encompass all stakeholders and be supported by broader structural

initiatives (Hanish & Guerra 2000; Swearer and Doll 2001). Significantly, while all of these

stakeholders are identified at different levels, there is little attention paid to the relationships

between the stakeholders and the implications of those relationships on the development of

an environment that fosters or prevents bullying, in incidences of bullying or in responses to

bullying in schools.

One notable exception is the work of Mishna et al. (2006) which addressed the

multiple perspectives of teachers, parents, children and administrators in the context of

primary schools. This research was one of the first qualitative assessments of bullying based

on the perceptions of teachers, parents, children and school administrators. In privileging the

lived experience of the range of stakeholders it examined the inherent complexities involved

in the bullying dynamic. In grounding the research, Mishna et al. (2006) acknowledge that

research has shown that children and adults understand and respond to bullying incidents in

different ways as identification of bullying is dependent on an individual’s definition of

bullying. Importantly in the definitions provided by participants in the research, few

15
mentioned repetition as a feature of bullying, and indirect bullying was often seen as less

serious. Clearly the meanings that participants in Mishna et al.’s research attributed to

bullying varied, and were affected by previous experiences with bullying. School

environment was also noted as influencing bullying and individuals’ responses. Mishna et al.

(2006) concluded by identifying several key challenges for stakeholders. One was the

difficulty of adults making judgements of incidences if they were not there to witness the

actual incident. Another difficulty was in relation to incidences involving friends. Many

adults were unsure about how to intervene effectively. A further challenge involved having

empathy with children who were bullied, particularly if that child was judged to be

exaggerating. Finally Mishna et al. suggest that there is need for education and training to

increase the cognizance of adults personal attitudes and experiences of bullying and an

awareness that children’s view may differ. The critical role of teacher education and the lack

of systemic support for teachers was noted. The understanding provided by this research is

seen to be essential to develop effective interventions that address how stakeholders

understand and respond to bullying incidents.

Conclusions

Our review of the literature around the phenomenon of bullying in schools revealed a

plethora of research spanning both quantitative and qualitative paradigms. As discussed

within this paper, the key, recurrent themes identified across this literature base were:

definitions of bullying; interventions and responses to bullying; discourses of bullying; and,

the stakeholders involved in bullying incidents. It was also noted that empirical research

tended to draw from quantitative (and in some cases mixed methods) data derived from

students, parents or teacher using primarily self reporting instruments, and dependent on

definitions that varied in perception. Overall, there were fewer instances where the social

16
ecology of schools was considered in collecting ‘rich’ data on the lived experiences of all

stakeholders.

As previously discussed, the purpose of this review was to not only locate common

themes within the literature but to also identify absences in conceptual approaches and

understandings and the exclusion of particular viewpoints. The key absences noted included a

clear definition of the term ‘bullying’ that extended beyond a rational, humanist position to

consider the complex social ecology of the school environment. Bullying, as a social issue

occurring within particular structures, around dynamic relationships and often influenced by

policy and personal or institutional discourse was rarely considered. The absence of a

standard, objective measure (beyond self-reporting instruments) to determine the incidence of

bullying and research that assessed the sustainability of planned interventions in schools was

also noted.

In terms of the viewpoints, or ‘voices’, heard within the literature, there were notable

silences. Whilst the perspectives of students, parents and carers, teachers, leaders, and

occasionally other school support staff were individually recorded there was little research

that considered the lived experiences of all stakeholders involved in bullying incidents, and

their responses, within a broader school ecology. Given that bullying necessarily occurs

within a relational context the lack of consideration given to such relations seems

problematic, effectively limiting the capacity for research to examine the lived experience of

bullying, and responses to bullying,from multiple perspectives. We would argue that the

tendency for researchers to view the phenomenon of ‘bullying’ from the psychological

perspective of an individualised pathology requiring intervention and correction, acts to

further negate the existence of bullying within relations between people, while also reducing

understandings of its complexity. . Contributing to this absence is the lack of resources and

17
time devoted to the preparation of teachers and leaders within schools, to deal with the

complexities of bullying and to understand its relational nature.

In concluding, after our review of the literature on the phenomenon of bullying in

schools, we propose a significant need for a body of research using alternative approaches to

explore the lived experience of multiple stakeholders and disrupt the discourses of bullying

evident within the current literature and within the public mind. While we acknowledge that

some alternative methods are evident in the research cited there is scope for different thinking

to be engaged in with a focus on questioning assumptions and examining how bullying is

experienced within the world to develop an action sensitive knowledge (van Manen 1990,

21). This necessarily requires approaches that enable the complexity and depth of the lived

experience of all people associated with schools who may be involved in bullying incidents,

either directly or through actions of management or response, to be captured. Potentially, this

might involve examining the complex stories of bullying from different perspectives and

locating these stories within broader social ecologies. It also might involve using visual and

verbal narratives to undertake autobiographies exploring how particular experiences fit within

larger life stories to investigate the implications of different kinds of relationships. Other

productive approaches could investigate arts-based methods that attempt to move beyond the

power of the spoken word and the terminology permeating discussions of bullying, to

represent the embodied experience of schools and the relationships involved. Of central

importance to the use of any particular approach is the foregrounding of relations and the

subsequent backgrounding of the word ‘bullying’ and the associated terms which exist as

conceptualisations that limit our understandings. The intention of this focus is to displace the

centrality of individualistic notions of bullying in an effort to move beyond the bully/victim

18
binary to more effectively encompass the complexity of the lived experience of relationships

within schools.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by a CSU Faculty of Education Seed Grant. We would like to

acknowledge the research services and expertise of Mr Giuseppe Giovenco. We would also

like to acknowledge the invaluable and critical mentoring of Prof. Jo-Anne Reid and Prof.

Margaret Somerville.

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