Although boys too are involved in relational aggression, their experiences are overshadowed by the focus on relational aggression among girls. This paradox mirrors the empirical puzzle that forms the starting point for this article: while teachers saw relational aggression as a 'girl problem', we found a vast undercurrent of relational aggression among boys. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with staff and students in Norwegian schools, we ask how boys' relational aggression can be left unnoticed by school staff. We demonstrate that there is a gap between the experiences boys have of being victims of relational aggression and their expression of this, in terms of both their inability to talk about it and its undramatic form. We argue that this represents a blind spot for school staff and for the boys themselves, and suggest that gendered knowledge production contributes to reproducing the invisibility of relational aggression among boys.
Background: Previous research has found that bullying is often defined differently by students, staff and researchers, leading researchers to call for a more consistent use of the term in practice to enable better intervention and measurement. However, little is known about the consequences of a more consistent use of the term in school. Purpose: The article examines the consequences of schools adopting an exact definition of bullying. Sample: Twenty Norwegian primary and lower secondary schools were selected from a survey (n = 455). The schools were characterised by a strong culture of bullying prevention, and their staff and students knew and used the same authoritative bullying definition. Four schools were then selected for closer ethnographic study. Design and methods: Interviews were conducted with students, teachers, support staff and school management. The interviews were analysed qualitatively, using a grounded theory approach. Results: For school staff, the term 'bullying' was construed as rigid and possessing an inherent power that is manifested through the way the term controls adults' actions. Teachers viewed students' use of the term as too wide. They emphasised the need to teach students the established definition, as students' overuse of the term may lead to the word's diminishing impact for those who are in real need of help. Nevertheless, many of the educators stated that few students report bullying. Both school staff and students displayed a sense of certainty when identifying what counts as bullying. Students' recognition of the power of the word was apparent in the way they used the term as a tool for social positioning. Conclusions: By way of the status of a bullying definition as an established, researchbased definition, it gains a potent power for management, teachers and students. Its power Page 3 of 33 lies in the fact that the use of the term gives rights and responsibilities, determines guilt, and confers blame and status. Unwanted effects of a strict control of the bullying term may involve the risk of missing cases and the risk that students use the term as a tool in the power relations between the students themselves.
Mental health problems among young people have increased in recent decades, particularly among middle-class youth, a development often related to increasing achievement pressure. This paper explores how young people from the financial and cultural middle classes in Norway experience school stress and their parents' values and practices concerning school achievement. Based on interviews with 53 15-17-year-old boys and girls, the study identifies two narratives. The first narrative is told by youth from the financial middle classes. They talk about their parents' explicit demands and tie the parental pressure to their achievement related mental health problems. The second narrative describes a ceaseless self-drive, told by youth mainly from the cultural middle class. They portray their parents' expectations as implicit rather than explicit, and they see mental health problems as achievement related -but not related to their parents. In both narratives, however, self-worth relies on achievement.
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