Student action research: Preventing bullying in secondary school—Inkla project

Abstract

This article presents Inkla, a youth participatory action research project initiated by secondary school students and supported by university researchers and students. The main goal was to help secondary school students explore intragroup relations in school classes and problems students may encounter as bullying or peer group exclusion. It was also intended to design practical methods to stop bullying and create supportive peer groups. A group of secondary school students became student researchers and conducted interviews in their school classes which resulted in including their peers and teachers in well planned and research-based collective action to prevent bullying and improve school life. Outcomes demonstrate that the student voice can support or change a school’s antibullying policy if the responsibility for bullying prevention is shared with students who are treated as agents of change. This article also describes the complex process of building participative relationships in youth participatory action research.

The parallel culture of bullying in Polish secondary schools: A grounded theory study

“…In terms of policy implications, my findings suggest that effective prevention or intervention is possible only after the bullying process is fully understood. It could prove beneficial to plan anti‐bullying programs through collaborating with adolescents themselves (Wójcik & Hełka, 2018; Wójcik & Mondry, 2017) as they could indicate contexts, situations, or triggers that might lead to bullying. This could allow for the development of effective countermeasures to prevent or interrupt behaviors associated with bullying before they become permanent.…”

“…Bullying is not an isolated interpersonal phenomenon, but a sociocultural one that depends strongly on peers' and adults' actions in particular social settings. Students' roles and reactions in bullying situations, and the variations in bullying that occur across class units, depend mainly on how students interpret the context and how they judge themselves from the viewpoint of their class or peer group (Salmivalli, 2014; Thornberg, 2011; Thornberg & Wänström, 2018; Wójcik & Mondry, 2017). As Horton (2011) suggests, it may be more useful to conceptualize bullying as a social phenomenon that involves ordinary children in unique situations, as opposed to assuming that a large number of children are merely aggressive or “evil‐minded.”…”

Frenemy: A New Addition to the Bullying Circle

“…According to Huitsing and Veenstra (2012), students who report both pro-victim and pro-aggressor intervention styles do so as a result of their vulnerability to ingroup-outgroup processes. In our view, the motives of these frenemies relate to how students' roles and reactions in bullying situations depend mainly on how they interpret the context and how they judge themselves from the viewpoint of their peer group (Salmivalli, 2014;Thornberg, 2011;Wójcik & Mondry, 2020). If the classroom context allows for vulnerable children to become victims, students are forced to navigate the conflicting demands of being a good person and being accepted by peers.…”

“…Peers only discourage the bullying or act to defend the victim in about a quarter of all bullying situations; however, when they do decide to intervene on behalf of the victim, they do so effectively more than two thirds of the time (Hawkins et al, 2001; Salmivalli & Voeten, 2004). As such, there is a particular need to analyze the school and peer context to understand why some students take on the role of bully or become targets of a bully, and what roles bystanders take and why (Salmivalli, 2014; Thornberg, 2011; Thornberg & Wänström, 2018; Wójcik, 2018; Wójcik & Mondry, 2020).…”

“…Scholars are increasingly emphasizing the importance of considering the social context of bullying (Horton, 2016; Salmivalli, 2014; Thornberg, Landgren, & Wiman, 2018) and analyzing bullying as an interactive social process with its own culture norms and rules, power and interaction patterns, rituals, and exclusion markers. According to this view, bullying is not an isolated interpersonal phenomenon, but a sociocultural one that depends strongly on peers’ and adults’ behaviors in particular social settings (Salmivalli, 2014; Thornberg, 2011; Thornberg & Wänström, 2018; Wójcik & Mondry, 2020). Although there is much research on students’ behaviors in bullying situations (Cappadocia, Pepler, Cummings, & Craig, 2012; Garandeau, Lee, & Salmivalli, 2014; Mazzone, Camodeca, & Salmivalli, 2016; Thornberg & Jungert, 2013; Thornberg & Wänström, 2018), most studies have implemented quantitative methods.…”