Towards a culturally situated understanding of bullying: viewing young people’s talk about peer relationships through the lens of consent

Abstract

Bullying has typically been defined and studied separately from other forms of gender-and sexuality-related harassment and violence such as dating and relationship violence and sexual harassment, arguably obscuring the complex interrelations between these phenomena. This article is based on an EU-funded project which explored young people's understandings and experiences of sexual bullying (bullying related to gender and/or sexuality). Data collected via 41 focus groups with young men and women (N = 253) aged 13-18 across five European countries (Bulgaria, England, Italy, Latvia, Slovenia) were analysed using thematic analysis. Participants highlighted intersections between bullying, dating and relationship violence and sexual harassment. They also drew upon notions of consent to determine whether and when certain actions constituted bullying. We argue that applying this lens of consent to young people's peer relationships illuminates the extent to which bullying (like other forms of gender-and sexuality-related harassment and violence) is culturally situated and embedded within hierarchical gendered power relations. We therefore advocate that Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and anti-bullying initiatives treat consent as a 'common thread' in discussing and challenging a range of gender-and sexuality-related forms of bullying and harassment within peer relationships.

Acoso escolar y su relación con la actividad física en adolescentes escolarizados de Cali, Colombia (School bullying and its relationship with physical activity among schooled adolescents in Cali, Colombia)

“…Por otra parte, se hace necesario destacar que el acoso de contenido sexual fue el tercero más observado, presente en un 9,71% de los escolares, lo que hace relevante explorar a profundidad estos comportamientos y las características tanto de las víctimas como de quienes protagonizan estos actos, ya que es un problema complejo que puede estar influenciado por roles de dominación y poder sobre el otro (Milnes, et al, 2022), por lo que es necesario el abordaje mediante acciones preventivas y de intervención por parte de los diversos actores de la comunidad educativa en busca de la reparación de la víctima, garantías de no repetición y la consolidación de un clima escolar basado en el respeto mutuo.Los hallazgos encontrados en este estudio refuerzan la necesidad de establecer acciones que incrementen los niveles de AF y que reduzcan las cifras de AE en las instituciones educativas, haciendo énfasis especialmente en las adolescentes y en las instituciones de carácter oficial; esto debido a la importancia de promover una cultura que valore las características personales del estudiante, sus diferencias en el aprendizaje y las realidades contextuales, y que se utilicen herramientas de carácter ético, emocional y social para abordar estas problemáticas en la educación física.…”

‘Doing things you don't wanna do’: young people's understandings of power inequalities and the implications for sexual consent

“…In line with this, despite a few sexual consent educational programmes recognising the role of the wider social systems which shape young people's experiences and understandings of consent (Burton et al 2021), this is particularly important when it comes to addressing power inequalities within sexual relationships (Jones, Milnes, and Turner-Moore 2021). It is crucial that the societal and systemic nature of power imbalances are unpacked in discussion with young people (Jones, Milnes, and Turner-Moore 2021), in order to encourage young people to reflect on the power and privilege they may access at a structural level and how this subsequently may serve as a barrier for others to communicate their discomfort or non-consent (Milnes, Turner-Moore, and Gough 2021). Whilst sexual violence is gendered (Muehlenhard et al 2017), the findings here often illustrated a reluctance to acknowledge gendered power and privilege when it comes to sexual consent.…”

Bullying in Five European Countries: Evidence for Bringing Gendered Phenomena Under the Umbrella of ‘Sexual Bullying’ in Research and Practice

“…One of the themes, The Nature of Sexual Bullying, encapsulated two subthemes: what constituted 'sexual bullying' according to young people (Milnes et al, 2021), and the diverse forms of sexual bullying reported by them, including the varied acts that the young people had experienced or witnessed that they presented as examples of sexual bullying. It is this second subtheme, Diverse Forms of Sexual Bullying, that was most relevant to the present study, and thus, we re-read all the extracts coded under this subtheme and considered how they illustrated and explained the quantitative analyses.…”