Understanding bullying from young people’s perspectives: An exploratory study

Abstract

Background: Common definitions of bullying, employed in research and public policy alike, are generally based on adultimposed categories. To account for students' needs in school, research should aim to include their voices more often. However, a major challenge for educational research in general, and bullying research in particular, is finding methods that enable students to participate in the discussion. Purpose: The aim of this small, exploratory and in-depth study was to further the understanding of bullying and provide insights by examining students' subjective viewpoints about bullying. Method: Using Q methodology, a total of 29 Swedish 11-and 13year-olds from one school were given a Q set, comprising 23 items to rank order. Aspects such as the characteristics, modes and types, as well as the context of bullying, were taken into account in the construction of the Q set. Through analysis it was possible to identify two distinct viewpoints, which were then qualitatively interpreted and described. Findings: The viewpoints which emerged within this small, exploratory analysis suggested some interesting distinctions and age-related emphases. Specifically, the older students tended to rank items taking place offline as more severe, compared with items describing bullying taking place online. Further, bullying in private settings was perceived as more severe amongst the younger students, while items describing repetitive bullying in public settings appeared to be of greatest importance when defining bullying behaviour amongst the older students. The relational types of bullying were not ranked as highly characteristic for bullying by younger or older students. Conclusions: Further research with larger data sets is necessary to investigate these emerging findings. The study draws attention to the need for adults to maintain a focus on students' behaviours offline, as well as online: in this highly digital age, it is easy for the offline context to be inadvertently overlooked. When it comes to younger students, anti-bullying efforts targeting bullying in private settings and acknowledging potential harm may be more suitable than anti-bullying efforts targeting stigma and shame, which may, in turn, better support the needs of older students. The study also shines a light on the importance of using participatory methodologies that allow students to express their own perspectives.

Q Methodology as an Innovative Addition to Bullying Researchers’ Methodological Repertoire

“…The central, and therefore also best-known feature of Q methodology is Q sorting to collect data in the form of individual Q sorts. Participants thereby rank order a sample of selfreferent stimuli along a continuum and in accordance with a central condition of instruction; for example, children might be asked to what extent particular scenarios describe bullying situations (Hellström & Lundberg, 2020) or they might be instructed to sort illustrated ways to resolve social exclusion according to the single face-valid dimension of "least preferred to most preferred" (de Leeuw et al, 2019). As soon as all items are placed on a most often bell-shaped distribution grid (see Fig.…”

“…There is a wide research gap in exploring the voices of younger children (de Leeuw et al, 2020) and children with disabilities (Hellström, 2019) in bullying research. Students' conceptualization of bullying behavior changes with age, as there are suggestions that younger students tend to focus more on physical forms of bullying (such as fighting), while older students include a wider variety of behaviors in their view of bullying, such as verbal aggression and social exclusion (Hellström & Lundberg, 2020;Monks & Smith, 2006;Smith et al, 2002;Hellström et al, 2015). This suggests that cognitive development may allow older students to conceptualize bullying along a number of dimensions (Monks & Smith, 2006).…”

“…Despite the fact that Q methodology had been proclaimed as "especially valuable […] in educational psychology" (Stephenson, 1935, p. 297) nearly 90 years ago, the approach has only relatively recently been described as an up-and-coming methodological choice of educational researchers interested in participants' subjective views (Lundberg et al, 2020). Even though, Q enables researchers to investigate and uncover first-person accounts, characterized by a high level of qualitative detail in its narrative description, only few educational studies have applied Q methodology to investigate the subject of bullying (see Camodeca & Coppola, 2016;Ey & Spears, 2020;Hellström & Lundberg, 2020;Wester & Trepal, 2004). Within the wider field of bullying, Q methodology has also been used to investigate workplace bullying in hospitals (Benmore et al, 2018) and nursing units (Choi & Lee, 2019).…”

“…The appropriateness of using quantitative or qualitative research methods rests on the assumption of the researcher and the nature of the phenomena under investigation (Hong & Espelage, 2012). There is a need for adults to widen their understanding and maintain a focus on children's behaviors to be able to provide assistance and support in reducing the amount of stress and anxiety resulting from online and offline victimization (Hellström & Lundberg, 2020). A crucial step for widening this understanding is an increased visibility of children's own viewpoints.…”

“…Cultural differences in attitudes regarding violence as well as perceptions, attitudes, and values regarding bullying are likely to exist and have an impact when bullying is being studied. For this reason, listening to the voices of children and adolescents when investigating the nature of bullying in different cultures is essential (Hellström & Lundberg, 2020;Scheithauer et al, 2016).…”