Frenemy: A New Addition to the Bullying Circle

Downward Spiral of Bullying: Victimization Timeline From Former Victims' Perspective

The present study aimed to investigate how those who had been chronic victims of bullying perceive their bullying experience from their initial attacks to their bullying exit, how they understood processes and actions causing a situation to become progressively worse, and how they interpreted their own coping behaviors. Nine individuals who were victimized for at least 6 years were interviewed. The grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data, which generated a grounded theory of the downward spiral of bullying, demonstrating hidden aspects of bullying-the victim's inner process as a response to external victimizing and accompanying events. The interdependence of those processes is presented in a timeline to show their cumulative nature as new vicious circles of bullying involving maladaptive coping strategies (e.g., self-blame), which form an overriding pattern of behavior that renders victims unable to break it even if they enter a new peer group. In terms of policy implications, the findings suggest the need to introduce school transition programs supporting school adaptation, identify chronic victims, and take every victimhood narrative seriously.

Surprising partners: Teachers' contribution to school bullying

Participant role theory describes the designation of social roles and the use of contextually appropriate social scripts and provides a context for the interpretation of a range of social and interpersonal issues, including bullying in the school setting. This study uses participant role theory to analyze interpersonal engagements in a 10th grade class in a high school in central Israel. Data were drawn from ethnographic observations conducted by the first author of the cohort over the course of a school year, together with in-depth semi-structured interviews with the students and teachers. The findings suggest that students apply "role switching" (the flexible presentation of multiple social roles, depending on context) to negotiate the challenge of bullying in the school setting. The study also assesses the influence of individual teachers on role switching, positing that a teacher's relationship with individual students can serve as a catalyst for role-switching in three specific circumstances: where the teacher-student relationship instigates bullying against a specific child; where the teacher is a bully; and where a supportive relationship enables positive role-switching on the part of specific classroom actors. These findings have theoretical and applied significance in both pre- and in-service training for teachers and school administrative staff.

Bullying-Related Tweets: a Qualitative Examination of Perpetrators, Targets, and Helpers

Bullying literature notes that aside from the dyadic relationship of target and perpetrator, there are other participant roles in the bullying process including those that reinforce the perpetrator and those that stand up for the target. Most examinations of bullying roles have relied on self-reported data, which suffer from key limitations such as response and recall bias. Twitter data provides a way to overcome these limitations and extend our current understanding of bullying roles. The current study provides one of the first qualitative examinations of tweets to analyze the disclosure and sharing of bullying-related online and offline episodes. Through a qualitative content analysis, the study examines 780 tweets to analyze the descriptions and characteristics of three participant roles: the perpetrator, target, and helper. The results provide multidimensional insights into the context and relationships between bullying roles. The results reveal that each of the bullying role players tweet to share varying perspectives and the discussions transcend beyond just online exchanges. The results also confirm that Twitter is used not only as a channel for bullying but also as a tool for connection between the different role players. Implications of how Twitter can be leveraged to promote anti-bullying initiatives to educate and inform users about bullying, while also helping build resilience and emotional regulation, are discussed. Additionally, the study also has implications for artificial intelligence and can help to build improved classifiers to detect bullying-related discourse and content online.

Disclosing or Hiding Bullying Victimization: A Grounded Theory Study From Former Victims’ Point of View

This study aimed to investigate the process of disclosing bullying victimization from the former victims’ point of view. Twenty-three individuals with prior experience of victimization at school were interviewed. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data, which generated a grounded theory of help-seeking in victimization, comprising factors and conditions that influenced the willingness to ask for help when bullied. We concentrated on disclosure barriers and facilitators in a school context to identify important factors, which comprised type of peer harassment, type and form of initial attack, perception of available support at school, and perception of peer support. In terms of the practical implications of the present study, the identification of disclosure tendencies could provide a basis for developing school policies to facilitate disclosure.

Peer Victimisation in Early Childhood; Observations of Participant Roles and Sex Differences

During middle childhood and adolescence, victimisation appears to be a group process involving different participant roles. However, peer reports with younger children (four to six years old) have failed to identify the participant roles of assistant (to the bully) reinforcers or defenders with much reliability. This may be because peer victimisation is a more dyadic process among younger children (behavioural reality), or because of limitations in young children’s cognitive capacity to identify these behaviours (cognitive limitations). The findings of an observational study which examined the group nature of peer victimisation among young children are presented. Observations were made of 56 children aged four and five years using time sampling during free play at school (totalling 43.5 h of observation). Records were made of their behaviour when an onlooker witnessed aggression by others, and also of others’ behaviour when they were being aggressive or being victimised. Although children other than the aggressor and target were present in nearly two thirds of the episodes of peer victimisation observed, few exhibited behavioural responses in line with the assistant, reinforcer or defender roles. This supports the behavioural reality rather than the cognitive limitations explanation. Sex differences were observed in types of aggression displayed by children, with boys more likely than girls to be physically aggressive. Children were less likely to be aggressive to other-sex peers and were most likely to be victimised by children of the same sex as them. There were also sex differences in children’s onlooker behaviour. The implications for our understanding of the development of peer victimisation and bullying in children are discussed.