Bullying in schools and what to do about it

REVIEW
BY ANNE HUGO

Bullying in schools and what to do about it
Revised and updated
Ken Rigby
ACER Press 2007
ISBN 0 86431 184 2
$39.95
http://shop.acer.edu.au/acer-shop/product/A4005BK

However much you know about bullying and schools, you will find new insights in this revision to the original and ground-breaking 1998 edition of this book. What we don't know about the causes of bullying and the shortcomings in addressing it are as fascinating as the definitive accounts of a difficult and "enduring problem" (p.278) that spans the disciplines of education, psychology and sociology. What the author does not offer us is a "theory of bullying" – indeed, he sees no such theory on the horizon. Ken Rigby Adjunct research professor at the University of South Australia's School of Education, appeals for a realistic understanding of bullying while offering us a thorough examination of the subject, born of his 18 years of collaborative research undertaken in Australia on bullying.

The causes are often laid at the feet of the victims, parents, educators, principals, training bodies, policymakers and whole cultures. Solutions have taken the form of policies and models, counselling programs and behavioural interventions, but at best, only 15% of cases of bullying in schools are currently effectively stopped.

How can this be?

In a new chapter, Further light on understanding bullying, Rigby talks us through several issues that have emerged in recent years: cyber bullying, gender issues. Along the way, he highlights the fact that bullying in Australian schools seems to peak in Years 7 or Year 8, at the stage when children transfer to secondary school. We might explain this with dominance theory or developmental theory, personality theory or genetic disposition, family life or social prejudice, but Rigby draws our attention to what has been overlooked – things like the role of group dynamics in "motivating and directing a good deal of bullying behaviour in schools" (p.122) and the absence of curriculum content on bullying in teacher training courses that need attention. He then hones in on the causal issues of the school's ethos and the classroom climate. While we debate the issues that go into the making of a bully, or a victim – parenting, early childhood bonding, authoritarian or dysfunctional teaching methods, it is the classroom teacher who shares the spotlight in the drama of bullying, along with the "bully bystanders" (who it is hoped, can be co-opted to the role of peer supporters). Given the "modelling effect" of a teacher's behaviour, an authoritarian, bullying style of teaching can be a factor that both contaminates an educational climate and subtly condones student bullying. Here, Rigby cites the great English essayist, G. K. Chesterton, who once suggested that the main purpose served by a school, apart from getting children out of the home, was to provide examples of adult behaviour under stress – all the material they needed to study human character. Rigby points out the need for educators to inculcate an attitude of respect towards both the victim and the bully "not only in the counselling room of the caring psychologist, but also in the hurly burly of the teacher's classroom".

Regarding school policies on bullying, ideally directed towards the dual ends of both an ethos that is not conducive to bullying as well as a climate that's effective in educating children both academically and socially, these policies come in many guises. Whether they are pastoral care policies, social justice policies, discipline policies, anti-harassment policies, their importance lie in what they say, and in "what, if anything, people do about it". Anti-bullying policies, and the ethos of a school each receive chapters in their own right.

The book's well indexed and includes an appendix of resources on bullying as well as a comprehensive bibliography. Rigby makes the case for knowledge of recent and effective interventions to be communicated to educators and counsellors, the ultimate audience for this book.