Smith, P.K. Morita, Y., Junger-Tas., Olweus, D., Catalano, R., & Slee, P. (eds) (1999). The Nature of School Bullying. A Cross National Perspective. Routledge: London.
This text presents a world-wide perspective from 24 countries on the issue of school bullying. Each chapter provides a country overview to set the research on bullying in context, a discussion of how bullying has been described in that society, the research undertaken and where appropriate the nature and success of anti-bullying interventions.
In Slee, P.T. and Rigby, K. (1998). (eds.). Children's Peer Relations (pp.205-214). Routledge: London.
In STUDY ONE 947 students from year 3 to year 7 from 3 South Australian primary schools completed an anonymous survey. On average 17.7% of students reported being bullied 'once a week or more often'. When asked what prevented them from helping some-one who was being victimised 31% of students said that the 'teachers should intervene'; 30% said 'it was none of my business' and 20% said they 'feared retaliation'.
In STUDY TWO involving 540 students from one of the schools an examination was made of the links between socio-metric status and measures of inter-personal peer relations, including a 'tendency to bully', to be 'victimised' and to be 'prosocial''. Overall, bullies and victims were less liked than prosocial students. Prosocial tendencies were most strongly linked with popular social status while being victimised was associated with rejected social status.
Phillip T. Slee
A Part of a Poster presentation at the ISSBD Conference, Berne, Switzerland. 1998
Australian research into school bullying has identified a great deal about its (i) frequency (ii) nature (iii) impact on those involved and (iv) the effects of intervention programs. A range of Australian studies have identified the deleterious sequela to bullying. Bullying is associated with negative outcomes in terms of health, the quality of peer relations, depression, loneliness, anxiety and stress. The relationship between stress and bullying has not been extensively examined. Australian research ( Murray-Harvey & Slee,1988) involving 318 families has highlighted how pervasive stress is with 26.8% of the families interviewed indicating that they were more stressed than other families. Parents indicated the most stressful life events for adults related to issues surrounding the discipline of children, death/illness, violence within and outside the home and marital relationship issues. Primary school children interviewed as part of the survey indicated that stress related to accidents/illness, marital disharmony amongst the parents and violence at school. Secondary students were stressed by violence at school, accidents/illness and problems with school work. Teachers of the students rated victims of bullying as more poorly adjusted at school than non-victims. Further research is warranted to better understand the links between stress and school bullying.
Phillip Slee
2006
Objectives: In this paper it will be argued that community based
interventions based on systems theory have a unique contribution to make to
school violence/bullying prevention. A systems approach that connects with
students and parents is important and necessary BUT not sufficient. Community
workers, youth workers, police, amongst others play a critical role in linking
school, home and community. Outcomes from a number of interventions to reduce
school bullying/violence will be used to argue for the efficacy of a community
focus.
Methods: Quantitative data using the Peer Relations Questionnaire and the 'Provictim
Scale (Slee, 2001) were used to collect data from 1479 Australian adolescent
students from 5 high schools regarding their self reported experiences of
bullying and attitudes towards victims. Qualitative data from focus groups run
in each of the schools is also presented to provide further insight into the
nature and impact of bullying.
Results: The findings indicated that 24.5% of students reported being
bullied 'once a week or more often'. Analysis of variance was used to explore
the link between self reported bullying and attitudes to victims.
Paper presented at the 17th World Congress of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions
Phillip Slee & Rosalind Murray-Harvey
2006
Abstract : This research describes data for 450 (255 males and 195 females) Australian school students aged 10-15 years. Students from years 6 and 9 were surveyed three times using a commonly developed questionnaire for the 5 Pacific rim countries of Japan, Korea, Canada, Australia, and the United States of America. Preliminary analysis of cross sectional and longitudinal data will be reported relating to school bullying. In all, 14.6% of students reported being bullied ‘once a week or more often’ and 5.0% of students reported bullying others ‘once a week or more’. The most commonly reported form of victimization was being ‘jokingly hit, pushed, kicked’ and this was reported on average by 13.7% of students across the three data collection periods and then by ‘teasing, being called names , threatened or having mean things said’ and this was reported on average by 13.6% of students across the three data collection periods. The least frequent form of victimization was by ‘computer, e-mail or text’ messages’ which was reported by on average 1.1% of students. Being victimized and bullying others were higher in year 6 than 8. There was a significant correlation between feeling ‘unhappy’ at school and being victimized (.30, p<.001) and bullying others (.13,p<.05). There was a significant correlation between reporting having fewer friends at school and being victimized (-.30, p<.001). The findings will be used to highlight how Australian children describe their experience of being victimized and bullying others and the relationship with health and well-being and school connectedness.
Paper presented at the 19th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development.
Phillip Slee & Rosalind Murray-Harvey
2006
Abstract: This research (i) describes data for 598 year 8, 9 and 10 Australian secondary students coping strategies related to problematic aspects of their peer relations at school, namely bullying and (ii) describes a rough cut of a video documenting students coping strategies developed as an outcome of the research. Commonly identified general coping strategies employed in the face of stress include problem focused coping which aims at directly confronting problems through direct action. Thus, students report they would 'tell the person to stop'. The other type of coping attempts to deal with the emotions aroused by the stressful event. Thus, students report they 'would try to stay calm' in the face of the stress and not show they were upset.
The research describes the development of a 'Bully Coping Scale' including factor analysis and Rasch scaling which identified 5 reliably identified factors. The present study will link frequency of victimization with the type of coping strategy used. The intention is to identify students who report they have 'successfully' coped with school bullying and video-tape their descriptions. To date there is no resource available for use in schools describing coping strategies. Previous videos (eg Slee, Murray-Harvey & Lawson, 1998) have described the nature of stressors faced by young people or have focussed on adult strategies for managing bullying (Wotherspoon, Slee, Shute & Owens, 2004).
Paper presented at the 19th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development.