The P.E.A.C.E Pack and Bullying: It is all about ‘social capital’!

The P.E.A.C.E. Pack anti-bullying wellbeing program <www.caper.com.au>draws upon the ancient Greek word -psuche (ψυχή),- translated  (psyche) sometimes referred to as  as "soul" or "life," and the concept of the breath of life. The PEACE Pack anti-bullying program (4^th edt.) aims to promote student wellbeing and involves developing, student peer relationships, student strength based capacities  and positive mindset relating to understanding and regulating behaviour, communication skills, resilience  and  optimism. More broadly it includes understanding how bullying links with diversity, inclusiveness, social capital and the importance of inter-cultural understanding as part of global citizenship.

The P.E.A.C.E Pack addresses bullying in a way that embraces the idea that it is a whole community issue and not simply a ‘problem’ for which responsibility lies with the school. Bullying is really about relationships. Simplistically, a great deal of research has focused on the relationship between perpetrator and victim. Now it is better understood (Slee, 2017; Shute & Slee, 2022) that this relationship is collective in its nature, and based on peer and social relationships in the group and beyond. It is based on the premise that an identified problem such as bullying is not located solely within a particular individual wherein conventional Western mechanistic ways of thinking direct us to a search for the faulty part or problematic individual in order to fix the problem. Schools are based around systems and systems within systems, e.g. culture,  community, home, school, year level, classroom, peer groups to name but a few. The various systems interact with each other and within the system individuals are viewed as active agents in construing their own world. From a systemic perspective people are viewed in terms of their relationships with each other rather than simply being understood principally on the basis of their individual development.

Interventions to reduce bullying and promote student wellbeing may be understood to involve  ‘first’ and ‘second’ order change. First order change involves ‘fixing’ the individual with the school/community remaining largely the same.  ‘Second’ order change  will occur when the ‘system’ itself changes.  For example, the school or community  changes its policies,  practices  and social and political awareness for addressing bullying.

Bullying is then bound up with the ‘social webs of communities’ where the webs are described as those which link individuals in groups of people who care for one another and who help maintain a civic, social and moral order. Bullying then may be seen as a behaviour which detracts from the ‘social capital’ of the community. ‘Social capital’ can be described as a measure of the quality of social relationships  or social cohesion in a community. Addressing bullying involves the building and active promotion of social capital.

References

Shute, R. H., & Slee, P. T. (2022).School bullying and marginalisation: Harmonising paradigms.: Springer . Singapore.

Slee, P.T. (2017). School Bullying: Teachers Helping Students Cope. Routledge, Parl. Square, London. 

Visit the CAPER website to  read about the PEACE Pack and The Big Talks for Little People https://bigtalkslittlepeople.com/

Social Capital