Fostering religious commitment in schools and considering children’s cultural diversity arguably enhances pupils’ tolerance and integration, which may have the potential to reduce racism and discrimination. Faith schools are religiously and culturally diverse institutions and typically appreciated for their core values, good behaviour and academic standards. However, their impact on school culture and ethos is under explored. Although, the role of faith has gained attention both in policy and practice, relatively little is known about its impact in the context of primary education. As such, this research explores the complex influence of faith on school culture and ethos. In addition, critical analysis is undertaken to investigate the impact of faith on pupils’ behaviour and understanding in school. The main research aims are to: explore the multiple ways in which faith is manifested in two schools, determine the influence of faith on school culture and ethos, and establish the impact of faith on pupils’ behaviours and understanding in school. This research takes an ethnographic approach to explore how faith is manifested in two primary schools in the North West of England. The ethnography enabled a deeper immersion in to the school culture as data were generated through observations, interviews, focus groups and documentary analysis in two schools: A denomination school, Church of England, and a community school with an Islamic ethos. The research was conducted in the North West of England which has many diverse faith-based schools. Critical Race and Feminist Theories were used as lenses of analysis to examine faith in school. Critical Race Theory is a framework employed to examine the role of race and power in education. This research provides rich ethnographic description and analysis of faith as understood, practiced and experienced in the two schools. The findings reveal two major themes, first, a mismatch between school policy/values and its practice. Second, a lack of integration of staff and children into the school. Despite schools’ efforts to embrace diversity and encourage integration, schools policies were found to be empty rhetoric with regards to fostering religious commitment and cultural diversity. Exploring the issue of recognising cultural diversity within schools, findings indicated that both schools did not acknowledge or teach other cultural traditions, therefore, impacting on issues of integration. Poor behaviour, bullying and racism amongst children were major issues at both schools. Data analysis suggests the source of misbehaviour was due to the lack of emphasis placed on teaching about different religions, insufficient knowledge of cultural traditions and lack of visits to places of worship. This research concludes that there is a need for schools to develop awareness of religions and cultural diversity; thereby, encouraging integration, community cohesion and respect for similarities and differences.

This thesis begins by questioning the applicability of Western concepts and measures of workplace bullying to the Far East culture. Facing such an issue, the thesis aims to address the role of culture on workplace bullying by examining the emic and etic dimensions and developing an indigenous bullying scale. By emic was meant culturally specific dimension while by etic was meant culturally neutral dimension. Three studies were conducted which illustrated the emic and etic dimensions of workplace bullying. The first study was based on a questionnaire survey with 50 Korean and 43 UK employees and showed the extent of cultural differences in the employees’ concepts of and attitudes towards workplace bullying. Based upon these results, the qualitative part of the second study developed an indigenous bullying questionnaire (KBAQ: Korean Bullying Acts Questionnaire) through a repertory grid with 42 Korean participants. Then, the quantitative part of the study tested employees’ agreement of the KBAQ items being examples of bullying using a questionnaire survey with 76 Korean and 75 UK participants. Finally, the third study conducted a questionnaire survey utilising KBAQ and NAQ-R (Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised). 193 Korean and 167 UK employees participated. The study highlighted cultural differences in the descriptive aspects of workplace bullying such as the prevalence rate, bully/perpetrator status, health outputs (e.g., job satisfaction and work-related burnout) and predictors (e.g., leadership style, role conflict, and interpersonal conflict). The results also evidenced the validity and reliability of KBAQ and revealed that KBAQ had a greater applicability for Korean employees and NAQ-R for UK employees. The consistent findings of cultural differences suggest the need for an indigenous approach in examining workplace bullying. This thesis makes a significant contribution to the literature on workplace bullying in the Far East and provides the ground for the advancement of the indigenous approach to workplace bullying research.

Research and interventions concerning anti-social behaviour have neglected the bad behaviour of “good” people or those who typically behave pro-socially. Additionally, past and current research and practice in this area have often neglected how factors in one’s current environment influence behaviour. Instead, the focus has been on how individual characteristics—borne of the interplay of genetic composition and environmental influences over time—result in anti-social behaviour. However, evidence suggests immediate contexts can foster even atypical behaviour, behavior not correlated with genetic and long-term environmental influences. The thesis is presented in four parts. Part One introduces the idea that immediate group context can have a significant effect on anti-social behaviour, particularly that of “good” people. Part Two reviews research on the impact of social dynamics on behaviour. Part Three presents the empirical study on the role of a particular group dynamic, social dilemmas, in relation to a specific type of anti-social behaviour, bullying. Finally, Part Four considers the implications of the thesis for future research and practice. Social dilemmas are situations in which individual motives are at odds with the best interests of the group and help to explain why individuals sometimes make anti-social decisions. The study at the core of this thesis tested two hypotheses: 1) both individual and group factors are associated with behaviour in bullying situations; and 2) attitudes, group norms, and social dilemmas each have a unique contribution to predicting behaviour in bullying situations. Participants were 292 middle school students at a residential school in the U.S., and data were analysed using multi-level modelling. The primary findings were, in general, consistent with the two hypotheses. The research suggests that social dilemma dynamics might be an important group factor in predicting behaviour in bullying situations.

The first part of the study was conducted on a selected group of people from the management team of the investigated organisation.  This served as a cognitive testing of the suitability of the research tool for the subject under study.  An adapted version of the Negative Arts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R) developed by Einarsen and Hoel (2001) was utilised in this research to collect relevant data from the respondents.  The second part of the research gathered quantitative data from the whole organisation, using an accepted version of the questionnaire used in the first study.  A total of 452 employees’ completed the survey which was a 25% response rate.  Results reveal 37% of the respondents have been subjected to bullying in the organisation; while 30% report that the bullying experienced is ongoing. A factor analysis on the different types of negative behaviours reveals three types of bullying behaviours: personal bullying, administrative bullying and social exclusion. Another factor analysis conducted on the causes of bullying within Lifesaver identified the attributes of the recipient, the poor interpersonal and intrapersonal skills of the perpetrator, a lack of effective policies and procedures, and the employees’ resistance to change as the primary causes of bullying. The third part of this research is a qualitative research carried out on 10 employees. Results revealed a different pattern to the causes of bullying. These are organisational change, organisational division into groups, power relations, poor management, and other factors such witnessing bullying. The different types of bullying, are covert and overt bullying, and upward bullying. The fourth part is another qualitative research conducted on five key informants within Lifesaver. Results reveal bullying is going on in the organisation and can be attributed to the fact that bullying is part of the culture of the organisation. The evidence to support this claim has been presented to the management of the organisation.

Much has been written in recent years of a ‘crisis’ in the recruitment and retention of midwives in the NHS. The crisis has been attributed variously to burnout, a lack of professional autonomy, a bullying culture, and an ideological conflict between the way in which midwives wish to practise and the way they are required to practise within large bureaucratic institutions, such as NHS Trusts. Negotiating these experiences requires a significant amount of emotional labour by midwives, which they may find intolerable. This thesis explores the strategies NHS midwives deploy in order to continue working in NHS maternity services when many of their colleagues are leaving. It examines the extent to which working in a midwife-led service rather than a consultant-led service helps or hinders midwives’ capacity to manage the emotional and ideological demands of their practice. Ethnographic fieldwork was carried out in a consultant unit and an Alongside Midwife-led Unit (AMU) in two NHS Trusts in England. The findings from negotiated interactive observation and in-depth unstructured interviews with eighteen midwives were analysed using inductive ethnographic principles. In order to ameliorate the emotional distress they experienced, the midwives used coping strategies to organise the people and spaces around them. These strategies of organisation and control were part of a personal and professional project which they found almost impossible to articulate because it ran contrary to the ideals of the midwifery discourse. Midwives explained these coping strategies as firstly, necessary in order to deal with institutional constraints and regulations; secondly, out of their control and thirdly, destructive and bad for midwifery. In practice it appeared that the midwives played a role in sustaining these strategies because they formed part of a wider professional project to promote their personal and professional autonomy. These coping strategies were very similar in the Consultant Unit and the Midwifery Unit. A midwife-led service provided the midwives with a space within which to nurture their philosophy of practice. This provided some significant benefits for their emotional wellbeing, but it also polarised them against the neighbouring Delivery Suite. The resulting poor relationships profoundly affected their capacity to provide a service congruent with their professional ideals. This suggests that whilst Alongside Midwife-led Units may attempt to promote a midwifery model of care and a good working environment for midwives, their proximity to consultant-led services compounds the ideological conflict the midwives experience. The strength of their philosophy may have the unintended consequence of silencing open discussion about the negative influence on women of the strategies the midwives use to compensate for ideological conflict and a lack of institutional and professional support.

There is a body of research that emphasises the role that peers can have in either fuelling or preventing bullying behaviour. Bystanders typically reinforce bullying by joining in or passively watching (O’Connell, Pepler and Craig 1999). Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979) states that within a social group individuals are motivated to maintain a positive social identity and do so by adhering to group norms. Therefore, if bullying is normative within a group pupils are more likely to join in or passively watch (Duffy and Nesdale 2008; Gini 2006). This study evaluates the effectiveness of ‘Defeat Bullying’ (NSPCC 2007), a five week whole class anti-bullying curriculum. The overall aim of the curriculum was to create an anti-bullying group norm within the class. A pre-test, post-test non-equivalent groups quasi experimental design was employed, with an eight week follow up. Pupils aged 9-10 (year 5) from three schools in a predominately rural Local Authority (LA) in Yorkshire participated in the study (n = 69). School 1 received the intervention, School 2 received the intervention plus parental involvement and School 3 was the control group. Pupils’ reported levels of bullying, attitudes towards bullying and knowledge of how to intervene in bullying situations were measured. Questionnaires regarding the pupils’ difficult and prosocial behaviour were completed by the teachers. The impact of parental involvement on the effectiveness of the intervention was also explored. ‘Defeat Bullying’ (NSPCC 2007) did not have a statistically significant effect on any of the factors measured, which suggests there was no overall effect on the group norms regarding bullying. Furthermore, there was no statistically significant difference between School 1 and School 2 who received the intervention plus parental involvement. Possible reasons for the non significant results and the implications of this are discussed. The likelihood of changing group norms through the delivery of an anti-bullying curriculum is considered. The study raises questions in terms of whether or not parental involvement is important in anti-bullying interventions and if so what type of parental involvement is the most effective.