Aims: This study aims to explore how a local mainstream secondary school can adapt their current self-referral peer support service in order to increase its use by vulnerable Year 7 pupils, including those that experience bullying. Method: An action research methodology incorporating multiple methods of data collection was employed as a framework to support the division and implementation of an electronic peer support scheme. Qualitative methods were employed to investigate the barriers to reporting bullying and using the peer support schemes in this school. This data was used to plan adaptations to the school’s current peer support schemes. Results: The study evolved over three action research cycles, with the results from each cycle informing the general action plan for the next. Reflective discussions with participants supported the development of this research study. The division and subsequent implementation of an electronic peer support scheme was accessed by pupils during a four-month period and evaluated positively by a group of Year 7 pupils. However, no pupils out of the Year 7 cohort (N = 257) accessed either the new electronic scheme or the existing face-to-face peer support scheme when they were available over the autumn term of 2010. Despite this, the levels of bullying being experienced by pupils remained the same. Focus group discussions revealed a number of barriers to reporting bullying and increasing the anonymity of the victim, when reporting was the most important way of overcoming the problem of under-reporting. The barriers to accessing peer support, as well as ways of overcoming them, were identified. Suggestions were made to inform an action plan that would contribute to overcoming problems with the scheme. The results are discussed in relation to existing literature and reflections are made in relation to the action research methodology. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications for future research and practice.

This research examines in-depth the experience and dynamics of workplace bullying across five major academic teaching hospitals and how employees come to provide meanings to bullying behaviour.  I explore the important role that emotions play in examining the perception of bullying in employees’ work environment, including during processes of organisational change. The research goes beyond individual analysis and focuses on the social context of employees in the work environment.  This provides a significant theoretical approach to the studying of bullying behaviour. In examining bullying behaviour, I have drawn mainly on three theorists, Thomas Scheff (1990, 1991, 1994, 1997), Theodore Kemper (1978, 1979, 1987), and Erving Goffman (1959, 1960, 1961, 1990).  I also draw on the work of other symbolic interactionists such as Blumer (1969) and Mead (1934), among others. The study was conducted using a mixed method-approach incorporating quantitative analysis and in-depth interviews.  In addition to gathering survey data from seven hundred and thirty-one respondents, nineteen respondents were interviewed to explore in closer detail their perception of bullying and its impact, as well as various individual and organisational factors that may have influence on the bullying behaviour. This research has provided important insights to the micro world of employees, and the usefulness of emotions in examining bullying in the workplace. Results showed a considerable amount of individuals who admitted to being bullied.  Verbal bullying behaviour was the most frequent form of bullying reported. In addition, it demonstrated an alarming number who witnessed bullying behaviour (70.6%).  Both research methods not only gave a wide range of accounts of bullying, it also included the methods respondents took in order to deal with bullying behaviour. In addition, the effects of bullying behaviour on employees and their colleagues were also explored.  The results clearly indicated considerable emotional distress to those who reported they were bullied.

This participatory action research (PAR) project explored the factors causing stress in the apparel industry of Sri Lanka, its impact and the coping methodologies adopted by the workers. The PAR team was made of 25 voluntary workers from the apparel industry of Sri Lanka. During the group discussions held, the possible causes for stress, coping strategies used and implications of stress on job satisfaction and intention to leave were discussed, debated, and critiqued. The research used a modified version of the Occupational Stress Indicator (Cooper et al., 1998) and Pressure Management Indicator (PMI) developed by Williams and Cooper (1996) to collect stress related information from 155 workers from different apparel factories. Financial difficulties, abusive supervision and workplace incivility, workload were identified as the main factors causing stress in the apparel industry. The researcher’s role as an insider as well as an outsider to the community and shifting positions from an outside consultant/researcher to an active role were important aspects of the data interpretation. The importance attributed to the participants lived experience, focus on social justice and emancipation were inherent characteristics of PAR. Complementary behaviour and religious support were the categories of most commonly used coping strategies by the factory workers. The relationship with others and the recognition were important factors predicting the job satisfaction. Only the ‘workload’ factor could predict intention to leave among apparel factory workers. The implications of the research suggest the importance in the culture and local context on causes and coping strategies on stress. It added abusive supervision and workplace incivility as a key factor causing stress. The impact of the culture was evident as religious support and complementary behaviour were the main categories of coping strategies.

The project aims at finding how workplace bullying affects employee productivity and performance at Ireland organizations. For that reason, quantitative research methods were employed and survey was distributed to companies, nurnsing homes, universities and posted in social media. It also finds out the impact of bullying on employee job satisfaction and productivity. The most appropriate method for the study is quantitative research design in which variables have been measured. The quantitative research design is helpful in attaining information in a numeric way, by applying this method, the variables and their relationships are being attained The analysis depicted that due to workplace bullying, the target experiences low productivity, high mental and physical stress which ultimately leads to less job satisfaction. If organizational culture and environment do not restrict such behavior, which causes bullying incidents within the company, then company may face long-term financial losses. Thus, it has been proven that negative working environment lead towards decreasing employee productivity. The correlation analysis further depicted that aggressive behavior has an impact on employee job satisfaction. The findings of the project concluded that, workplace bullying directly affect employee productivity and performance.

Cyberbullying is a relatively recent phenomenon originally coming to the forefront of the public agenda following a number of anecdotal accounts. It has been defined as “any behaviour performed through electronic or digital media by individuals or groups that repeatedly communicates hostile or aggressive messages intended to inflict harm or discomfort on others” (Tokunaga, 2010: 278). This study is designed to explore cyberbullying issues in school settings from the perspective of teaching professionals. This area is of consequence given that research focussing on face-to-face bullying has suggested that teaching professionals and school staff can have differing definitions and understandings of bullying behaviour and the high prevalence of unreported cyberbullying in schools. The participants in this research were Anti-Bullying Co-ordinators in eight schools in one Local Authority. The staff who participated were employed in a range of settings (Primary, Secondary, Middle and High schools). The views of teaching professionals were obtained using semi-structured interviews and the data were analysed using Thematic Analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006). The results indicate that teaching professionals are beginning to develop an understanding of issues relating to cyberbullying and acknowledge the unique features of this type of behaviour. The findings also highlight that consideration has been given to the level of involvement schools should have when dealing with cyberbullying issues. Furthermore schools are aware of the impact of this type of behaviour and have employed a range of methods to prevent and intervene in cyberbullying. However schools still require additional support to understand how to respond to this phenomenon more comprehensively.

This thesis investigates gendered power relations, including violence, control and coercion, within teenage heterosexual relationships, and broader relationship cultures. It focusses on upper-middle class 14-16 year olds, whose sexualities – unlike those of working-class teenagers – are seldom seen as a social problem. It explores the interactions of romantic and sexual experiences with classed identities and social contexts, based on data generated within a large, high-performing state comprehensive in an affluent, ethnically homogenous (white) area of south-east England. The research, conducted in and outside school, used a mixed-methods approach, incorporating in-depth individual and paired interviews, and self-completion questionnaires. It draws on insights from feminist post-structural approaches to gender and sexualities, and is situated in relation to work that explores the negotiation of gender in “post-feminist” neoliberal societies. Despite (in some ways, because of) their privileged class positioning, these young people faced conflicting regulatory discourses. Heteronormative discourses, and gendered double standards, still shaped their (sexual) subjectivities. Sexuality was very public and visible, forming a claustrophobic regulatory framework restricting movements and choices, particularly girls’. But inequalities and violences were often obscured by powerful classed discourses of compulsory individuality, with young people compelled to perform an autonomous self even as they negotiated inescapably social networks of sexuality. These discourses could exacerbate inequalities, as participants denigrated others for vulnerability. A significant proportion of participants reported controlling, coercive or violent relationship experiences, but girls especially downplayed their importance. Girls shouldered the burden of emotion work, taking on responsibility for both their own and partners’ emotions. Sexual harassment and violence from peers were often regarded with resignation, and sometimes led to further victimisation from partners or peers. Policing of sexuality was bound up with classed prejudices and assumptions; participants’ performances of identity often rested on dissociation from the working class. Young middle-class people’s heterosexual subjectivities sat uneasily with educationally successful, future-oriented subjectivities; sexuality was an ever-lurking threat to becoming an educational and therefore classed success.