A social-psychological perspective is used to study young people’s representations of bullying across in-groups and out-groups in eight mixed-sex British state secondary schools (a total of 471 pupils aged 11-16 from Years 7, 9 and 11, 54% girls and 46% boys).  Four of the schools were from an area of high ethnic mix and low socio-economic status (SES), and four are from an area of low ethnic mix and high SES.  The study explores the usefulness of making a distinction not investigated in the bullying literature: that between abuse based on individual characteristics, and abuse in terms of group membership, such as one’s race or sex as a whole.  The literature contains an implicit value judgement that group-based bullying is worse, and therefore more difficult to cope with, because it maligns not only the individual but also the individual’s entire reference group.  The aim of this thesis is to understand children’s evaluations of the severity of the two distinguishable bases for being bullied, with a focus on victim representations.  Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used, in the form of group-interview methodology and forced-choice questionnaires administered individually to 400 pupils.  The 96 group interviews used specially designed vignettes about a male and female victim, with the ethnicity and facial expression of the models manipulated.  Responses only partially support the assumption in the literature; children mentioned many other dimensions upon which evaluations are conditional, ranging from social conventions, intention, frequency, and truth, to the type of target and the nature of the stigma.  Results are interpreted in terms of the general heightened awareness of bullying and racism that permeates schools.  This research contributes to knowledge about the complex processes through which adolescents are both susceptible to and protected from bullying.  The topic is contextualised by a wide range of literature including: bullying, gender, ethnicity, racial and sexual harassment, stigma, adolescent peer groups, identity, self-esteem, attribution theory, and cognitive coping strategies.

Baden Road School was part of a Sheffield Project and results in 1992 indicated that bullying among pupils was getting worse. Unfortunately, bullying among pupils is usually covert and tends not to affect teachers in the same way that disruptive behaviour does. Despite the introduction of an anti-bullying policy little was done by the school to alter the trend. Curriculum has been at the forefront of planning and evaluation in school and the issue of bullying has failed to be reviewed. Teachers were already burdened trying to implement the 1991 National Curriculum orders when, with Government pressure to cut costs, the LEA closed a local primary school and class sizes increased by at least 10%. In the same year the junior school amalgamated with the infants to form Baden Road Primary School with a 3+ to 10+ age range and where the number more than doubled from 220 to over 500 pupils. In a second attempt to persuade the school that something must be done about bullying, case study was a useful way to collect more evidence. While experts cannot agree on a standard definition of bullying, as children are the real experts of what happens, the pupils at Baden Road School found the task easy providing a basis for other data about bullying to be analysed. The case study then gave rise to action research which examined closely appropriate preventative and interventionist methods. Name-calling emerged as the most common form of non-physical bullying in school. Language was found to be critical as a way by which children determine who is bullied and who is not and as a solution to bullying behaviour. While the language used by Baden Road pupils is not representative of any other school it served to demonstrate connections between teasing, bullying, toleration and their effect on pupils. A model hypothesis arose from the question of what determines offensive and tolerable name-calling. The evidence suggests that Baden Road School needs to change to planned routine ways of preventing bullying and intervening in the cases which develop. First though, teachers have to believe that the issue of bullying needs reviewing and evaluating. The success of this study is in the effect it has on facilitating any changes which will promote further awareness, a permanent anti-bullying ethos and better uniform ways victims and bullies are helped in school. Teacher support, as in any school, is critical to the degree of success or failure of this initiative.

Using action research within a critical paradigm framework the author investigated young people’s ability to develop a programme of work that raises awareness of bullying in schools. The research group was made up of six young people, to whom the author and other specialists offered anti-bullying and participatory training techniques. The group eventually designed their own anti-bullying activity programme, which they delivered in creative workshop style sessions to other young people in schools. The author located this research in critical enquiry, engaging the group in a self-reflective process that aimed to be democratic, equitable, liberating and life enhancing. This report is written in the form of a narrative and evaluates the author’s practice as an educative theatre practitioner. Central themes to this research are bullying, power, creative activity and youth participation. Schools, teachers and adults are often described as sucking out the creativity of young people and thus not allowing many of them achieve their full potential. In this context young people are often powerless to deal with some of the difficult issues in their lives such as bullying. The author suggests that peer support is a key strategy to deal with bullying in schools. The author introduces a new concept of peer support called external peer support, which he has evaluated against the current literature. The definition of bullying is explored in depth, as is its relationship to power. The author suggests peer support to be a key strategy in youth participation and ultimately helping youth empowerment.