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.

There is growing concern over the problem of bullying behaviour in schools. In response to this concern, this study set out to examine the incidence and characteristics of students who were considered to be bullies or victims, according to teacher and peer ratings and class questionnaires. The rationale behind choosing the seven schools was to include an example of each of the main types of school in the Irish educational system. The study looks at a small number of schools in depth, rather than a large number of schools superficially. Socio-economic and social and family background features are examined as factors in the causation of bully/victim problems. Students identified as bullies or victims are compared under the following headings: 1) Physical Characteristics 2) Psychological Traits 3) Personality Characteristics 4) Behaviour Characteristics Particular students who emerged as bullies or victims are profiled. Information regarding the nature, causation, maintenance, prevention, alleviation, eradication of bully/victim problems was gathered by means of pupil interviews and questionnaires completed by Principals and teachers. The study is organised into five chapters. The first two chapters provide a theoretical framework for the study. Chapter I deals with the purpose and background to the research. Chapter II reviews the literature on aggression and bullying behaviour. Chapter III focuses on the research procedure. Chapter IV is a presentation and discussion of the results of the research. Chapter V presents a summary, conclusions and implications of the study. The major conclusion of the study is that school as an institution does not cause people to become bullies or victims. While it may be the case, that the atmosphere in some schools is conducive to bullying behaviour, it is likely that social and family background features combined with certain physical, psychological, personality and behavioural characteristics are of paramount importance in the causation and maintenance of bullying behaviour.

The purpose of the present research is to advance our knowledge and understanding of bullying behaviour among incarcerated young offenders. This involved conducting a large-scale study investigating the prevalence, frequency, and circumstances of bullying, correlates of bullying, and characteristics of bullies and victims in young offender institutions of varying security level and type. Recommendations are made concerning how levels of bullying can be reduced based on the results. Bullying can be defined as the repeated oppression, psychological or physical, of a less powerful person by a more powerful one. This kind of behaviour is perceived as a serious problem in young offender institutions and has been implicated as the primary cause of recent deaths in at least one young offender facility. Although there is a substantial amount of research investigating bullying among school children, bullying in offender populations has been virtually ignored by criminological and psychological researchers until very recently. A sample (N=190) of male young offenders in Canadian custody facilities of varying security level and type were administered two standardized inventories measuring the prevalence, nature, and frequency of bullying behaviour, the response of staff and peers to this phenomenon, and psychological and background characteristics of offenders who are bullies and victims, as well as those who do not fall into either of these categories. A pilot study was conducted in order to develop a questionnaire to collect basic data on bullying among incarcerated young offenders and assess its value. In addition, a study was conducted in order to validate offender self-reports of bullying and victimization concurrently against peer nominations and staff reports. Information and knowledge concerning the nature and extent of bullying in a facility, the types of individuals who are likely to become bullies and victims, and circumstances within institutions which may permit or encourage bullying behaviour can be useful to correctional practitioners and policy makers. This kind of information could assist them in making institutional changes to aid in the prevention and reduction of bullying behaviour. It could also help them to classify offenders as bullies and victims to aid in the implementation of prevention measures targeted as these individuals, as well as for need and risk assessment. Hopefully, a large programme of research based on this thesis could lead to significant advances in knowledge about bullying in young offender institutions and hence to significant decreases in this troubling problem.

This qualitative research explores upwards harassment in the workplace and is located in the social psychological paradigm.  In this study the targets for harassment are academics working in Post-1992 English Universities and the perpetrators of the harassment, undergraduate students. The study uses attribution theory to explore the academics’ experiences of the harassment.  These accounts clearly show that students are not only verbally harassing academics and making unachievable task demands using electronic communication devices, but that they are isolating, and personally and sexually harassing academics. Academic attributions demonstrated that they perceived that harassment occurs when students themselves are feeling stressed. They felt that these stresses are not only related with course demands and social requirements, but that they are associated with the changing nature of society, the change in the profile of the university student, widening participation and the social political agenda of education. This research highlighted that, as a result of the harassment, academics are feeling heightened levels of anger, fear and guilt, and to deal with these potentially damaging emotions they proactively employ a variety of coping strategies.  This research demonstrated that the most predominant coping choice is informal social support.   However, it is also suggested that academics are themselves inadvertently putting undue stress upon each other. To minimise upward harassment, limit the negative effects of stress and the associated detriment to the health of academics, it is suggested that universities be proactive in working collaboratively with students, Student Unions, Human Resources, Information Technologists, academics and managers, to explore Anti-Harassment policies, and embed the message that harassment of any form, by anyone in the organisation, is unacceptable.

This research investigates the gendered aspects of organisational culture. Empirical studies of two organisations, both with distinctive divisional cultures were undertaken. Employing and extending the Weberian concept of social closure, I ask whether, and to what extent, different organisational cultures act as means of social closure to exclude and/or marginalise women managers. I design a research typology for studying gender and culture, consisting of gender awareness, management style, time management, public/private divide, informal socialising, and sexuality. I draw on several different theories of power to explain hierarchical gender relations in organisations. I found that a Weberian concept of legal rational authority is still relevant to organisational life, particularly leadership. The concept of discourse, as meaning what may be said at any one time, proved useful, particularly in illuminating the public/private divide. I argue that a concept of patriarchy is still vital for a feminist analysis of organisations and Gramsci’s concept of hegemony helps explain why women are seemingly complicit in their own oppression. The research highlights the importance of an adequate definition of orgnisational culture in order to identify its exclusionary characteristics. Different constituents of culture may act to exclude women in different ways and in different areas, even where a strong equal opportunities policy exists. Key findings include the prevalence of sexual harassment even at senior levels and in’feminised’ areas of work; the positive impact of a nonheterosexual culture on gender relations, and the importance of business demands on management style. At senior levels, long hours, informal socialising, management style, and the acceptance of a public/private divide act in combination or separately to marginalise and exclude women. Whilst women managers fare better in an equal opportunities organisation, men’s resistance to women in organisations becomes more subtle as overt discrimination is outlawed.