Shame is considered to be a negative emotion which encompasses feelings of inferiority, self-condemnation and the desire to hide from others. It has been associated with psychopathology, including depression, which is a significant and growing concern particularly in young people. Understanding how shame contributes to adolescent depression is therefore important. 0 Previous research with adults indicated that rumination and social rank are important in the relationship between shame and depression. However the small number of studies related to adolescent depression suffered from methodological weaknesses and did not test for mediation. Objectives The present study aimed to elucidate the contexts inwhich adolescents experience shame. Moreover it aimed to investigate whether rumination and social rank (social comparison and submissive behaviour) mediated the relationship between shame and depression in adolescents. Method A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based design was used and data were collected from a community sample of 16 to 18 year-olds (mean age 17.09). Measures of chronic, external and event-specific shame, general and event-specific rumination, social comparison, submissive behaviour and depression were completed by 188 participants (175 females and 13 males). Results The findings suggested that adolescents experienced shame in a variety of contexts including bullying, poor academic achievement and relationship difficulties. Mediation analyses suggested that rumination did not significantly mediate the relationship between shame and depression in adolescents, independently of social 104 nk. social comparison and shame appeared to act in a reciprocal relationship to influence adolescent depression. Shame and submissive behaviour behaved similarly but in adolescents submissive behaviour may be protective. conclusion The findings differed from previous research examining shame, social rank, rumination and depression in adult samples. In the presence of shame, social rank may be more important than rumination during adolescence in relation to depression as an outcome.

A longitudinal case study of a Central London coeducational secondary school is presented, as an investigation into traditional bullying and cyberbullying problems across three age groups of the student population (Year 7 aged 11 to 12; Year 8 aged 12 to 13; Year 9 aged 13 to 14), collectively entitled Key Stage Three of the National Curriculum. Using repeated measures over a period of four years a total of 983 students aged 11 to 14 (537 male and 434 female) participated in a series of activities taking place during the academic years of 2008/2009 to 2011/2012. Four approaches to mixed methods were applied: a school bullying survey, student worksheets, Quality Circles, and focus groups. Each assessed the nature and extent of the problem in part; the school survey identified the number of bullies, victims, and bully victims, as well as the type of bullying behaviour occurring most often; as part of the school survey, themed worksheets further examined student opinion on legal aspects of cyberbullying, coping skills and school interventions. Quality Circles were introduced as a method of investigating the bullying problems specific to each year group and class. Focus group discussions held as part of Quality Circles work assessed the problems occurring in school. The knowledge gained from this work with students was collated to provide a meaningful interpretation of the survey data (which established the extent of the problem) and the informative materials produced as part of student worksheets, Quality Circles and group discussion (which explained the nature of the problem). This information was used to construct a model of bullying behaviour in the school and establish the most suitable approach to anti-bullying intervention, relevant to the unique needs of this setting and other schools with similar bullying problems.

This thesis aimed to examine the functional relationship between adolescent bullying victimisation and alcohol-misuse using two comorbidity models: a causal model and a common underlying mechanism model. This research had 4 main aims: 1) to investigate the risk conferred by adolescent bullying victimisation on alcohol-misuse, focusing on the role of coping-drinking motives; 2) to understand the risk conferred for victimisation from neurotic personality traits previously implicated in alcohol-misuse, whilst focusing on the role of emotional symptoms; 3) to compare the behavioural and neurological emotional vigilance of adolescents who have either experienced bullying victimisation or a severe trauma to non-victimised participants; 4) to investigate the effect over 18-months of personality-targeted coping-skills interventions on reducing victimisation, coping-drinking motives and alcohol-related problems in victims with high levels of neurotic personality traits. These objectives were addressed using data from three independent studies: The Preventure and Adventure studies which administered personality-targeted interventions for adolescents (aged 13-16 years) and the IMAGEN study. Evidence was provided for both comorbidity models. A causal comorbidity model was supported with results showing that bullying victimisation predicted future alcohol-misuse, a relationship mediated by coping-drinking motives. Two neurotic personality domains, which have been previously implicated in alcohol-misuse, predicted risk for victimisation, mediated by the development of emotional symptoms, therefore supporting a common mechanism model of comorbidity. Victims displayed a hypervigilance for fearful face stimuli, which was similar to trauma-exposed adolescents. A combined-victim group with a high level of emotional impact showed increased brain activation for angry and ambiguous faces. Within this group, emotional symptoms were positively associated with increased neural response to angry and ambiguous faces in areas including the anterior cingulate cortex. Finally, results suggest that personality-targeted interventions can reduce victimisation and increase positive coping strategies, in addition to reducing coping-drinking motives and alcohol-related problems specifically for victims of bullying.

This study focuses upon the relatively unexplored area of sexual harassment in British universities. In sum, the thesis suggests that although MacKinnon’s (2004) aim is to enable women to feel more powerful and less stigmatised, the contribution of feminist harassment discourses may, in part, generate in some women an understanding of powerlessness and vulnerability. In particular, it suggests seemingly prevailing discourses surrounding sexual harassment in higher education and considers if and how the women interviewed define themselves through these discourses. Thus, by exploring the power effects of and resistances to these suggested prevailing discourses, it is possible to infer the degree to which these discourses may have constituted the participants’ subjectivities. Further, the thesis argues that feminist harassment discourses may have generated specific effects of power with regard to my participants. That is to say, many of my participants seem to understand sexual harassment as exploitative behaviours rooted in the unequal distribution of ascribed power in higher education. Feminism’s understanding of power as a static and gendered appears to have generated for the participants, at least in part, the understanding that sex at work is used to humiliate and degrade women, maintaining and reproducing ascribed notions of power. For this research, twenty-four unstructured interviews were carried out with women who had identified themselves as having experienced sexual harassment within higher education, either as a student or a member of staff, or who had witnessed events they had defined as sexual harassment. This was a passionately interested form of inquiry, recognising the partial nature of knowledge and identifying my political positionings (Gill 1995; Aranda 2006). The analysis is Foucauldian oriented, understanding power as fluid – rather than possessed – and as generating particular ways of being. In addition, although it notes that the participants did resists specific effects of power, this resistance always takes place from a new point of power and does not, therefore, carry us beyond power into a power free space. The prevailing discourses suggested from my data are: the ‘grades for sex’ discourse; the ‘all boys together’ discourse; the ‘trustworthy lecturer’ discourse; the ‘knickers in a twist’ discourse; and the ‘sexual harassment as unwanted sexual behaviour’ discourse.

Cyberbullying has been defined as “an aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself” (Smith, Mahdavi, Carvalho, Fisher, Russell & Tippett, 2008, p. 376). The aim of this research was to investigate cyberbullying in Irish secondary schools in relation to personality and self-concept. A sample of 876 students (n = 534 male: 61%; n = 342 female: 39%) aged between 12 and 16 participated in the research. Respondents completed a Cyberbullying Questionnaire, the Jr. Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975), and the Piers-Harris 2 (Piers & Herzberg, 2002). A total of 6.3% reported cyber victimization during the previous three months. Analysis of the Jr. EPQ indicated that victims of cyberbullying and victims of traditional bullying displayed significantly higher (P<.05) Neuroticism levels compared with non-involved students (i.e., those uninvolved either as bullies or victims). The cyber and traditional victims displayed similar patterns across personality and self-concept. Findings are examined in the context of the existing literature.

There is significant research into childhood bullying and associated psychosocial difficulties in childhood. In contrast, research into the impact of childhood bullying in adulthood is sparse and predominantly quantitative. This study addresses this gap by exploring the lived experience of adults who were bullied as children. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and the data was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Participants were six women and two men, aged between 27 and 57 years of age, who experienced bullying during their childhood and adolescent years. Four superordinate themes emerged from the interviews: “The impact on the self’, “Interpersonal relationships”, “The struggle for control, power and autonomy” and “Making sense of childhood bullying experiences in adulthood”. This study’s findings have been placed in wider context to existing literature. This study has also adopted an integrative theoretical framework for the interpretation of the findings in order to understand the mechanisms and processes involved in the experiences reported by participants. Therefore, suggestions can be made for psychological interventions and therapeutic exploration in clinical work with adult clients who experienced childhood bullying. The theoretical approaches used were developmental life span, humanistic, psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioural. Clinical implications, such as control relating to coping strategies and the potential for post-traumatic stress in adults who experienced childhood bullying, are also explored. Limitations of the study and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Concerns have been raised about behaviour management and bullying in schools; this has led to an increase in relational approaches to conflict management. One relational approach to conflict management is restorative justice (RJ). The present study reviews the theoretical underpinnings of the RJ approach and evidence of its efficacy in the criminal justice system and educational contexts. Research has supported the efficacy of the approach in the criminal justice system, and has highlighted the effectiveness of RJ in developing empathy. Despite a lack of high quality research in school contexts, this approach is already being utilised in schools. Therefore, the literature review was followed by a study which aimed to investigate the efficacy of RJ in developing empathy and reducing behavioural difficulties in schoolchildren. 65 children attending a school using RJ approaches to behaviour management and 44 children attending a school using traditional punitive approaches completed selfreport measures of empathy and behaviour at baseline, and again four months later to examine the effects of RJ on empathy development and behavioural difficulties. In addition, the researcher identified children with low empathy and high behavioural difficulty scores in both schools and compared their empathy and behavioural difficulty scores at baseline and after four months. After controlling for baseline scores, there were no significant differences between the schools in terms of changes in empathy or behavioural difficulties. This was also the case when focusing on the subset of children who had low empathy and behavioural difficulties at baseline who may have been expected to have greater exposure to RJ approaches/interventions over the 4 month follow up period. Implications of the present study and limitations are discussed.

Intersectionality is a much-debated concept within gender and race studies, but there are few empirical studies that operationalise the concept in examining work organisations and occupational careers. This thesis applies an intersectional analysis to a study of the UK construction and transport sectors exploring how gender, sexuality and occupational class shape women’s work experiences. Sexuality is one of the least explored intersections, in particular its interaction with class; additionally the thesis addresses gaps in research evidence concerning the experience of women in non-professional occupations in construction and transport. In seeking to avoid prioritising either structure or agency, the research employs a multilevel framework (Layder, 1993) that addresses several dimensions of women’s experience of male-dominated work: the current policy context; women’s choices and identifications in relation to traditionally male occupations; gendered, sexualised and classed workplace interactions; participation in separate support networks and trade union structures; and the interaction of domestic circumstances with work participation. The multi-strategy qualitative methodology includes 50 interviews with key experts and heterosexual and lesbian women working in professional/managerial and nonprofessional occupations in the construction and transport sectors, plus two focus groups with women workers in construction and observation of events to raise awareness of non-traditional work. This intersectional approach permits consideration of both advantage and disadvantage and questions cumulative conceptions that presume, for example, that gender and sexuality compound to disadvantage lesbians at work. The contribution of this thesis is to reveal the circumstances in which sexuality, occupational class or gender is most salient in shaping work identity or experience, together with the ways they interact. Thus sexualised workplace interactions could at times be avoided by open lesbians, but all women were at risk of sexual or homophobic harassment, although it was more prevalent in the workplaces of non-professional women. Interviewees also highlighted benefits of male-dominated occupations, including increased gendered self-confidence from doing ‘men’s work’, and material pay advantages, particularly for nonprofessionals, which in some cases produced a shift in the domestic division of labour within households.

The main aim of the present study was to investigate the factors which contribute to teasing/bullying among children with CLP.  A previous study identified that children with similar types of CLP are not uniformly teased/bullied.  Seventy-five children took part in the study with their parent/guardian on two occasions, therefore the study was a longitudinal investigation using a repeated measures design.  The average time between data collection points was 8 months.  Children completed a teasing/bullying questionnaire and a number of psychological instruments measuring anxiety, self-esteem, depressive mood and behaviour problems. The children also took part in a semi-structured interview schedule specially designed for the present study.  The interview addressed issues specific to children with CLP which are not addressed by any currently available standardised measures.  A parent/guardian of each child completed a parenting stress questionnaire. The results revealed a higher prevalence of at least 16% more teasing/bullying among children with CLP compared to the general population. Teasing/bullying decreased with age among children with CLP. The relationship between teasing/bullying at primary school and increased levels of psychological problems was also identified, although scores were not within the clinical range overall. The role of the parent in developing healthy appearance and speech-related emotion regulation among younger children was identified as a protective factor against teasing/bullying. Recommendations for clinical application relate to the role of healthcare professionals providing care for children with CLP. Clinicians are required to provide support and teasing/bullying related information to children and parents. Part of their new role is also to increase links with the school to help reduce teasing/bullying.

In this thesis I undertake an autoethnographic, phenomenological investigation of the experience of being bullied as a child by an adult; namely my mother, and to some extent my father, throughout my deeply religious upbringing, and its consequences and outcomes in my life. Using as a framework the story of the hero’s journey, I explore through layered storytelling and reflective analysis, how I came to marry a bully, and experience domestic violence, and my response. I investigate the difficulties I encountered in my relationship with my first son as he became a toddler. The areas I cover are the experience of being bullied and the effects on my choice of a partner and on our relationship. As I write I am brought up against my ‘self’ as I look at the concept of intimate partner violence and the subject of violent women, along with family terrorism, and whether or not violence is gendered. I also investigate bullying behaviour between adults, at how bullies and victims are created, and how I came to act out both of these behaviours. I describe my journey through counselling to gaining a new attitude towards children. Other influences which have shaped me, including religion and faith are examined, to see how they have provided resilience, and how these aspects of my life have been transformed to influence how I came to work with and for children in the educational field. I describe how my work has continued to inform and transform my views of the way adults treat children, the recognition that when children behave ‘badly’ there is a cause, and describe why I have a passion to see that adults find new ‘ways of being’ with them.

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.

The present thesis investigated a phenomenon in South Korea, which corresponds to bullying with respect to terms, perceptions, origins and moral reasoning. These were examined by three main studies across various age-ranges. Study 1 examined terms for and perceptions of bullying-like behaviours in South Korea using a qualitative approach, from young children to adults. Results showed that wang-ta was the term predominantly used to describe bullying-like behaviour in South Korea. Depending on types of aggression and participants’ ages, different terms emerged showing historical changes within a culture. 10-15 years old pupils used their own terms, different from wang-ta; and workplace personnel and 10-15 year old pupils showed negative attitudes towards victims. Previous studies showed that bullying–like behaviours among young children differ in some ways from those of older children. Study 2 investigated bullying-like behaviours among 6 year olds in South Korea using peer, self, and teacher reports; and examined bullying roles in relation to various types of aggression and peer status. Results showed that depending on informants, bullying roles were nominated differently; the role of aggressors showed higher consistency across informants than other roles. Relational victimisation was seen differently depending on informants. One of the theories for why some people engage in bullying-like behaviours has focused on their moral understanding about aggressive behaviours. Study 3 investigated moral reasoning about aggressive behaviours in terms of types of aggression, age, gender, and experience of aggression. Sixty 7 year olds and ninety 11 year olds from South Korea participated. Results indicated that moral reasoning about aggressive behaviours differed by type of aggression and children’s age. Social exclusion was regarded as less wrong and less harmful than other types of aggressive behaviours. Gender differences were rarely found. The results are discussed in terms of pupils’ attitudes toward wang-ta in South Korea.

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.

This thesis investigates the role of group processes in children’s responses to bullying from the perspective of social identity and group-based emotion theories. It starts by reviewing research on group-based emotions in adults’ intergroup relations, and on social identity processes in children. It is argued that studying children’s group-based emotions might enhance our understanding of group-level bullying. Initial results suggested that group-based emotions related to supporting and resisting cyberbullying depend upon children’s social identity, and that group-based emotions lead to specific action tendencies (Study 1). Wider group norms were investigated in Studies 2 and 3. In Study 2 the prevailing normative context shaped responses to bullying, while in Study 3 peer group norms had a greater influence than school norms on children’s responses to bullying. The way that children manage their social identity in response to bullying was examined in Study 4. How strongly perpetrator’s group members identified with that group was determined by initial ingroup identification and the perpetrator’s group norm. How group norms shape interpretations of bullying when it is ostensibly negative (Study 5a) or ostensibly positive (Study 5b) was studied next. It was found that certain group-based emotional responses and action tendencies were inhibited when the bullying was misaligned with group norms. Group processes in school bullying incidents were examined in Study 6. A qualitative analysis of teachers’ accounts of bullying revealed that although bullying is responded to primarily at the group level, such responses do not directly address group processes. In Chapter 8 I draw the thesis together by highlighting the role that group processes play in children’s responses to bullying. Implications for antibullying work are discussed. It is concluded that successful intervention rests on awareness of the group processes (a) that lead children to become involved in bullying, and (b) by which bullying may be resisted.

The aims of this study were twofold and integrated. The first was to explore whether Hans Asperger’s expression ‘autistic intelligence’ was a valid and possibly helpful concept to educators. The second was to discover whether this theorised cognitive style could be accommodated within an inclusive education framework. Four students on the autism spectrum, in mainstream schools, their parents and their teachers were interviewed in a case-study approach, to analyse their beliefs and understandings about autism. Data analysis showed that parents and students in particular believed autism to involve a recognisable cognitive style. It tended, they said, to have sensory elements which impacted upon engagement and learning, and appeared to give rise to some social difficulties. These in turn were thought to impact upon the emotional wellbeing of students on the autism spectrum. Significant bullying and exclusion of these students was reported. They recognised their ‘difference’ from their peers and attempted to negotiate that difference. However, teachers tended to reject the concept of ‘labelling’ these students. These findings in part reflect developing current theoretical and cognitive neuroscience consensus supporting a theorised Local Processing Bias as perhaps being a key element in defining core characteristics of autism. Additionally the research showed that the inclusive framework was perceived to be failing these students in many ways. In particular, the difficulties in obtaining educational help and support were believed, by students and their parents, to be obstructive. Another area of concern was the use of teaching assistants as the main educational intervention offered. The inclusive framework, according to these stakeholders, appears to have little recognition of or accommodation for what might be called autistic intelligence. Yet this might possibly be accomplished by making some environmental adaptations. The concept of autistic intelligence, with its theorised perceptual bias, might be useful in considering the nature of any adaptations.

The purpose of this thesis was to develop a model that predicts therapy outcome for children and adolescents who stutter, taking the independent variables of initial stuttering severity, self-esteem, anxiety, the psychosocial impact of stuttering, bullying, motor abilities and language abilities into account. In order to address these issues, three new instruments were developed and validated: (1) the Speech Questionnaire to assess the psychosocial impact of stuttering on the child’s life; (2) the Bullying Questionnaire to obtain information about stuttering related bullying; and (3) the MAMS Orofacial Assessment to assess orofacial abilities. Correlations between therapy outcome and the factors initial stuttering severity, language abilities, and orofacial abilities were found. These factors were used to design a predictive model. Relations of the findings to existing models are outlined. The knowledge obtained about the factors that influence therapy outcome may allow clinicians to tailor therapy programs individually towards the needs of the children. To obtain more information about the daily experiences of children who stutter during an intensive treatment a fourth questionnaire, the Daily Questionnaire was developed and validated. Results of a study with 19 participants during a three-week intensive treatment showed a significant relationship between the impact of other people on the previous day and the experience of general speaking abilities of the subsequent day. Furthermore, a correlation between emotions on the previous day and experience of own speaking abilities on the current day was found. Outcomes of the studies presented in relation to existing models are discussed and a new multi-factor model is presented.

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.