Background: There is a strong argument throughout the literature that childhood trauma and adverse experiences should be considered when working with individuals who experience psychosis. There has been a developing interest in the relationship between childhood bullying and psychosis, although to date, there is limited research in this area. Bullying is a pertinent issue for young people, which argues for further consideration in Early Intervention for Psychosis (EIP) settings.

Aims: The aim of this research is to explore the subjective experiences of childhood bullying for individuals who access EIP services. A secondary aim is to explore whether individuals perceive bullying to be relevant to their experiences of psychosis.

Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight individuals. Interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.

Results: Four superordinate and accompanying subordinate themes emerged. The superordinate themes were ‘facing daily threat’, ‘overcoming systemic mistrust’, ‘negotiating power imbalance’ and ‘a process of evolving identity’. ‘Facing daily threat’ conveyed how participants experienced bullying as traumatic. Bullying experiences were considered highly relevant to current experiences of paranoia. ‘Overcoming systemic mistrust’ reflected neglectful responses from teachers and the ways participants felt unheard when first engaging with services. ‘Negotiating power imbalance’ reflected both the complex power relationships within school and the influence of wider social power. ‘A process of evolving identity’ explores the gradual shifts in how participants viewed themselves after verbal bullying. Participants’ psychosis experiences included hearing critical, attacking voices, reinforcing the same messages received from bullies in school.

Discussion: The results are clinically important as they contribute to understanding experiences of psychosis in the context of bullying history. They also highlight the wish for individuals to have more opportunities to discuss bullying in EIP services. Finally, they argue for school systems to further consider their responses to children who seek help for bullying.

Background: Research in the field of school-bullying has been expanding for at least three decades while research in cyber-bullying is still evolving. There has been an enormous amount of empirical works and projects throughout the years, all aiming to understand how bullying functions, the motivation behind such behaviour, the related factors, the consequences, and of course to create efficient prevention and intervention models. However, in spite of the continuous efforts to decrease the rates for both forms, previous research has shown that school-bullying remains stable whereas cyber-bullying is on the rise and evolving.

Aim: This three-year project aimed to explore highly studied as well as neglected risk and preventive factors in relation to SB and CB; examine relationships, differences, and predictive effects, whilst providing a comparison of the factors’ effect on SB and CB.

Methodology: For this project 408 participants were recruited to complete the online survey in Google Forms. The questionnaire aimed to measure school-bullying and cyber-bullying both from the perspective of the victim and the perpetrator, empathy, self-esteem, aggression, anger, impulsivity, self-control, guilt, morality, copying strategy/minimisation, factors related to family, and friends. To achieve these 11 previously validated scales were employed and a series of questions were constructed to measure other related aspects.

Findings: Results showed that there are complicated relationships, differences, and predictive effects between the factors and the two forms of bullying, with some factors relating to both forms of bullying, while there appears to be an overlap between the two forms. To collectively present the results, a four-level model was developed and the school-bullying/cyber-bullying prevention/intervention model emerged.

Conclusion: Bullying is a complicated phenomenon regardless of the expressed form. There are numerous gaps in research that require further examination and several limitations that future research should address. In spite of the current project’s limitations that are addressed in detail, this project managed to provide a collective comparative picture of risk factors for both forms of bullying and has developed a detailed anti-bullying model that could potentially tackle both school-bullying and cyber-bullying.

This is a study about how disability and social class intersect in the lives of young adults in higher education in Ireland to reveal complex inequality, oppression, privilege, and power. The overall aim of this study is to identify how disability and social class are constructed and enacted in education in Ireland, how they intersect to maintain, reproduce, and sustain inequality and privilege, and how they are shaped through individual agency. I locate this study within a social constructivist and an advocacy/participatory paradigm and the theoretical framework of intersectionality. This is a mixed methods study and uses quantitative data from the Disability Access Route to Education (DARE) and the Higher Education Access Route (HEAR), national access initiatives, and interviews with ten student participants, to analyse how disability and social class, as social identities, intersect to influence progression, retention, and the experience of higher education.

The findings from this research enhances our knowledge of complex educational inequality, identifying how working-class students with disabilities are currently falling through the cracks of national and institutional policy and practice. The voices of the participants are central and offer a quite different way of thinking about disability, about widening participation policy and practice, and about access to education in Ireland. Students identified multiple embedded barriers, inferior positioning, unequal resources, hardship and sacrifice, and the negative impact on their student identities. They also describe extraordinary resilience and activism supported by parents, individual teachers, and more inclusive schools. The study identifies how current understandings of disability and social class have created a powerful regime that is reproducing inequality in education and relegating all students with disabilities, particularly working-class students, to positions of inequality and inferiority. The study illustrates that what it means to have a disability depends on each individual’s simultaneous location in the social hierarchies of disability and social class.

Background: Social and emotional (SE) skills play an important role in a person’s development, while a range of negative outcomes are associated with poor SE skills (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL], 2013; 2015; Gresham & Elliott, 2008). The targeting of these skills in school-based programmes can produce positive outcomes (Durlak, Dymnicki, Taylor, Weissberg, & Schellinger, 2011). Get Up! Stand Up! (Version 2) (GUSU2) (National Educational Psychological Service, 2017) is a SE skills programme currently in use in Irish schools. However, to date, no substantial evaluation of GUSU2 has been conducted. CASEL outline a framework for such school-based programmes which identifies several essential elements, including being well-designed, addressing five SE competencies, offering support and training to facilitators and being offered over multiple years. Programmes which meet these standards are noted to be associated with a range of positive outcomes for participants.

Aim: This study aims to evaluate GUSU2 as a SE skills programme in the context of the CASEL framework. This study will consider the impact of GUSU2 on participants’ SE skills, whilst also considering the perspectives of the relevant stakeholders on GUSU2 and the training and support provided.

Methodology: A mixed-method, partially mixed sequential equal status design was used to evaluate GUSU2. Documentary analysis was conducted on the GUSU2 manual. Thematic analysis, using a combination of deductive and inductive analysis (Braun, Clarke, Hayfield, & Terry, 2018; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2010) was conducted on data from four pupil focus groups involving 27 pupils and from seven semi-structured teacher interviews. Data collected by the school psychology service, using the Social Skills Improvement System-Rating Scales (SSIS-RS) (Gresham & Elliott, 2008), was analysed using a mixed between-within subjects’ analysis of variance and post-hoc t-tests to determine the impact of participating in GUSU2 compared to participants in a business-as-usual control group. Data included pre- and post-intervention measures of SE skills from 225 pupils in 14 schools, including three control schools consisting of 68 pupils. In addition to the full study sample, a lower ability sample (n = 37) were identified based on their pre-intervention scores and analysed accordingly.

Findings: There was a statistically significant increase in participants’ total standard scores in both the GUSU2 and business-as-usual groups in both the full study and lower ability samples. There was no significant interaction effect identified, suggesting that GUSU2 is as effective as the business-as-usual approach. However, qualitative analysis suggests that pupils engaged with the programme and demonstrated learning in several competencies. Analysis of the qualitative data indicates that several aspects of GUSU2 require further development to align with the CASEL framework. Several potential barriers to implementation and learning were identified, including a lack of ongoing external support, brief training, concerns over resources, pupil over-familiarity, and small school size.

Conclusions: Several implications from this evaluation are discussed, including areas for development within GUSU2 in relation to the CASEL framework, issues regarding programme fidelity and the collection of appropriate data. Suggestions for further research and policy are also made.

While relational networks have been an important part of much research into human interaction since at least the 1980s, there has been little research into network creation and decay, with much research simply creating a snapshot of an established network. Additionally, only a small number of studies have portrayed networks as dynamic and changing, instead viewing ties as binary, either strong or weak, but not something in between.

This thesis addresses both these problems using intercultural business email data to map relationships from the first introduction of two parties, to eventual decay, including stages of change along the way. A comprehensive model of dynamic relational networks is also presented, adding significant detail to the descriptions presented by prior studies, and presenting the idea graphically for the first time. The thesis uses a corpus of 1072 emails sent between a sole trader and 19 of her clients. Initially, an exploratory data analysis is conducted to present some of the structural and statistical aspects of the data. Then, using an inductive qualitative research process, tie creation is examined looking at how relationships are initiated and begin to progress. How strong functional ties are developed is then examined through linguistic strategies such as self-disclosures, multimedia sharing, and paying compliments. A systematic analysis of the usage of CMC (computer mediated communication) cues for relational work is given particular attention. The maintenance of weak ties is also examined, including using politic behaviour, adherence to one’s line, and recipient design. Tie decay, an under-explored area, is also analysed by describing how language differs before and after a break in contact, how a relationship can be destabilised and (possibly) repaired, or how it may become dysfunctional.

It is found that traits put forward by prior studies categorising relationships as strong, e.g., homophily, time dedication and trust, can be exemplified through linguistic elements in those relationships which are moving towards being strong (and, importantly, functional i.e., friendly, rather than dysfunctional, i.e., bullying). The thesis also shows how in all the business relationships presented, there is some amount of relational communication, which is important for ensuring a smooth business relationship.

Bullying in schools is a widespread problem, attracting a great deal of interest and publicity in recent years. The negative impacts of bullying can have consequences for not just the victims, but also for the school, perpetrators and wider community members. Such consequences can be experienced instantaneously and/or at a subsequent time, often in later life. In recent years bullying has unquestionably moved into the spotlight as researchers and governments have investigated the phenomenon in greater depth. However, according to the NSPCC, it remains the top problem for children aged 11 and under contacting them and was the single biggest reason for boys calling CHILDLINE in 2015/16 (NSPCC, 2016). Bullying in primary school is, thus, of critical concern to educational policy makers and school leaders alike. Research would suggest that some schools experience more bullying incidents than others and that schools vary widely in both their approaches to and successes in dealing with the issue. Initiatives and approaches to bullying enter schools that serve particular communities, with particular experiences, individuals and histories, making them site specific. They are mediated by the practices of school leaders and are executed by staff with diverse levels of confidence, commitment and capacity. There is, thus, always variation in the ways in which practices are taken up. Even where schools profess to enact the same
approaches they often meet with widely ranging outcomes for anti-bullying, as was evidenced through this investigation. This research, therefore, set out to understand what it is that more successful schools do in initiating and managing anti-bullying practices. It investigates the less frequently examined area of the effects of head teacher practices on the success of anti-bullying cultures. Set in the contexts of five diverse primary school settings, this thesis scrutinizes the approaches of head teachers as they facilitate and cultivate practices that enable or constrain anti-bullying cultures. It utilizes a mixed methods approach, where questionnaires, observations and semi-structured interviews and focus groups enable the voices and experiences of school community members to be heard. To facilitate this the methodological approach began as one that combined the lenses of Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model (1979) and Lave and Wenger’s Communities of Practice (1991). However, it evolved to look beyond the latter and to incorporate the work of Kemmis and Grootenboer’s Practice
Architectures which champions a dual purpose of education: to help people live well in a world worth living in (Kemmis and Gootenboer, 2008), suggesting a social justice approach to this research. This is an aspect that, until recently, was generally omitted in the discourses surrounding the nature, efficiency and sustainability of developing anti-bullying cultures’ in primary schools. I show that, in successful anti-bullying schools, although policy and targeted intervention are vital for providing focus and understanding, there is a culture of
respect, care and collaboration that pervades the sayings, doings and relatings at every level. I argue that head teachers, in shaping the cultures of their schools, are fundamental to these aspects as they maneuver the inter-subjective spaces of practice architectures (Kemmis and Gootenboer, 2008). This research reinforces the need for head teachers to build upon existing practices, taking account of the histories and social and political actualities of their schools. It suggests that, taking account of these, the perceptions of players within the field
may be as important as the actuality of situated practices as they unfold.

The ensuing thesis is the result of an in-depth interrogation of the following research question: What are the school experiences of LGBT youth? Despite much research on homophobic bullying in school, little is known about how power intersects and prolongs a bullying event after the initial victimization is over. This study sheds a light on this issue, examining how LGBT youth understand bullying, their capacity within individual events, while uncovering how power shapes a bullying incident. The first part of the thesis forms the central argument demonstrating key principles underpinning challenges sexual minority youth face while at school. Interrogating political and neoliberal influences, this thesis introduces young people’s stories through multiple lenses. This thesis uncovers schools ineffectual use of inclusion policy revealing policy and practice are failing young people. Furthermore, LGBT young people’s human rights are also largely overlooked in policy practice. Not treated as having the same rights as other students interferes with their education, and therefore, their human rights. The first two chapters are grounded in present literature as demonstrated in chapter three, which is followed by methodologies in chapter four, rounding out the first section. Chapters five through seven establish the second part of this thesis. Here the reader is introduced to young people’s accounts unpacking bullying incidents. Introducing critical incidents revealed through narrative inquiry, leads to an interrogation of bullying and how power punctuates, intersecting a single event. Chapter eight concludes this thesis. Up to thirty young people participated in sessions, ranging in ages from sixteen to nineteen. Eighteen filled out a questionnaire, while surveys ranged from eight to seventeen participants. Eighteen participated with the one-to-one interview lasting from 30 to 60 minutes. Interviews revealed all young people had experienced bullying at school while several were severely physically bullied and harmed. Girls reported experiencing and identifying bullying differently than boys, while boys reported struggling with homophobic bullying representing their lost male privilege suggesting girls and boys experienced, perceived and defined bullying and power differently. Results revealed not everything defined as bullying, is understood as such. Additionally,
power exerted onto the victim during a bullying incident came from multiple sources. First, it came from the initial attacker then moved to the teacher attempting to resolve the incident, and then to the administration. How they interrogated bullying informed and prolonged a bullying incident long after the initial event ceased. This thesis will reveal how bullying is understood and addressed in schools is ineffective due to its universal ideology considering all experience as the same, and is faulty.

Children with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) have been found to be at greater risk of experiencing peer victimisation and bullying behaviours than children without SEND (Mishna, 2003). This thesis investigated how individual level factors (e.g. SEND, emotional symptoms, reciprocal friendships, attitudes) and school level factors (e.g. inclusion) are related to peer victimisation and bullying, as well as the additional bullying roles, such as followers and defenders. 1,599 pupils (aged 11-14) from nine schools completed self-report measures to assess the variables of interest. Data on teacher (n = 194) and parent (n = 193) attitudes towards inclusion were collected along with parents’ experiences of inclusion at the schools as proxy measures of school inclusion. Each school’s inclusion/SEND policy and the Ofsted report also provided information on ‘inclusion’ at the school. Multilevel models were run for victimisation and bullying to investigate which variables predicted these experiences. Disability and emotional symptoms positively predicted victimisation while friendships negatively predicted victimisation with an interaction between emotional symptoms and disability also being significant. Attitudes towards SEND significantly positively predicted bullying behaviour. In both models, Ofsted scores were included at the school level and showed that as general Ofsted scores improved, levels of bullying and victimisation decreased. Although the developed measures of school inclusion (Ofsted reports and school policy analyses) did not appear to predict bullying of children with SEND, this study adds to a growing body of research which suggests that school level factors are important, with schools rated highly by Ofsted appearing to have lower levels of bullying.

Paranoia is the unfounded beliefs that others intend to cause physical and/or psychological harm. Emerging evidence reflects an association between bullying and paranoia in adolescence, but lacks control of theoretically relevant covariates (beliefs about paranoia, shame, social anxiety and emotional dysregulation). The aims of the present study
were to a) examine the association between bullying and paranoia b) compare severity of paranoia between clinical and non-clinical samples and c) establish the robustness of any association by controlling for the covariates. Data from questionnaires were obtained from clinical (N = 24) and non-clinical (N = 212) samples of 16 to 18 year old adolescents. Results indicated a strong association between bullying and paranoia. The severity of paranoia did not differ between clinical and non-clinical samples. Bullying appeared to contribute
independently with paranoia after controlling for the covariates in the non-clinical sample. Using the clinical sample, an indirect association was found between bullying and paranoia via emotional dysregulation and external shame. Findings are consistent with literature highlighting that bullying is associated with paranoia. Paranoia may serve an adaptive function to detect social threats, and therefore become heightened from bullying. Furthermore, this association appears to be influenced by emotional dysregulation and external shame. Future
research should further examine the association between bullying and paranoia, as well as other specific psychotic experiences such as hallucinations, in longitudinal large sample studies controlling for effects of theoretically relevance processes, including external shame and emotional regulation. Clarifying the roles of external shame and emotional dysregulation have important clinical implications in the context of bullying and paranoia experiences.

Tackling bullying within the healthcare profession is a major priority considering the costs and risks associated with it, and a full understanding of what behaviours constitute bullying is crucial (Allen, 2015). This mixed-methods study’s QUAL/Quant aims were, firstly, to establish what ALT staff considered to be their experiences of bullying (QUAL) and, secondly, to consider the prevalence of negative acts and their potential relationships to levels of reported depression (Hypothesis 1), stress (Hypothesis 2) and anxiety (Hypothesis 3) (Quant). A pragmatic epistemological framework was utilised for this study with a qualitative focus. Employees from five divisions of ALT were invited to participate in this study, and 303 (response rate 27.5%) took part in the quantitative questionnaire-based study. Eight participants who had described experiences of being bullied were interviewed qualitatively. Prevalent negative behaviours, as reported were: being exposed to an unmanageable workload, having your opinions and views ignored, excessive monitoring of work, being ordered to do work below your level of competence, and being ignored or facing a hostile reaction when you approach. All three hypotheses were strongly supported, in that there was a significant positive relationship between reported experiences of negative acts and levels of depression, anxiety and stress. A constructivist grounded theory approach was adopted for the analysis of the qualitative data. The findings suggested that the experience of bullying was far more complex than the reporting of negative acts and included a stealth-like nature prior to individuals recognising a bullying event. The integration of both methods during the analysis enabled a more thorough exploration of the experience of bullying behaviours than either a qualitative or quantitative approach would have achieved in isolation.

This body of work examines lived experiences of LGBT people within three sub-themes: sex and relationships education (SRE) and sexual health; homophobic, biphobic and transphobic (HBT) bullying; understandings and experiences of LGBT ‘community’.  I have identified a persistent invisibility of LGBT identities in school-based SRE and NHS healthcare provision, and argue that heteronormativity and heterosexism impact on sexual decision-making and sexual wellbeing. In particular, they foster fears about health services, specific concerns about confidentiality and/or disclosure, and fears about judgement or discrimination during health-related encounters.  In work in school and youth work settings I have linked curriculum invisibility to experiences of homophobia, suggesting that there is more at play than individual experiences of ‘bullying’. I have highlighted the complexity of language use related to homophobia and bullying, and demonstrated that some school responses can (appear to) ‘abnormalise’ LGBT identities, for instance in referrals to counselling that young LGBT people can interpret as apportioning ‘blame’. I have also pointed to tensions between governmental efforts to address HBT bullying and, until recently, their lack of support for school-based SRE.  In exploring constructions of LGBT ‘community’, I have demonstrated the complexity of experiences, and argued that use of the (singular) term ‘LGBT community’ risks minimising or misunderstanding such diversity, which has implications for service planning and provision.  Across my work, I stress the importance of adopting a sociological approach to what are often psychologised subjects, demonstrated in my illustrations of people’s ongoing (LGBT) identity management. In doing so, I show how legislative developments do not always lead to improved experiences for LGBT people. However, I seek to influence policy and practice in a way that does not over-state LGBT people’s perceived ‘vulnerabilities’ or ‘at riskness’, and that does not portray (particularly young) LGBT people as inherent ‘victims’ in need of ‘support’.

Sibling relationships have a great impact on children’s social and psychological development. This thesis provides an all-encompassing examination of the precursors and outcomes of sibling bullying through three quantitative studies: the first study, a meta-analysis, provides a foundational schema of the factors associated with sibling conflicts; the second study, a short-term longitudinal study, examines the individual and proximal precursors of sibling bullying and its short-term outcomes (one and two years later); the third study, a long-term longitudinal study, examines the distal precursors of sibling bullying and its long-term outcomes (five years later). The first study assessed the strongest effect sizes associated with sibling conflicts. It examined the link between parent-child relationships, familial factors and sibling conflicts. Studies were identified through a systematic search, coded, and selected based on criteria relevant for this study resulting in 60 studies (178 effect sizes), which in total involved 43,270 participating children and adolescents. Studies were categorised as proximal and distal factors. Those involved in sibling conflicts were significantly less likely to have authoritative, and warm and affectionate parents, and less likely to come from families with affluent socioeconomic-status, positive family climate and good marital quality. Conversely, more sibling conflicts were significantly related to abusive and neglectful parents, and parent-child conflicts; and more likely to come from families with poor mental health, low SES, adverse family atmosphere and parental conflict. The factors were moderated by assessment methods, study design, direction and form conflict, gender constellation, and continent. This study served as a building block for the two following studies, as it highlighted key factors to focus on in further assessing the precursors and outcomes of sibling bullying. The second study, which was based on the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transition and Crime (ESYTC, 2014) found that parenting factors were crucial to sibling bullying. Parental involvement, parent-child conflict and parent-child leisure time were precursors and outcomes of sibling bullying, so that more parental involvement and parent-child leisure time were associated with less sibling bullying perpetration and victimisation. Further, sibling bullying perpetration and sibling victimisation were precursors of peer bullying perpetration and victimisation one and two years later. However, the strength of the association declined over the course of two years. Impulsive behaviour and social alienation seem to be fundamental influencing factors in the development of sibling bullying and sibling victimisation, respectively. Additionally, children who were involved in peer bullying were more likely to have been involved in sibling bullying, compared to peer neutrals one and two years later. The third study, which was based on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC, Boyd et al., 2012) found that maternal somaticism was the strongest predictor of sibling bullying. Further, the strongest predictor of sibling victimisation was partner-to-mother verbal violence. Symptoms of depression at 16.5 years of age was the strongest outcome of sibling bullying perpetration and victimisation at 12.5 years of age. Children who were peer bully-victims when they were 17.5 years old were more likely to have been sibling pure bullies and sibling bully-victims, compared to children who were peer neutrals. The results suggest that familial factors significantly influence the quality of sibling relationships. Additionally, the findings show that sibling bullying is related to peer bullying, so that children mirror bullying behaviours across social contexts (i.e. family environment and school environment). The findings of this thesis are important for clinical practitioners, social workers, parents and schools. Based on these findings practitioners could tailor family and parenting intervention programs that prevent siblings from establishing conflictual relationships with one another. Particularly, it is suggested that bullying intervention programs should integrate three aspects: family members should play an integrated and active role in their plans to reduce bullying and victimisation; bullying intervention and prevention studies should commence at preschool ages; positive family climate should actively be nurtured, in addition to lowering hostility.