Gendered Conflicts in Secondary School: Fun or enactment of power?

This article discusses relationships and conflicts between girls and boys during the secondary school years, trying to reflect on the fine line between playing which is 'just fun' and behaviour that is experienced as harassing. The method used is to examine the parallel patterns of different kinds of data: classroom observations in secondary schools, ethnographic interviews of students at the age of 13-14, and school memories of the same young people at the age of 17-19. These varied data reveal diverse interpretations to gendered interactions. The article suggests that sex-based harassment acts as a form of social control that constitutes a way of maintaining and policing gender boundaries and hierarchies. 'Whole school policy' is needed to counteract it. The article draws from an ethnographic research study in two secondary schools and its follow-up, conducted together with Tuula Gordon.     

Predictors of US teachers’ intervention in anti-lesbian,gay, bisexual,and transgender bullying and harassment

This study examines how United States (US) teachers’ experiences and beliefs may be predictive of their intervention in anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) bullying and harassment using a US national sample of teachers (N?=?726) who completed an online survey. Results from regression analysis indicated that knowing LGBT people, awareness of general bullying and harassment, awareness of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment, and self-efficacy related to intervention in homophobic remarks were significant predictors of teachers’ frequency of intervention in homophobic remarks. Teachers’ sense of obligation to ensure safe schools for LGBT youth was not predictive of intervention. Implications for teacher education include: providing opportunities for exposure to LGBT people; raising awareness of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment; and building teachers’ skills to intervene in anti-LGBT behaviors.     

Between “Islamic” and “un-Islamic”: Navigating Religion at an American Islamic High School

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate how one American Islamic school community grapples with external and internal demands on religion, and how this process impacts notions of what is religious. At ‘Ilm High School, an Islamic high school on America’s West Coast, school administrators and teachers must accommodate students’ and parents’ diverse and often competing ideas about Islam and the “Islamic.” In doing so, they sometimes downplay the “Islamic” in their Islamic Studies classes, policies, and school representation. They do this without venturing into the “un-Islamic”, casting a wide “religious net” and keeping Islam capacious and relevant enough for Muslim students.     

The repercussions of reporting bullying: some experiences of students at an independent secondary school

This article reports on the complex web experienced by young people when making decisions to report bullying in school. The study was conducted in the secondary school of an independent day and boarding school in the east of England. A Participatory Action Research approach was used with student voice and perspective at its core. This study involved five students as co-researchers with the first author to explore the concept of ‘snitching’ about bullying. Data were collected from the wider student group through a variety of methods including questionnaires, focus groups and interviews. The findings suggest that the process of reporting bullying is more complex than adults once thought. Students have to negotiate a complex web in firstly deciding if the bullying is serious enough to report. The concept of ‘serious’ bullying is contentious, particularly between boarders and day students, but physical abuse and/or repetition tended to be characteristic of ‘serious’ bullying. Once considered ‘serious’ enough, students have to weigh up the potential repercussions from the bully or the wider friendship group if they ‘snitch’. Students were therefore in conflict between loyalty to the bully and wider friendship group in deciding if unfairness had taken place and should be reported. Finally students needed to decide who they trusted to report the bullying to. The students in this study often reported to teachers who they perceived as supportive and authoritative.     

Racism and bullying in rural primary schools: protecting White identities post Macpherson

This article examines how two primary schools in rural England with overwhelmingly White populations (of students and teachers) dealt with incidents of racist bullying in relation to their race equality policies. The data are drawn from in-depth interviews with parents, head teachers and teachers. The article draws on the work of Foucault to argue that students are situated in a ‘historical moment’ in which schools acknowledge racism formally and publicly, but this does not reflect their informal, private practices. Consequently, whilst systems are established that could respond to racist bullying, in practice these do not necessarily emerge in the school. A local discourse emerges that counters suggestions of racism by pointing to the existence of anti-racist systems and describing racism as something distanced geographically and historically from rural settings. White identities are both privileged and protected by this process whilst non-White students are disadvantaged.     

Learning with and from: positioning school students as advisors in pre-service teacher education

This article reports on an innovative pedagogical approach within the Learning Partnerships program in which school students help to ‘teach the teachers’ within pre-service teacher education. Classes of school students join with classes of pre-service teachers to provide input on how teachers can enhance school students’ engagement and wellbeing. The article draws on data collected from 125 students (aged 13–16) and 120 pre-service teachers in these workshops. Findings generated from a mixed methods study combining pre-workshop focus groups (n = Students: 38, Teachers: 33) and post-workshop focus groups (n = Students: 69, Teachers: 15) and post-workshop surveys (n = Students: 96; Teachers: 101) demonstrated that the workshops were mutually beneficial for both students and pre-service teachers. Participants found that workshopping together enhanced their belief in the possibility of positive student–teacher relationships. The pre-service teachers reported greater confidence in communicating with young people about the issues that affect student engagement and wellbeing. The school students reported that they were more willing to use teachers as a source of help. Implications include the need for increased attention to a ‘third space’ for learning in teacher development which provides opportunity for learning with and from young people about how to foster their engagement and wellbeing.     

Beyond Stigma and Stereotypes: An Ethnographic Study on the Effects of School-Imposed Labeling on Black Males in an Urban Charter School

This study explores the ways in which school-imposed labeling in a “no-excuses” charter school that was explicitly designed for the purpose of benefiting Black students, impacts teachers’ perceptions of Black male students who were labeled as being high risk or struggling academically, and how these students perceive their own schooling experiences. A conceptual framework with the history of how and why Black masculinity is constructed as deviant and different in the context of U.S. schools, as well as the impact of labeling on Black male students’ learning and self-esteem are detailed. While centering the labeled-students’ experiences, we examine the interactions between key stakeholders (i.e., labeled-students, teachers/administrators, and non-labeled students) at the charter school and overall the findings speak clearly to how language of deficit and pathology impacted Black male students’ schooling experiences as they negotiate racial stigma as racialized bodies at a “no-excuses” public charter school.     

Caring and Critical Thinking in the Teaching of Young Adolescents

In this article, I consider what Noddings’ ideas about the critical lessons schools should teach might suggest for social education and critical thinking at the middle school level. Giving particular consideration to Noddings’ calls to engage young people in self-understanding and allow students to pursue their interests, this article explores how the middle school years present an especially rich opportunity to engage students in an examination of the period of young adolescence, allow them to enter the debates about schooling for the middle grades, and use students’ interests as a springboard for examining complex social issues. Considering Noddings’ (2015, p. 1) urging for us to engage in the mission of “producing better adults,” I argue that the critical middle school years offer a generative time in young people’s lives to advance this important work.     

A qualitative study of perceptions of bullying in Irish primary schools

This small-scale research examined young children’s, aged six to seven (n = 8), perceptions and understanding of bullying in Irish primary schools. It also included the views of the children’s parents (n = 8) and teachers (n = 2) on bullying. The participants’ views were obtained through semi-structured interviews which were analysed using the constant comparative method as per grounded theory approach. The results revealed the complexity of young children’s interactions in school and the difficulty that the adults around them have in accurately defining and addressing bullying behaviour. The data indicate the need for parents and teachers to listen attentively and sensitively to children’s accounts of bullying and to provide consistent advice on how to address bullying.     

Making Sense and Use of Assessments

The present article is concerned with how Swedish students in the last year of comprehensive school make sense and use of educational assessments of their school performance. Based on interviews with 28 students in Year 9, “talk about assessments” is analysed using a discourse analytical approach inspired by Michel Foucault’s theories. The study shows that students find it difficult to both understand and make use of the assessments given by their teachers due to the overly complicated language. To receive the grades they need to apply for upper-secondary school, the students use other strategies to stand out and be perceived as “good students,” thus the assessment discourse is effective in the construction of adjustable subjects.     

The Myth of “Migrants as Problems”: Public School in Neoliberal Times and the Construction and Contestation of “Migrant” Identity

This article reports the findings of a sociolinguistic ethnographic inquiry into the constructions of internal rural-to-urban migrant students by one urban public school in China, and how these students positioned themselves to these constructions against the background of the school’s neoliberal transformation. This inquiry finds that, due to the case school’s pursuit of exam-performance-based academic excellence, its official documents discursively constructed migrant students as being of “low quality,” and a problem for and potential danger to the school. However, the daily positioning practices of school administrators, teachers, and these students did not just reproduce this uniformly negative discursive construction; rather, they contested it in a complex and contradictory manner. This article offers further evidence showing the complexity of identity constructions in late modern urban schools, wherein professionals and students are all involved in a marketized education context that brings crises and dilemmas to institutions.     

Teacher-targeted bullying and harassment in Australian schools: a challenge to teacher wellbeing

Abstract

This article sets out discursive issues surrounding bullying and harassment against teachers. This problematic phenomenon of teachers being bullied by students does not have the discursive policy framework to realistically and even-handedly enable discussion in the public arena or political and policy environments. This discussion chronicles our journey towards greater conceptual clarity and appropriate nomenclature about bullying and harassing behaviours directed against teachers. International studies have identified teacher-targeted bullying by students as a real and detrimental issue for teacher wellbeing. We present a sampling of international research that grapples with the challenge of defining the phenomenon of teachers as targets of intentional bullying and harassment by students. We consider Australian studies conducted in the past twenty years that address teachers’ perceptions of being bullied. Finally, we propose that this phenomenon is likely to continue until there is sufficient support to start a cultural shift towards more respectful treatment of teachers.     

Changes in teaching in order to help students with learning difficulties improve in Cypriot primary classes

This article aims to explore what changes two Cypriot primary school teachers brought in their teaching in order to help students with learning difficulties improve in their classes. The study was qualitative and used non-participant observation in two primary classrooms in different primary schools and semi-structured interviews with the main teachers of these classes. The findings revealed that the main changes implemented by these teachers were a differentiated programme of literacy and numeracy, and opportunities to students to process information through many senses. In addition, the teachers boosted the learning of students with learning difficulties by focusing on essentials, using process-oriented praise, peer tutoring, and regular communication with parents. The article concludes with suggestions about how Cypriot primary school teachers can boost the learning of students with difficulties and how leaders can support their efforts.     

Social violence and the trivialising effects of youth in school bullying: Extended listening to South Australian young people on bullying and violence

School bullying attracts significant research and resources globally, yet critical questions are being raised about the long-term impact of these efforts. There is a disconnect between young people's perspectives and the long-established psychology-based technical definitions of school bullying dominating practice and policy in Australia. This dominant paradigm has recently been described as the first paradigm of school bullying. In contrast, this paper explores the potential for reorienting school bullying research towards the concerns of young people and away from adult-derived technical definitions. Borrowing from paradigm two, which emphasises the social, cultural and philosophical (among others) elements of school bullying, in this paper, I approach bullying under the broad banner of ‘social violence’. This approach addresses some of the inherent limitations of the first paradigm to conceptualise social and cultural dynamics. I argue that a ‘social violence’ approach reveals that the exclusionary effects of the social phenomenon of youth continue to be overlooked. Furthermore, the term ‘violence’ in bullying research could benefit from integrating contemporary sociological insights on this phenomenon. This paper draws on qualitative insights from a small group of young people in secondary schooling in South Australia gained through prolonged listening to peer conversations in a series of focus groups. In addition, 1:1 interviews were conducted pre and post the focus group series. I argue that these participants' insights reveal the exclusionary effects of youth and the employment of bullying to trivialise young people's experiences and concern for harm. There is a need to reprioritise young people's knowledge in school bullying research and the exclusionary effects of youth alongside other social forces.     

Understanding of epilepsy by children and young people with epilepsy

There is a striking dearth of studies focusing sensitively and in depth on the mainstream educational experiences of children with epilepsy, as viewed by those children themselves. The one‐year project (2006–7) reported here addresses that gap. Children’s perceptions about mainstream teachers’ understanding of epilepsy and school‐based needs are particularly interesting and this work breaks new ground in that connection. The authors report findings from two complementary qualitative methods of data collection: (1) an e‐survey of 44 self‐selected children and young people with epilepsy, and (2) interviews (mainly individual) in mainstream schools with 22 children/young people with epilepsy. Overall, the children and young people (aged 7–18) were clear about the nature of their condition, including seizures. For many, there was an implicit reluctance in accepting epilepsy as a “part of them”; self‐reported feelings of secrecy, stigma and shame abounded. This had repercussions for how schools were seen to need to respond with sensitivity and knowledge‐based understanding. Taking a qualitative methodological approach revealed important insights into complex concepts like stigma in the school context. This was illustrated in children and young people’s readiness to talk about their feelings of “difference” in relation to others when given the opportunity to do so sensitively. The findings have important implications for how schools and services work in a genuinely fully inclusive way with children and young people who have epilepsy.     

Keeping them in line: choreographing classroom spaces

This paper provides teachers with an opportunity for thinking about the kinds of ‘people’ constructed in their classes, the kinds of ‘dances’ choreographed and the ways space is organised for learning. We argue that this is essential for teachers to think about if they are to enact socially just professional practices. In this study, we explore the ways in which students learn to be particular kinds of people. We understand this as happening through their participation in communities of practice. Becoming a member of a community of practice, of a classroom and of a school is a process of developing a particular identity, modes of behaviour and ways of knowing. It is through these ‘normalising’ practices that power is constituted, boundaries constructed and certain ‘kinds of people’ are recognised, represented and constituted, whilst others are not. All individuals are implicated in these processes and active in the construction of their own as well as others’ identities. This paper locates this discussion using social relations of gender and ethnicity, and considers how diversity and difference are actively constituted and play out in one primary school classroom. How students participate in the spatial practices and the construction of pedagogical spaces, what identities are available to them in these spaces and which they take up, is explored. The metaphor of dance is used to analyse these spaces, a metaphor which helps us to understand the complexity of classroom relationships and the way macro‐social practices are both reflected and reconstituted in classroom practices. We argue that the ways teachers think about how they place students, space students and construct students are crucial for student and teacher learning.     

Teachers’ leadership: a maker or a breaker of students’ educational motivation

Teachers’ leadership plays a critical and central role in students’ educational motivations. This indicates that, in the school context, a teacher’s leadership can have both positive and negative impacts on students’ educational motivation and performance. This article explores these assumptions, building on the path-goal theory, more specifically the effects of teachers’ leadership from students’ perspectives. Using a qualitative research design, this study collected data comprising 35 interviews with children and young people in both primary and upper-secondary school. The results show that the degree of teachers’ developmental leadership greatly affects students’ educational motivation and school performance. Two contrasting teachers’ profiles were found: teachers with a high degree of developmental leadership and teachers with a low degree of developmental leadership. Our findings suggest that teachers with the profile of a high degree of developmental leadership create an environment that fosters educational motivation positively among students, facilitating students’ achievement of high performance levels and a sense of well-being about their studies. In contrast, we show that teachers with a low degree of developmental leadership create an environment that is nonconductive for educational motivation, performance or the welfare of schoolwork.     

Bullying in schools: why it happens,how it makes young people feel and what we can do about it

In spite of decades of research and more recent guidance by Government, bullying in schools remains a serious concern to young people and to educational practitioners. This two year qualitative study explored the meanings eight teenagers gave to bullying they had experienced, and related this to an analysis of previous research and school policies about bullying. The findings from the study revealed that bullying affected the subjectivity of young people, including how they positioned themselves and believed themselves to be positioned by others. It also found previous research and school policies focused on the behavioural aspects of bullying, neglecting the subjective meanings that it had for those who experienced it. The research findings suggested that a more open approach by adults to what bullying means to individuals, and clearer guidance to teachers on how to work with them about subjective meanings, may provide a new direction in supporting young people who have been bullied.     

The role of popular girls in bullying and intimidating boys and other popular girls in secondary school

Despite a large amount of research focusing on bullying and exclusion in secondary schools, there is far less research focusing on cross‐gender bullying and ‘popular’ students who experience bullying. This research provides an analysis of interactions between male and female students (aged 13–14) in a school in England. The data provides multiple examples, both in the form of observations and group interviews, of girls teasing, intimidating and bullying boys and other popular girls. The analysis also considers teachers’ reactions to this behaviour, highlighting that it is often unnoticed. This paper raises this as an area for concern and suggests that future research should explore this further, both gaining more in‐depth knowledge of female bullying and intimidation of boys and popular girls, and exploring ways of working with teachers and schools to support students.