Category: research

Bullying in Scotland 2014 Reserch Survey Findings

~ brianorbistc ~ Leave a comment

I have posted a brief summary of the results of a survey carried out earlier this year – I will be posting a lengthier blog in the not too distant future  discussing the findings in greater depth but for now at least – here is a quick snapshot of what children and young people told us

The research

The primary aim of this piece of research was to obtain a picture of how children and young people are experiencing bullying in Scotland in 2014.

This research was designed to:

·         Identify the types of bullying that is experienced by children and young people.

·         Give a clear picture of where bullying happens and where online and offline/face to face experiences differ or crossover.

·         Identify from children and young people’s own experience what they feel works and what is less helpful.

·         Identify where children and young people go online and what technology they use to get there.

 

An online questionnaire was designed and tested and distributed to all schools in Scotland in May and June 2014. In total, there were 8310 responses, of which 7839 were useable. Responses came from all over Scotland with all 32 Local Authorities represented. Respondents were aged between 8 and 19 years old. Sixty five per cent were 12 – 14 years old.

This was an open survey and the findings presented here represent only the views of the children who took part.

Three focus groups took place with 45 young people to get a more detailed insight into children and young people’s experiences of bullying – in particular, their thoughts on what happens online and in person, where these two are different and where they crossover.

Key findings

 

The key findings from the survey are as follows:

  • 30% of children and young people surveyed reported that they have experienced some sort of bullying behaviour between the start of school in August 2013 and June 2014. Of this 30%:

§  49% experienced bullying in person

§  41% experienced bullying both in person and online

§  10% experienced bullying online only.

 

  • A number of children and young people had more than one experience of bullying. Children and young people surveyed reflected 12,003 experiences of bullying behaviours. Of these experiences: –

§  60% took place in person

§  21% took place both in person and online

§  19% took place online only

 

  • 92% of children and young people who were bullied knew the person bullying them (91% online and 92% offline). Anonymity therefore may not be what is driving bullying online.

·         Behaviours such as name calling, hurtful comments and spreading rumours that make people feel angry, sad and upset happen both face to face and online.

·         Children and Young people employ a range of strategies to cope with bullying; some are more successful than others.

§  Almost half (48%) of children and young people who are bullied tell their parents.

§  Friends and teachers are also providing support to a high number of children and young people who are bullied.

·         The most successful anti-bullying interventions are embedded within a positive ethos and culture and don’t just focus on individual incidents.

  • Children and young people’s use of technology, especially mobile technology and social media, is woven into their everyday lives.
  • The majority of children and young people (81%) consider their online friends to be all or mostly the same friends they have in real life
  • Children and young people access internet content on mobile devices, such as phones and tablets, more than other devices such as  PC’s or laptops.
  • Google, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook are the most popular websites and Apps used by children and young people when they go online.

 

  Next Steps

 

We will further analyse the data we have collected and use it to help develop effective policy and practice around bullying. The data is likely to help us to address some questions more effectively including: –

·         Given the relatively low proportion of exclusively online bullying, and the similarity of online and offline bullying behaviour, to what extent is a specific response to online bullying needed?

·         What are the appropriate responses to gender specific differences in experiences of bullying?

·         How can we help schools to further develop an anti-bullying ethos? And how can we continue to ensure children and young people are involved and included in this process?

·         How can we continue to support parents to respond when their children tell them about being bullied?

·         How can schools further help children and young people learn from other pupils about the strategies that they have found useful?

 

Making a difference internationally

~ brianorbistc ~ Leave a comment

This month I had the real pleasure of delivering two days of anti-bullying training to colleagues in Vienna. Samera is a project based in Austria dealing with violence against children. Their team is made up of psychologists, social workers, and educators that focus on kindergarten and social pedagogy. They have over 20 years of practical experience in the prevention of violence against children and adolescents. Their approach is ‘trans-cultural’, they recognize the changing face of European countries and they use this term to explain the focus on respect, appreciation, collective action, openness, and engagement with other cultures.

Representatives visited Scotland last year and as part of their visit I met with them to discuss respectme’s approach to bullying and how our approach reflects the culture and how we are governed in Scotland. They were I am pleased to say, very impressed with our approach. Despite their years of work around violence and relationships they had never focused on bullying or ‘mobbing’ as the behavior is known as across Central Europe. They were becoming increasingly aware of this behavior and were looking for a framework or approach that they felt could help compliment their work and they chose ours.

I was invited to deliver two days training to around 30 members of their network in Vienna. My challenge was to put together a program that covered all of the core messages that underpin our approach, the national context and a critique/reflection of some other anti-bullying approaches they knew a little about and this also had to be translated into German for the benefit of the audience.

Perhaps the biggest challenge faced was my tendency to speak very quickly and when I get going on a subject, to speak even quicker. Many of the delegates spoke English very well but did not take the Glasgow dialect classes! I have discovered just how different the word ‘parents’ can sound. An Austrian will learn to say ‘Paa-rents’ where as I would say ‘Pay-rints’- which to them is another word altogether.

The delegates were an eclectic group of social workers, teachers, psychologists and youth workers. They responded very positively to the approach we use. They found our definition of bullying as it impacts on a person’s agency, to be one that made a lot of sense. Many of them felt the notion that bullying took something away from a person and their role was to help get it back, was one they found very useful. Many of them deliver training to teachers and commented on this being something they would use. They, like most people do I have to say, get the notion that intent and persistence are not they key defining factors in recognizing and importantly responding to bullying. Responding to behavior and the impact it has is what matters.

The issue of labeling was an interesting discussion. The word ‘bully’ has made its way into their language. They liked our take on not using terms like ‘bully’ or ‘perpetrator’ when talking about bullying but feel many in their country do use this word. What was interesting though is that when bulling was translated, the word they use is ‘mobbing’. When I asked what word they use to describe someone who is mobbing someone else, they have no word. The concept of calling someone a ‘mobber’ was strange to them; they would talk about mobbing or people who mob. We agreed this was the right approach and that they should challenge the growing use of the word’ bully’ especially as it contra to what they would normally do.

The other area where we learned a lot from each other was when talking about gender based bullying and sexual violence. Sexual violence was the main area of work for over 50% of the delegates. I wanted to share my concerns over the increased use of the umbrella term ‘sexual bullying’. As respectme has stated many times, we feel this is an unhelpful term to use and the guidance on this in other parts of the UK is not something we would support. We agree there is a link between gender based bullying and sexual violence but to label behavior such as a boy putting his hand up a girls skirt or forcing her to do something sexually she does not want to as a form of bullying is concerning. This is abusive behaviour. Sexual violence and sexually aggressive behaviour is not bullying, it is far more serious and needs to be treated as such. This is an area that in the UK opinion is still divided, there are many who are happy to use this term as an umbrella term that includes behaviours that are way beyond gender based bullying.

I am not suggesting that gender-based bullying does not lead to sexual violence or sexually aggressive behaviour, far from it. Rumours and names calling used in person and on-line toward girls in particular should and do concern us. We need to intervene in this behaviour to stop it escalating and become more abusive.

What was interesting was that none of the delegates would even consider using the term ‘sexual bullying’ they were able to make a clear distinction between sexual violence and abuse and bullying behaviour. To put these behaviours together seemed absurd to them. That was no doubt down to the fact most of them work with children who experience sexual violence and they have considerable experience and expertise as practitioners, councillors and teachers in this area. They too see a link between gender-based bullying and how, for some, this can lead to sexual violence but they are distinct behaviours. I welcomed their take on this issue and will use this learning as we take our work in this area forward.

What really helped the two days to flow for the group and for me was having the services of an extremely competent translator. I am always embarrassed when visiting other countries that most locals will speak very good English but our interpreter put that to shame with her four languages. I was able to plan and deliver a greeting, some limited personal information and finished off with ‘dies ist der einzige Deutsche satz den ich weiß‘– ‚‘this is the only German sentence I know‘– it did get a few laughs.

Vienna is a beautiful city (I even took in the ballet one afternoon – only 8 Euro for some culture) and I was made to feel very welcome by my hosts. The feedback was very warm and complimentary. I left a number of resources that will be used as part of a new practice manual for Austrian teacher in the year ahead. I am always very proud to see our resources and our approach being used and spoken about internationally.

I learned a great deal about the cultural differences between Scotland and Austria, how their Government structures differ and the similarities they face in ensuring they get funding every year and stretching this as far as they can. Similarly though, when visiting Slovenia and Ireland recently, I can see that we benefit from having a National Approach to anti-bullying in Scotland, a framework like this is a model for developing consistency and while we are getting there, many colleagues across Europe are looking at this as a model that does makes a difference. A national approach that is underpinned by values, promotes children’s rights and one that challenges inequalities makes sense but there are not many of them around. Hopefully we can keep contributing to changing that.

 

Brian

Cyberbullying – a focus for our partners

~ brianorbistc ~ Leave a comment
I have had the pleasure of speaking at a number of events in recent week on the subject of cyberbullying. I have spoken to teachers, residential child care staff, police officers, and next week educational psychologists.  
It remains no real surprise that demand on this subject remains high, it is the one area of work with children and young people that is seeing both innovation and fear and not in equal measures sadly.
The message that appears to get the most traction of late is that we cannot abdicate responsibility for this to software. We need to connect and learn about how young people use the internet and the phones or laptops they access it from. They use it mainly to talk to and meet their friends.
Lots of colleagues have said they are ‘technophobes’ or are not ‘tech savvy’ and how much they do not like facebook or twitter. The thing is though, if you work with children and young people or are a parent or carer – that is no longer good enough. You need to know and for some that will require a real effort to spend time and utilise the relationship they have.
Many adults have experience of managing risk when working with children and young people, this is a new place for us to consider. We need to be as imaginative and creative with the internet as we have been in other places.
What remains my favourite part of the training we do is asking adults to reflect on how they communicated as teenagers. We hear of the red phone box, post cards, arranging to meet and hoping people turn up as well as locks on the house phone. The point being that staying in touch with your friends was always important and you used whatever means you had at your disposal.
Today is no different, even if some do get all misty eyed at remembering sending postcards and using pay phones but for many of us, we can now communicate, chat and share pictures with friends and family all over the world. We love to communicate and always have.
A great deal of the success we have had is supported by the concept that we need to think of the internet as a place, rather than a thing. We need to see it as a social space and like any other social space, relationships play out in it and there will be risks. People will fall in, fall out, argue and be horrible to others. So like any other social space, we need to discuss boundaries, challenges, risks, threats and how to keep safe and what we will do if there is a problem.
To some the internet is a tool, they buy stuff on or book holidays, but it is used by children and young people and many adults as part of their daily lives to connect with others. The differences between connecting face to face, by the phone or online are not as clear as they may have been before. It is just a new place to do so.
Last years campaign sums this up perfectly with the message, whether they are going into town or online they are still going somewhere. I have seen adults change their entire approach based on this premise,
‘When my daughter wants to go into town, I ask a dozen questions! Who with, how long for, is your phone charged? I never ask where she is going on her laptop!’
The video that supports this can be seen here  http://bit.ly/MMtPOp
Cyberbullying is bullying, news to no one I know but we do need to remember that it is not the phone or the website that is doing this, it is people. We respond to this by connecting with people about what they do.  
It is important to include cyberbullying in your policies and procedures on anti-bullying and not see it as something entirely separate – it is still rooted in relationships between people.
I conducted research last year into children and young people’s experience of cyberbullyng and how they use the inetrnet and the findings were very interesting.
16% say they have been cyberbullied

25% worry about cyberbullying,
55% say they are online every day for 1 – 3 hours, nearly 10% claim they are on for 5 hrs or more
Mobile phones and laptops are the most common devices
Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger two most popular platforms
This research involved 3,944 young people from 29 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities aged 8 – 19 years. This helps us tell parents, they need to understand and know how to navigate and make safe or private facebook and BBM especially. Being able to do so allows them to respond more effcectively if their children are having problems such as bullying on these platforms.
It is my intention to produce a fuller report on this research in time (meaning if I can get some!) but a summary report can be found here http://www.respectme.org.uk/Publications-Introduction.html
talk soon
Brian
13 June 2012

•

•