Developmental psychology - summary of chapter 20 of an Introduction to Developmental psychology by A. Slater and G. Bremner (third edition)

Developmental psychology
Chapter 20
Social problems in schools

The school context

Social pressures in the classroom

One key factor is he process of social comparison whereby the child compares his or her performance with classmates.
Comparison is usually upward, with students who perform better than themselves but who seem similar to them on a rage of related and unrelated attributes.
Such comparison can raise the child’s level of academic performance but can also result in negative self-perceptions.

Self-worth protection: the tendency of some students to reduce their levels of effort so that any subsequent poor academic performance will be attributed to low motivation rather than a lack of ability.

Peer pressure to work, or not!

An important social factor in school concerns pressure to work, or not to work, hard in class and on homework.
There is a very different nature of peer pressure in Eastern and Western cultures.
In eastern cultures, striving is typically seen as praiseworthy.
Children in US and UK often discourage any overt display of academic engagement by their classmates. Academic success in itself is not necessarily problematic for acceptance. Effortless success is generally admired.

As high stakes testing in many countries increasingly lead teachers, parents and students focus upon success on a variety of externally regulated tests and examinations, it is not surprising that student stress levels on relation to academic performance can often be high.

Victimization and bullying in school

Bullying is usually taken to be a subset of aggressive behavior, characterized by repetition and an imbalance of power.
The behavior is repetitive and the victim cannot defend him/herself easily, for one or more reasons.

Bullying is likely to have particular characteristics and particular outcomes.
The relative defenselessness of the victim implies an obligation on others to intervene.

How do we find out about bullying?

The main methods are:

• Teacher and parent reports
• Self-report by pupils as whether they have been bullied, or taken part in bullying others.
  • Olweus questionnaire
  • Life in school questionnaire.
• Peer nomination, in which classmates are asked who is a bully, or a victim.
• Direct observations of behaviors
• Interviews with individuals, focus groups with 4-8 pupils, and incident reports kept by school

Incidence figures for bullying

Incidence figures for bullying vary greatly depending on measurement criteria.
Broadly speaking, in Western industrialized countries, some 5 per cent of children might be seen as regular or severe bullies, and some 10 per cent as regular or severe victims.

Types of bullying

‘Traditional’ forms of bullying:

• Physical
  Hitting, kicking, punching, and taking or damaging someone’s belongings
• Verbal
  Teasing, taunting and threats
• Indirect/ relational
  Spreading nasty rumors and systematic social exclusion.

Some bullying is based on the victim being a member of a particular group.
This is bias bullying.

Cyberbullying

A type of bullying which uses electronic devices.

No place to hide

There are some distinctive features of cyberbullying:

• There is no place to hide
• The breadth of audience
• More anonymity

Roles in bullying

The traditional roles are:

• Bully
• Victim
• Non-involved
• Bully-victim
  (both a bully and a victim)

Victims are often describes as:

• Passive victims:
• Provocative victims
• Aggressive victims or bully-victims

six participant roles in bullying

• Ringleader bullies
  Take the initiative
• Follower bullies
  Who join in
• Reinforces
  Who encourage the bully or laugh at the victim
• Defender
  Who help the victim
• Bystanders
• Victims

Some structural features of bullying

A substantial proportion of self-reported victims say that they have not told a teacher, or someone at home, about the bullying.
This proportion increases with age.
Boy victims are less likely to tell anyone.

Effects of being bullied

Victims of bullying often experience;

• Anxiety and depression
• Low self-esteem
• Physical and psychosomatic complains
• Greater risk of self-harm ans suicidal idealization.

Prolonged victimization in childhood can have long-term effects.

Causes of bullying

Many levels of causation are typically invoked in understanding bullying and victimization

• Society factors (like tolerance and violence, bullying and abuse of power in society and portrayals in mass media)
• Community level (neighborhood levels of violence and safety, and socioeconomic conditions)
• School level (the school climate and quality of teacher and pupil relationships)

Regarding bullies, aggressive behavior, inequalities of power are commonplace in human groups, so bullying can be a temptation.
Some bullies behave this way to show their dominance and may be perceived as popular.

School bullying may be an early stage in the development of antisocial behavior.
Especially the bully-victims

Parental maltreatment and abuse

Both bullying and more general antisocial behavior have similar background risk factors.

• Involvement in bullying is associated with family predictors such as insecure attachment and harsh physical discipline

Parental maltreatment and abuse is a likely risk factor in the bully-victim or aggressive victim group.

Risk factors for being a victim

• Family background factors, including over-protective parenting or alternatively neglect
• Interpersonal level, the attitudes of the main peer groups at school, as well as the nature and quality of friendships that a child has
• Having poor social skills
• Having a disability or special educational needs
• Particular characteristics
• Less well integrated socially and lack the protection friendships give
• Behavioral problems may act out in an aggressive way and become provactive victims

Interventions to reduce bullying

Whole -school policy

It is a legal requirement for all schools to have some form of anti-bullying policy.

Curriculum work

Classroom activities can be used to tackle issues associated with bullying, progressively and in an age, gender and culturally appropriate way.
Such curricular approaches can raise awareness of bullying and the schools’ anti-bullying policy, and develop skills, empathy and assertiveness in confronting bullying.

Methods and programs

Quality circles: small groups of children who meet to problem-solve issues such as bullying, through standard procedures.

One curriculum approach that can enhance interpersonal relationships and may reduce victimization, is cooperative work group.
Small groups of pupils cooperate in a common task.

Social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL)

A UK-based relationships curriculum to developing social and emotional skills.
Focuses on:

• What it is
• How it feels, why people bully
• How schools can prevent and respond to it
• How children can use their social and emotional skills

Assertiveness training

Victims of bullying tend to have low self-esteem and sometimes poor ways of coping with attempts to bully them.
Assertiveness training is a way to help victims, or potential victims.

Peer support systems

Uses the knowledge, skills and experience of children and young people themselves in a planned and structured way to tackle and reduce bullying through both proactive and reactive strategies.

• Circle time
• Circles of friends
• Befriending
• Conflict resolution/ mediation
• Active listening/ counseling based approaches

Working in the playground

An effective playground policy and well-designed play area can significantly help to reduce bullying.

Reactive strategies

Deal with bullying situation when they have arisen.
Range from more punitive to direct sanctions-based approaches, through restorative practices, to more indirect and non-punitive approaches.

Direct sanctions

May vary in severity and be used on grades scale if bullying persists.
Expected to impress on the perpetrator that what he/she has done in unacceptable and promote understanding of the limits of acceptable behavior.
Retributive justice: direct sanctions against bullies that are intended to reduce the incidence of bullying.

Restorative justice

A range of practices which focus on the offender or bullying child being made aware of the victim’s feelings and the harm they have caused, and making some agreed reparation.
Based in three main principles:

• Responsibility: the offender learns to accept responsibility for the offense caused by their actions
• Reparation
• Resolution

Counseling-based approaches

Method of shared concern: a counseling-based approach for resolving bullying, which aims to sensitive bullying children to harm they are doing to the victim an encourage positive behaviors to the victim.
Combination of individual and group meetings, structured around five consecutive phases

• Individual talk with the suspected bullies
• Individual talk with the victim
• Preparatory group meeting
• Summit meetings
• Follow up of the results

Support group method
Steps:

1. The facilitator talks individually to the bullied pupil
2. A group of 6 to 8 students is set up, some suggested by the victim, but without his/her presence
3. The facilitator explains to the group that the victim has a problem, but does not discus the incidents that have taken place
4. The facilitator assures the group no punishment will be given, but instead all participants must make joint responsibility to make the victim feel happy and safe
5. Each group member gives their own ideas on how the victim can be helped
6. The facilitator ends the meeting, with the group given responsibility for improving the victim’s safety and well-being
7. Individual meetings are held with group members one week after the meeting to establish how successful the intervention has been

Large-scale school-based interventions

Often effective, but degree of effectiveness varies markedly.

Norwegian intervention campaign

The first large-scale school-based intervention campaign was launched at a nationwide level, in Norway, in 1983.

Olweus Bullying Prevention Program: a program which aims to reduce and prevent bullying problems among school children and to promote prosocial behavior.

School refusal

Truancy or school refusal?

In considering the problems of chronic non-attenders, a distinction has often been drawn between truants and school refuses (or school phobics). These fall not always in clear-cut groups.

Truants are generally perceived as having no major psychological problem in attending school. They simply choose not to.
Often presents a range of conduct disorders.
Likely to attend school on a sporadic basis and will typically seek to conceal their absences.

School refuses often seem eager to attend school but because of high levels of anxiety associated with this action, cannot.
Often portrayed as someone who has a good record of behavior in school and whose problem is essentially that of an emotional disorder, with anxiety more prominent than depressive symptoms.
Will often have prolonged absences and will typically remain at home during school hours with the knowledge of parents.

Emotional and psychosomatic problems

School refuses will often demonstrate severe emotional and psychosomatic upset.
In addition to anxiety, there may be signs of: depression, with displays of tearfulness, sleeping difficulties, irritability and general indicators of low self-esteem.
In addition to physical distress, these children often display a variety of physical illnesses.

Child’s distress can be divided into physical, cognitive and behavioral component.

Prevalence

It is difficult to provide consistent estimates as to the prevalence of school refusal.

Types of school refuser

Separation anxiety

Prolonged absence from school could be the result of some form of neurosis.

Separation anxiety: a fear of the loss of parental nurturance.
Insufficient to explain all cases of school refusal.

School refusers can be located in three broad categories:

• Separation anxiety
• Specific phobia
• Suffering form a more generalized anxiety or depression

Acute and chronic school refusal

Acute where absence is preceded by at least three years’ sound attendance, irrespective of current attendance patterns.
These tend to be associated wit higher levels of depression.

Chronic tend to be associated with greater levels of neurosis, dependency, parental mental illness, and lower self-esteem and sociability.|
The prognosis tend to be poorer.

Sex and age differences

Separation anxiety is more likely to be found in young girls while a specific fear of school may be more prominent in adolescent boys.

Cases appear to peak between 11 and 13.
It seems that children are at particular risk for school refusal behavior during their first year at a new school.
It appears that adolescent refusers tend to have more severe disorders and have a poorer prognosis. While many truants experience learning difficulties, there appears to be no clear relationship between school refusal and intellectual functioning.

A functional approach to understanding school refusal

For any individual child, refusal is maintained by one or more categories.

Negative reinforcement

• Avoidance of stimuli that provoke a sense of general negative affectivity
• Escape from aversive social or evaluative situations

Positive reinforcement

• Attention-seeking behavior
• Pursuit of tangible reinforcement outside of school

Assessment

Clinical assessment will typically involve a range of procedures such as interviews, and self-report instruments.

School Refusal Assessment Scale: an instrument designed to identify four of the variables that are associated with difficulty in attending school.

Intervention

Systematic desensitization and emotive imagery

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)

What can be done by the school?

Teachers do not always recognize the contribution that the school can make to refusal behavior.