The Anti-Bullying Handbook.
By Keith Sullivan
(Oxford University Press, 2001, R180)
Around the world, bullying has always been part of the hidden curriculum at schools. Despite the strategies that have been developed to deal with this scourge, it continues to threaten the well-being of many young people and creates serious barriers to learning.
Author Keith Sullivan’s handbook is firstly an attempt to get schools to view bullying as a serious challenge. He points out that for too long bullying has been viewed as a necessary evil.
Bullies get away with it by insisting that it’s ‘just a laugh”, and because a victim who tell on a bully risk worse misery.
But learners who are the targets of this kind of antisocial behaviour will inevitably suffer a degree of emotional pain when they are rejected or socially excluded, made the butt of rumours, or are subjected to cruel name-calling and put-downs. They are more likely to function poorly, suffer from depression and anxiety, have low self-esteem and be lonely. These feelings are often exacerbated as victims of bullying come to understand the social climate of a school as a mirror of the larger world outside.
Well known for his own research into bullying, Sullivan’s Anti-Bullying Handbook is in line with a current international emphasis on children’s rights to learn and develop into happy, enriched individuals in safe environments.
He also supports other research trends that find that bullying is a systemic problem that affects the entire school community. When we grasp this, we will see also that it serves no one to blame and exclude the bully. It is more constructive to acknowledge that conflicts will always occur, but that they can be solved peacefully, and to the benefit of all.
Sullivan points out that bullying will never be eradicated if principals and other key school players pay only half-hearted attention to the problem. Furthermore, says Sullivan, those who manage schools must view the problem of bullying in its wider social context.
The idea here is that schools should first examine and clarify their ethos and values so that everyone involved in the school culture will be well acquainted with, and in agreement about, the institution’s philosophical foundations and aims.
Only when everyone feels a sense of ownership of what the school stands for, argues Sullivan, will all the players — parents, administrators, teachers and students — be prepared to work together to formulate policies and programmes that make learning a positive experience for everybody.
Sullivan also makes it clear that it’s no good waiting for bullying to happen to formulate an effective anti-bullying strategy. Schools need to be involved in continuous self-evaluation in order for policies to succeed. The Anti-Bullying Handbook provides schools with an opportunity to do just that.
Part one will be illuminating for many readers. Sullivan presents the work generated by scholars from around the world about the general characteristics of bullying, including gender and age differences in bullying patterns.
This research also serves to dispel the many dangerous myths about bullying: that victims should, for example, stand up for themselves, or that they deserve the treatment they get.
Part two explains why schools need to embark on ongoing and thorough examinations of their aims and beliefs. Sullivan provides a clear, step-by-step plan for such analysis. He then extends this guidance to assist schools to gather information about the extent and nature of bullying on campus and off, and how to use the school philosophy and the expertise of all school stakeholders to develop and establish an anti-bullying policy.
In part three, Sullivan draws on a variety of approaches to help teachers and students develop classroom strategies to understand the social dynamics at play in their classrooms. An interesting addition here is the chapter on the physical school environment, and how everyone can work to make school a safer place to be.
Sullivan extends his creative strategies into part four where he details a variety of intervention styles and packages that have been developed by researchers and teachers in various learning contexts. Once again the emphasis is on cooperative learning and the inclusion of students in finding solutions to bullying.
This handbook should not sit gathering dust on the school counsellor’s shelf. Those schools that are genuinely concerned about bullying and its implications should obtain several copies and set aside time for staff to work through each section of the book together in order to generate discussion and effective initiatives.
Those who engage with Sullivan will find his tone and style are conversational, sympathetic, passionate and encouraging.
I particularly like the way he guides schools through every single step of formulating an anti-bullying policy. He includes both examples of successful policies as well as possible pitfalls that could mar progress. His advice is also consistently excellent.
It’s refreshing to read a reference book that includes so much current and topical research. This is extended into the bibliography, index and reference section.
Most exciting of all, however, is the well-researched list of Internet resources and websites on bullying that parents, teachers and students could access.
Perhaps in a future edition, Sullivan will include a chapter on the growing tendency of school managers and/or parents to bully teachers. After all, there is no limit to this particular abuse of power.