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Whole school community |
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Building a safe and supportive school and preventing bullying |
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Involve staff, parents and students in collaboratively developing and implementing an active whole school plan, involving staff, parents and students, to address bullying, harassment, discrimination and violence |
Creating safer schools and more just societies requires shared understandings of the social, historical and cultural beliefs that underpin much of the violence, harassment and discrimination that occur between individuals and groups.
A critical understanding of the role of power, gender, race and class in bullying allows school communities to deal with the underlying issues. When undertaken reflectively and collaboratively, this process can build the trust and respect needed for individuals and groups to safely challenge and change inequalities within the school. We are then better placed to address the needs of all students and therefore contribute to socially just and sustainable environments. Students and community members are then empowered to be active in the pursuit of justice for themselves and for others.
With encouragement and support, school communities can re-examine their current
school ethos by taking a broader look at their existing policies, programs
and curriculum. An understanding of the dimensions of bullying by critically
positioning race, culture, class and gender allows school communities to deal
with the underlying issues. School communities must work together to build
trust and respect, and to identify and challenge inequalities within the school.
By doing this, we are better placed to address the needs of all students and
therefore contribute to socially just and sustainable environments. Students
and community members are then empowered to be active in the pursuit of justice
for themselves and for others.
Within a large primary school, people from different areas across the school community volunteered to form the core of a group who wanted to make a long-term difference to the climate of bullying and harassment in the school. The group chose an action research framework in which to work because it encourages participation by all in open discussion, action and reflection as an ongoing process. A 'critical friend' from outside the school provided objective advice and helped the group move through the process.
Recording the circumstances around disruptive behaviours in different parts of the school, shared readings and discussions and classroom action research projects informed understanding and the development of a framework for integrated curriculum planning in the school. As a result, all staff now participate in professional development about the social issues that underpin curriculum development and how important that is in terms of preventing and countering bullying and harassment.
Schools in action:
Examining gender, race, class
and power
Female staff at a boys' college identified the issues of harassment. This reflected broader harassment among the student body. The school established a Turnaround Committee to develop a formal harassment policy and strategies for the whole school.
Schools in action:
Addressing student harassment
'Aggressive behaviour in boys: to what extent is it
institutionalised'
Askew, Sue (1989)
in Tattum, DP and Lane, DA (Eds) Bullying in Schools
Hanley Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Brooks, pp. 59-71
Highlights the ways in which the school as an institution may unintentionally either reinforce or discourage bullying and aggressive behaviour among boys.
Creating New Choices: A Violence Prevention Project
for Schools in Australia
http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/innodata/inno09.pdf
Sidey, M. and Lynch, T. (2001)
Innodata Monographs - 9
Geneva: UNESCO International Bureau of Education
Describes a whole school violence prevention initiative involving four Victorian secondary schools. Long-term school-community partnerships have been actively encouraged. The project's focus includes addressing structural inequality and individual and institutionalised violence, improving the school culture and ensuring a socially just environment for all school members. The project incorporates understandings bullying and harassment on the basis of gender and cultural diversity.
'Gender, power, violence: implications for teachers'
Fitzclarence, L. (1994)
In Schooling what future?: balancing the education agenda, pp. 113-121.
Geelong, Vic: Deakin Centre for Education and Change, Deakin University.
Examines gender, power and violence among young people and the implications for teachers. Topics include the origins of violence; school discipline, bullying and sexual harassment; and teacher preparation to deal with issues of violence.
Shaping Up Nicely -The Formation of Schoolgirls and
Schoolboys in the First Month of School
Kamler, B, Maclean, R, Reid, J & Simpson, A (1994)
AGPS.
This book focuses on gender and language in the crucial first months of primary schooling, and looks at the ways in which the existing language constructs masculinity and femininity impact in different ways for girls and boys.
Taking the Rap
Video and teachers' guide.
West Education Centre Inc, Footscray, Victoria
Ph (03) 9314 3011, Fax (03) 9314 1075.
Uses narrative to examine the ways in which gender and young people's understanding of it affects young people and their relationships with each other. The program is designed to assist both girls and boys to reconstruct their perceptions of masculinity so that meaningful changes can occur.
Youth Challenge Online: Teaching Human Rights and
Responsibilities
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/education/youthchallenge/index.html
Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission
A human rights education program that uses role play, guided activities,
personal stories, surveys and stimulus questions for discussion to learn
about human rights and responsibilities. Includes materials for all students
on topical issues including race and disability discrimination, sexual
harassment, sex and issues relating to employment. Teachers' notes are
supplied, and a video is available.
The prejudice book: activities for the classroom
McLean, B; Shiman, D; Hursch, E & Lewis, J (1988)
Annandale, NSW: Common Ground
A 120 page book of developmental classroom activities for teaching students about stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination.
