Researchers
Phillip Slee
“For bullies who bully because they enjoy the power, simply making them stop bullying means that they are losing their source of power... so why would they want to do that?”
Background Information
Phillip Slee is Professor in Human Development in the School of Education at Flinders University of South Australia. He is a trained teacher and registered psychologist. He has published extensively in the field of child development and produced educational resources in the form of videos and resource packages. His chief areas of research interest include, childhood bullying/aggression, family development, conduct disorders, stress and teacher education. He has presented his work nationally and internationally in workshops and lectures.
Phillip, can you tell us a little about the PEACE Pack: a program for reducing bullying in our schools?
The PEACE Pack is a practical systemically based resource developed in conjunction with teachers - it presents the view that bullying is essentially about relationships. The systems approach identifies different levels of change: first order change is about the individual; second order change is about influencing the values and attitudes, the beliefs or ethos that exist within the school about bullying. An important facet of the PEACE Pack is producing change at that second order level and that’s considered to be a long lasting approach.
Who/what has influenced the direction you’ve taken in your approach? How has this influence shown in your work?
Working in family therapy, particularly around systems theory , is a strong influence on my approach. It highlighted for me that there were ways to approach this particular topic that weren’t blameful in their orientation - that is, they didn’t blame individuals for what was happening but provided strategies for addressing the issues.
Can you explain systems theory a bit further?
For me, the appeal of a systems approach is that it is far more strength oriented rather than focussing on fixing or remediating or addressing deficits within the individual. What you’re looking to do is try to understand more about how the pattern of behaviour has been set up and how it can be broken and how it can be replaced with healthier patterns of behaviour. All behaviour has a purpose. In the context of a school, even bullying has a purpose so it’s not simply a matter of getting rid of it but you have to think about what underpins it, what gives it purpose and what are you going to replace it with so that the individual has a healthier way of functioning and meeting their needs.
What issues do you think are underlying causes for bullying, harassment and violent behaviour?
From a systems perspective, my tendency is not to think in terms of cause and effect. I think more about how things ripple out, or how things magnify or enhance or diminish things. It’s more of a circular kind of question. Bullying and what brings it about is fairly multifaceted in nature. Some alternative questions could be “Why do some individuals who have the ability to bully choose not to? How do they assert their power and have their needs met without engaging in this behaviour?” If students are bullying in a school setting questions such as “Who else is engaging in this type of behaviour?” are interesting ones to ask. Nonetheless I do think there are lots of influences at the broader political and social level that model bullying behaviour and we need to consider the message this is sending and how this impacts on young people’s behaviour.
What do you think are the next research/challenges to work on?
I think we could develop better ways of looking at change so that we could give more possibilities for schools, families and children to want to change and to be able to change: developing better intervention strategies that are evidence-based. We need some longitudinal research - I don’t think we have enough information on how individuals change.
Where can schools find out more about your approach?
Slee, P. T. (2001)(3rd ed.). The PEACE Pack. A program for reducing bullying in our schools. Flinders University. Adelaide.
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