| As a focus of research, bullying is widely conceptualized as relational violence among children and youth. Focusing on individual behaviour and relations of power between or among children, research is usually concerned with identifying and classifying incidents, and finding ways to reduce rates of occurrence. Definitions of bullying, promoted by research and anti-bullying programs, are typically static. In this dissertation, I focus on bullying not as an empirical given, but rather as a notion contextualized in time and place, socially and politically.; Prior to about 1980, bullying was largely considered to be a usual feature of schooling, perhaps even a positive one by which children would develop character and coping skills. By contrast, bullying now garners widespread discussion and allocation of resources for reduction. Public and media pressure have resulted in widespread adoption of regulatory, one-size-fits-all approaches such as zero tolerance policies and codes of student conduct. However, bullying remains a significant problem in schools, particularly for students who are deemed by their peers as being "different." Educational policy, like research on bullying, mostly does not take social difference into account.; Regulation of behaviour does not address the ways in which bullying reinforces social norms and hierarchies of privilege. Such hierarchies are constituted by an interwoven grid of social categories, such as race, gender performance, and class, among others. Throughout these chapters, I highlight contradictions within generically focused policy and research approaches. Specifically, I weave the issue of gender and sexuality categories throughout the text because bullying is a practice by which normative gender expectations are preserved. For instance, incidents of bullying routinely feature expressions of homophobia. However, difference based on gender variance is rarely addressed in policy or taken up by researchers on bullying. By not addressing how social difference informs bullying, generic policies on school safety are compromised in their attempt to facilitate safety for all students. Employing Michel Foucault's theories of power and discourse, and James Scheurich's application of them to policy analysis, I suggest ways of conceptualizing bullying that more effectively account for social difference, and that address bullying as a practice of social control. |
