Bullying in schools has become the focus of a growing body of literature; however, much of that work diminishes the role of social context, social identities, and prejudices despite extensive research evidence suggesting that many victims of bullying are targeted because of an aspect of their social identity. This book demonstrates how the prevention and intervention of this phenomenon, termed identity-based bullying, is a social justice issue. Expanding beyond bullying prevention that focuses on individual perpetrators, the book examines identity-based bullying in schools as a microcosm of larger systemic tensions and conflicts. The author utilizes a social constructivist perspective to understand the experiences of children as active agents in their own lives. She also provides an international framework to describe the impact of culture, social structures, and politics from the US and the UK. Challenges and barriers to addressing identity-based bullying are explored and recommendations are made for best practices for teachers, administrators, and mental health professionals to prevent and respond to identity-based bullying.

This book uses an intersectional approach to explore the ways in which girls and adults in school systems hold multiple realities, negotiate tensions, cultivate hope and resilience, resist oppression, and envision transformation. Rooted in the voices and lived experiences of girls and educators, Brinkman, Brinkman and Hamilton document girl-led activism within and outside schools, and explore how adults working with girls can help contribute toward them thriving. Girls’ narratives are considered through an intersectionality framework, in which gender identity, race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, and other aspects of social identity intersect to inform girls' lived experiences. Exploring data and interviews collected over a 15-year period, the authors set out a three-part structure to outline how girls engage in strategies to enact resilience, resistance, and transformation. Part one reconceptualizes traditional definitions of resilience and documents girls’ experiences of oppression within schools, identifying common stereotypes about girls and examining the complexity of girls’ "choices" within systems that they do not feel they can change. Part two highlights girls’ active resistance to stereotypes, pressures to conform, and interpersonal and systemic discrimination, from entitlement of their boy peers to experiences of sexualization in school. Part three illuminates pathways for educational transformation, creating new possibilities for educational practices. Offering a range of pedagogies, policies, and practices educators can adopt to engage in systemic change, this is fascinating reading for professionals such as educators, counsellors, social workers, and policy makers, as well as academics and students in social, developmental, and educational psychology.

Perspectives on Bullying and Difference gives voice to parents, carers and young people and offers a snapshot of how schools, teachers, local authorities and other professionals try to deal with the problem of SEN and disability bullying. It looks at several schools that are developing their own initiativesPerspectives on Bullying and Difference will show there is a great deal that can be done in schools right now to reduce the levels of bullying that these children and young people are experiencing - solutions are closer than we may think.

School based bullying has significant negative impacts on individuals and the school community. Understanding the factors that predict bullying are important to inform targeted prevention and intervention programs. School climate, school identification, wellbeing, peer identification and sex have all been found to be predictive of bullying and victimisation. However, limited research has directly assessed the impact of these factors on cyber bullying and research into the impact of sex on cyber bullying has been unclear. The current study aimed to test a social identity model of traditional bullying and victimisation and extend this model to cyberbullying. The study surveyed 330 high school adolescents from grades seven to twelve (12 to 18 years of age, mean 14.78; 48.5% male, 50.9% female) on experiences of bullying and cyberbullying, perception of school climate, school identification, peer identification, and level of depression and anxiety. The study found partial evidence for the model. Wellbeing was found to increase the likelihood of both traditional and cyber forms of victimisation and bullying, highlighting the wellbeing similarities between victims and bullies. School climate predicted traditional forms of bullying whereas school identification predicted cyber victimisation. The study did not find support for an association between peer identification and bullying. Being male was found to increase the likelihood of traditional bullying and victimisation as well as more frequent and recent cyber bullying, but not cyber victimisation. Although the study had limitations particularly in relation to being based on one school, the results demonstrated the importance wellbeing of victims and bullies, school climate and school identification as potentially modifiable factors that contribute to victimisation and bullying both in traditional and cyber forms. The results support the need for whole of school interventions around the wellbeing for both victims and perpetrators.

Bullying has long been tolerated as a rite of passage among children and adolescents. There is an implication that individuals who are bullied must have "asked for" this type of treatment, or deserved it. Sometimes, even the child who is bullied begins to internalize this idea. For many years, there has been a general acceptance and collective shrug when it comes to a child or adolescent with greater social capital or power pushing around a child perceived as subordinate. But bullying is not developmentally appropriate; it should not be considered a normal part of the typical social grouping that occurs throughout a child's life. Although bullying behavior endures through generations, the milieu is changing. Historically, bulling has occurred at school, the physical setting in which most of childhood is centered and the primary source for peer group formation. In recent years, however, the physical setting is not the only place bullying is occurring. Technology allows for an entirely new type of digital electronic aggression, cyberbullying, which takes place through chat rooms, instant messaging, social media, and other forms of digital electronic communication. Composition of peer groups, shifting demographics, changing societal norms, and modern technology are contextual factors that must be considered to understand and effectively react to bullying in the United States. Youth are embedded in multiple contexts and each of these contexts interacts with individual characteristics of youth in ways that either exacerbate or attenuate the association between these individual characteristics and bullying perpetration or victimization. Recognizing that bullying behavior is a major public health problem that demands the concerted and coordinated time and attention of parents, educators and school administrators, health care providers, policy makers, families, and others concerned with the care of children, this report evaluates the state of the science on biological and psychosocial consequences of peer victimization and the risk and protective factors that either increase or decrease peer victimization behavior and consequences.

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.