Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T18:40:41.832Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Affirmation and Care: A Feminist Account of Bullying and Bullying Prevention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Tim R. Johnston
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Despite the amount of attention that activists, educators, psychologists, and the media place on bullying and bullying prevention, there has been no sustained philosophical reflection on bullying, nor has there been a feminist analysis of the growing literature on bullying. This essay seeks to satisfy those two needs. The first section is a broad introduction to the literature on bullying. I define bullying and distinguish it from teasing, sassing, roughhousing, and other more benign interactions. I also outline two common solutions to bullying: zero‐tolerance policies and “ecological” interventions. The second section uses feminist ethics of care to analyze the effectiveness of each approach. I argue that ecological approaches to bullying are preferable to zero‐tolerance policies because they operate on a relational model of the self and identity‐formation. I elaborate a notion of affirmation as the mechanism that stabilizes and solidifies our sense of self across time. I then use affirmation to analyze three things: why people bully one another, the specific harm inflicted by bullying, and why ecological approaches are more effective in reducing bullying. The third section uses my account of affirmation to critique the scientism and troublingly gendered assumptions that underlie much of the work on bullying.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , Spring 2015 , pp. 403 - 417
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Birdthistle, I., De Vos, E., Lang, C., Northrop, D., Slaby, R. G., and Whitman, C. V. 1999. Violence prevention: An important element of a health‐promoting school. World Health Organization information series on school health #3. Geneva:World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/school_youth_health/media/en/93.pdf (accessed February 15, 2013).Google Scholar
CDC (Centers for Disease Control). 2012. Understanding bullying: Fact sheet. http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/bullyingfactsheet2012-a.pdf (accessed May 7, 2013).Google Scholar
Chapman, Ben, and Boyle, Christina. 2012. Staten Island teen Amanda Cummings kills self by jumping in front of bus after being bullied. New York Daily News, January 4.Google Scholar
Coloroso, Barbara. 2003. The bully, the bullied, and the bystander. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Engster, Daniel. 2005. Rethinking care theory: The practice of caring and the obligation to care. Hypatia 20 (3): 50–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Espelage, Dorothy, and Swearer, Susan. 2004. Introduction: A social‐ecological framework of bullying among youth. In Bullying in American schools: A social‐ecological perspective on bullying and intervention, ed. Espelage, Dorothy and Swearer, Susan. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fausto‐Sterling, Anne. 2000. Sexing the body: Gender politics and the construction of sexuality. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Fine, Cordelia. 2010. Delusions of gender: How our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Frye, Marilyn. 2000. Oppression. In Gender basics: Feminist perspectives on women and men, ed. Minas, Anne, 2nd edition. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1993. In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network). 2013. The 2013 National school climate survey: the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in our nation's schools. http://www.glsen.org/nscs (accessed November 2, 2014).Google Scholar
Gordts, Eline. 2012. Tim Ribberink, Dutch boy who committed suicide after being bullied, leaves devastating suicide note. The Huffington Post, November 12.Google Scholar
Hazler, R., Carney, J., and Granger, D. 2006. Integrating biological measures into the study of bullying. Journal of Counseling & Development 84 (3): 298–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Held, Virginia. 2002. Moral subjects: The natural and the normative. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 76 (2): 7–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Held, Virginia. 2004. Taking care: Care as practice and value. In Setting the moral compass: Essays by women philosophers, ed. Calhoun, Cheshire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jordan‐Young, Rebecca M. 2010. Brain storm: The flaws in the science of sex differences. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
NPR (National Public Radio). 2013. Why some schools want to expel suspensions. http://www.npr.org/2013/06/02/188125079/why-some-schools-want-to-expel-suspensions (accessed October 30, 2014).Google Scholar
Olweus, Dan. 1978. Aggression in the schools: Bullies and whipping boys. Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere Publishing Corp.Google Scholar
Roberts, Walter B. 2006. Bullying from both sides: Strategic interventions for working with bullies & victims. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin.Google Scholar
Ruddick, Sara. 1995. Maternal thinking: Toward a politics of peace. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Savin‐Williams, Ritch C. 2005. The new gay teenager. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spade, Dean. 2011. Normal life: Administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Brooklyn: South End Press.Google Scholar
Ttofi, M. M., and Farrington, D. P. 2009. What works in preventing bullying: Effective elements of antibullying programs. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research 1 (1): 13–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaillancourt, T., deCatanzaro, D., Duku, E., and Muir, C. 2009. Androgen dynamics in the context of children's peer relations: An examination of the links between testosterone and peer victimization. Aggressive Behavior 35 (1): 103–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Volk, Anthony A., Camilleri, Joseph A., Dane, Andrew V., and Marini, Zopito A. 2012. Is adolescent bullying an evolutionary adaptation? Aggressive Behavior 38 (3): 222–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vreeman, R., and Carroll, A. 2007. A systematic review of school‐based interventions to prevent bullying. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 161 (1): 78–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walker, Margaret Urban. 2007. Moral understandings: A feminist study in ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar