Bullying still hurts, and inequality still rules.

To the Editor

South Wales Post 18.11.2016

Cheers to Newton schoolchildren for their Red Card Racism banner. Now we could do even better. Racism is only one front for the bullying that makes life a misery for many at school. And now, with widening fault lines across society, and social media always to hand, humiliation and despair can follow children home.

When it comes to bullying, it's not just a matter of reporting, punishing and healing wounds. Clear rules are needed and recognised procedures for reporting, sanctions and redress. And a respected referee.

I'm sure a lot's already being done, and it's a long time since I taught in schools  But more recently I have met children who felt put down and ostracised, with nobody to turn to. Safe at home, I looked around for clues on current remedial action, and found this headline 'Swansea Council to show bullying the red light.'  But about bullying among teachers not children. On a link to Llangefelach Primary I found a detailed anti-bullying policy. As I write 'Children in Wales' have an Anti-bullying Week, while an Anti-bullying Roadshow tours the UK.

Back to the Newton Red Card, the football reference makes sense. The new approach could be rolled out in a clear-cut, enforceable rule-book on bullying and mutual respect. Not just Red Cards, but Yellow for lesser offences, and a Sin-Bin as last resort. Yellow for abuse, obstruction and harassment, straight to Red for violence. The referee (Care and Conciliation Officer?) would be a recognised figure in every school or year, keeping watch and making friends, taking up reports from victims and witnesses, intervening, mediating and enforcing.

The Sin Bin sanction would not be pain-for-pain but time for reflection, an opportunity to uncover motives and promote redress. Isolation is already a punishment. On BBC news the other night (R4 PM 16.11.2016) a former school-girl bully said 'If your own life's a mess, you can make a mess of someone else's.... Bullies need care as well.'.

Prevention is better than cure. Schools must give prime time for the discussion of ongoing personal and social issues that are often nearer to children's heart than exam subjects. Better understanding among children, and between children and teachers, would reduce tension and distress, free up concentration across the curriculum. Basic human communication is too important to be left to chance and not-so social media.

GW

THREE RESPONSES:

1. From (not so) old friend May Magee  22.11.2016

For over thirty-five years I worked in Play schemes, Youth Clubs, School, Out-of-school, and Out-of-work groups, probation service, drugs projects, mental health, etc. This was mostly in what are now described as ‘disadvantaged areas’. There were usually volunteers, along with poorly paid workers. When bullying was noticed or reported, it was often recognised, by the volunteers and workers, that the bullies were in need of support and that they might have problems at home. Poverty and hardship does not make people nice, although not all people who live in such circumstances turn to bullying, there are nasty and nice people in all walks of life.

Sometimes those who grow up in ‘disadvantaged’ circumstances even develop an acute sense of injustice and set out to change society. It is quite clear that those who gave their time to talk with and support ‘disruptive’ young people realised that it was their impoverished life circumstances compared to how they saw others live, that influenced their behaviour. ‘Inequality’ was not a word that was used; neither was ‘empowerment or ‘capacity building’.

When people gave up their time, often after a long day’s work, to help set up activities such as bicycle building/maintenance, sports, scouts, ramblers, brownies and so on, it was because they realised that it helped people to have something to focus on, to work with others, something to be proud of, to have ideas recognised, and to be listened to, talked with, (not at), and get to know each other. These activities benefited the individuals and fed back into the communities in which they lived.

This is just one lifetime experience, for generations, and throughout history it was recognised that the differences between those who had more and those that had little fostered bullying. Roman slaves, prisoners of war to those living under occupation, house maids, refugees etc. History and literature is littered with examples. From talking with others engaged in social work, housing projects, drug projects, education, community police, and other face to face employment it is clear many of them realised that impoverished life circumstances made a difference to people’s behaviour, especially when there was obvious wealth and privilege beyond reach.

My recent experience of voluntary engagement with young people, schools and refugees does not show any great difference in the lives of people who have a great deal and those who do not. The well-paid jobs, money and power are still at the top, while those employed to engage with ‘disadvantaged’ people and the people they are engaged with have proportionately as little as forty years ago. There have been improvements in pay and expectations of living conditions but not enough. There are still people living in conditions that foster bullying, and still vulnerable people who have no hope of escaping their environments.

Over the years so many people, even from ‘underprivileged’ backgrounds have recognised the need to redress the imbalance of life experiences and expectations. Volunteers and paid workers realised that bullying stemmed from the feeling of injustice created by the difference between rich and poor. Over thirty years ago I wrote an essay on the effect of lifestyles presented on television and advertising on those who could not afford to enjoy the holidays, activities, goods. This is likely to fuel the sense of inadequacy and failure to have or provide for a family. Borrowing money is an option, being in debt compounds negative feelings about self.

It is great that eminent people on the radio and in print point out that there is more bullying in societies where there are big differences in income, environments and lifestyles. It hard to believe that well brought up, well educated, well paid, academics and researchers were the first to notice this. However, the hundreds of thousands of pounds that have gone into salaries, research, publications, and presentations have not been wasted if their findings prompt positive changes for those who have little. Hopefully a change is going to come, there can be a better life for everyone, and it can be done by example by those who have as well as by the continuing devotion of those who give their time freely and the over-stretched, underpaid, face to face workers. Those who have little might recognise and respect the change of wealthy lifestyles, reducing their resentment and sense of injustice and creating an atmosphere where people flourish and act more kindly to each other.

2. From youngest brother Richard (Spirit Level) Wilkinson 22.11.2016It's not academics and researchers who first recognise relationships between bullying and inequality, unemployment and poor health, etc, but the recognition tends to seem more like a private opinion or hunch until demonstrated in a form which is easier to share publicly. When relationships are demonstrated in hard data, they become more than just a private perception easily denied by those with a different view, and that should increase people's confidence in their intuitions.

The graph below comes from Frank Elgar in Canada [Elgar FJ. et al. School bullying, homicide and income inequality.  International Journal of Public Health 58, 237-245, 2013.]  The numbers up the side are the percent of 11year olds who bullied others at least twice in the previous month. Along the bottom is a measure of income inequality - less inequality on the left, more on the right.The percentage of kids bullying others varies from around 2% in the more equal countries to around 20% in the less equal ones - a ten-fold difference!  And rarely in discussions of policy to reduce bullying do people talk about reducing income differences across societies as a whole, but a good deal of this kind of statistical work suggests, what many would expect, that smaller income differences weaken the grip of status and status insecurity on us all.

see also
 www.equalitytrust.org.uk

3. From (middle) brother Martiin 22.11.2016

The big pattern about differences in power and wealth that lead to many kinds of cruelty,is not the whole story. As May M shows in her examples of smaller groups of people doing more constructive things together, how things are done on the small scale can exemplify or oppose what’s s going on more generally. So even in an unequal society, there will be working groups or maybe whole companies where people listen to one another, and enjoy working together.

Same with schools. Jean, a friend during my education training year in 1966, spent her working life after that in primary schools.  After some years of experience, she told me about a way of working with her primary class not only to avoid bullying and teasing, but to get the children to care for and look after one another.  So if a child had a problem, or a new child with a difficulty or difference was coming in to the class, there would be ‘circle time’ with the others to think how they could help.  They were aware of the child’s needs, and engaged in meeting them. I take from this the idea that while we certainly should have policies and practices to spot bullying and prevent it continuing, we should also be more optimistic, and help people to know they have power to help as well as to hurt.

And while I long for people to understand the big picture, and to change it, there’s plenty of scope for small action too.

Martin

Bullying within the family? 

May M's response above speaks for itself. In my own family, I was the eldest with a built-in advantage over two younger brothers and sister. Younger brother Martin felt that, not so much because I hit or abused him but because I was bigger, stronger and more likely to win (especially if I named the games, made up the rules). Richard the youngest of three brothers was in his early teens when I left home, felt eclipsed when I came back to stay. Whereas I did alright and Martin very well at school, Richard was judged more suited to practical than academic pursuits, and clever enough to know what that implied. Susan was not just the youngest but a girl. She felt it when she was sent to a less expensive school, but did alright both there and afterwards. That said, it was good-with-his-hands Richard who won acclaim with ground-breaking research and big books on inequality. And the damage that does, not only to the poorest but most or all of us. 'Eclipsed' was his word, not mine, but most of us know what it means and how it feels. In our family, I was eldest, but that also put me first in line for our mother to get angry with...  We made up at the end of each day, and again towards the end of her life.

In some traditional societies, most people can look forward to a measure of respect and authority as they get old. When nothing much changes, those who live longest may often know best. Now that things change faster and most of us live a lot longer, we have more time to forget and what little we know may no longer apply, unless....