Attribution of meanings to terms related to bullying: A comparison between teacher's and pupil's perspectives in Italy

Abstract

We compared how teachers and pupils in Italy take into account different dimensions of bullying behaviour, such as intentionality, imbalance of power, repetition and typology of aggression, in relation to bullying behaviours, and investigated the attribution of meaning that teachers and pupils give to a set of terms frequently used to connote this problem. 20 teachers and 87 students in two primary schools, and 40 teachers and 47 students in one middle school, participated. Following a methodology previously developed at a cross-national level (Sharp, 1999; Smith, Cowie, Olafsson, & Liefooghe, and colleagues, 2002), five target terms were selected using focus groups of children. Participants were presented with 25 stick-figure cartoons showing different types and contexts of bullying and related behaviours, and asked to evaluate whether or not the cartoons could be described by one of the target terms. Cluster analysis identified 6 clusters of cartoons characterised by specific behaviours: non-aggressive, fighting, severe physical aggression, verbal aggression, gender exclusion, and severe exclusion. Clear differences were found between teachers and pupils in the extent of use of the five terms in relation to these clusters. From multi-dimensional scaling and descriptive analysis, the clusters of social exclusion, gender exclusion, verbal bullying and fighting emerged as those where the discrepancy between the two groups was highest; teachers systematically applied the five terms less to these clusters, compared to pupils. Results are discussed in terms of implications for intervention policies against bullying.