No more bullying: an analysis of primary school children’s drawings of school bullying

Abstract

Bullying in schools is an international problem impacting negatively on children’s well-being. Children’s drawings can provide an insight into their emotional states. There is little published literature that uses children’s drawings to gain better understandings of the nature and impact of bullying. We report two studies using indicators of emotional distress to examine Australian primary school children’s drawings about bullying. In Study One, children’s drawings were examined using indicators of size, detail and line heaviness in terms of gender and developmental trends. The analysis showed no main differences for gender, however, there were clear developmental aspects to children’s depictions of school bullying. In Study Two, children’s self-reported victimisation was associated with the degree of detail and the relative distance between the protagonists represented in the drawings. The studies suggest that drawings could be used to counsel young people and help remediate the effects of bullying.