The Importance of Being Attentive to Social Processes in School Bullying Research: Adopting a Constructivist Grounded Theory Approach

Abstract

School bullying is a complex social phenomenon in need of further exploration regarding its connections to contextual aspects, group norms, and societal structures. This calls for research approaches that can get closer to participants’ experiences and the different social processes involved in school bullying. One such approach is the constructivist grounded theory (CGT) approach, which aims to be attentive to participants’ main concerns and social processes through both analysis and data collection. This approach comes as a theory-method package with its use of a symbolic interactionism perspective. In this paper, I will show how CGT as a theory-method package, as well as symbolic interactionism and sociology of childhood, has been helpful in my research on school bullying (focusing on social structures, norms, and processes). More specifically, I give different examples from the whole research process, e.g., maintaining a focus on participants’ main concerns, the coding process, being guided by sensitizing concepts, addressing issues of social justice and equity — and overall forming and maintaining a theoretically and ethically prepared researcher role. I also suggest that this approach is helpful in dealing with ethical and theoretical challenges when researching topics known to negatively affect people’s lives and wellbeing — and when the social context makes it difficult for participants to address victimizing structures, positions, and processes.