Rajakulenthiran, Shenthuja

Keywords: bullying, bullying prevention, school-wide

Abstract

As society grows and the population diversifies, students are still subjected to bullying in schools everywhere and dealing with these problems is a reality of every educator. The increase in school-wide bullying prevention programs is on the rise at an alarming rate and is still fairly new so as to assess its effectiveness. Unfortunately, despite growing evidence of active bullying in and out of school, the implementation of school-wide bullying prevention programs leaves a lot to be desired. This qualitative research study explores the challenges of implementing a school-wide anti-bullying initiative into daily teaching lessons. Data was collected through two interviews; one of whom were a grade 8 teacher as well as the equity representative and the other participant was a guidance councillor. Both participants also taught in regular classrooms for over five years aside from their other roles in the school. Analysis of both the related literature and the collected data suggests that implementing a school-wide anti-bullying initiative has a lot to do with the teacher’s perception of how effective it is, as well as the time and resources that the teacher is willing to expend on this topic.

Acknowledgements

Over the course of this journey, there are many individuals whose help and support I am deeply grateful for. I would like to thank my research supervisor, Nick Scarfo, for his help and support. And of course, many, many thanks to my research participants for sharing their valuable time and insights with me. In addition, I would like to say a special thank you to Louise who allowed me to bounce ideas off of her and kept me on track. Finally, I would like to send my sincerest thanks to my parents, family and friends for always being there for me.