Introduction

Abstract

This book investigates the reasons why the traditional psychological understanding of bullying fails those affected, and deconstructs how bullying is shaped by prominent discourse. By drawing on poststructuralist feminist theory, Victoria Rawlings highlights the social and cultural inequalities too often forgotten in analyses of aggressive behaviour in schools, and places particular emphasis on gender and sexuality as facilitating and constraining forces within school environments and bullying discourses. This book provides a necessary assessment as to why current anti-bullying approaches are failing, and offers an alternative explanation as to how and why bullying occurs. This is a timely and authoritative study which uses qualitative interviews and focus groups with students, teachers and principals to emphasize the real-life experiences of young people in schools today. Interdisciplinary in nature, this book has a broad appeal and will be of special interest to scholars in the fields of gender and sexuality studies, sociology, and education.