Constructing and confronting bullying and normality at Finnish comprehensive schools from the perspective of critical bullying studies

ABSTRACT

In the field of critical bullying studies, norms and normality have been used to explain bullying in a manner that challenges the mainstream conceptualising of bullying. This study concentrates in a more detailed way on how normality and not-normality are connected to bullying and how the students define not-normality as a reason for bullying. I used ethnographic interviews of 48 students to examine the connection between bullying and normality. I found that the students that were defined as ‘not-normal’ were excluded from the school community, but some of them found ways to confront and negotiate their position in the processes of bullying. By describing students who were bullied as not-normal, the bullying was a means to maintain the norms and normality at the school. Thus, in this article, I name a new field of research, the field of critical bullying studies in which the bullying is connected to the norms and normality and it is thus also a structural issue and not only a question of the behaviour of an individual.

KEYWORDS:

• Bullying
• normality
• critical bullying studies

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Perceptions and Constructions of Marginalisation and Belonging in Education (PeCMaBE) project, Gunilla Holm and its other members and especially Jenni Helakorpi and Anna-Leena Riitaoja for producing the data with me.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ina Juva

Ina Juva, Ph.D., is a researcher in the University of Helsinki, whose research interests are bullying, anti-bullying programs, and processes of exclusion in education. Her research contributes to constructing the field of critical bullying studies.