‘Teachers see nothing’ : exploring students’ and teachers’ perspectives on school bullying with a new arts-based methodology

Abstract

Even though bullying is a perennial problem, there are still significant gaps in the research. The sensitive nature of the issue prompted us to develop and test a new arts-based method – a set of incomplete, problem-focused comic strips that were given to the participants for creative completion and were subsequently used as individualised interview prompts. The study took place in Russia with 14 teachers and 39 school children. The findings indicated that students and teachers agreed that instances of bullying should not be reported. However, there is a significant difference in how bullying is perceived by teachers and students. The majority of teachers indicated either seeing no bullying or only seeing bullying rarely as a justifiable reaction to provocation. Students, nonetheless, reported witnessing/experiencing bullying situations regularly.