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Bullying intervention within garden playscapes : supporting childhood identity formation through free play and philosophy
Bryant, Elissa.author.
Bryant, Elissa.author.
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2019
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Abstract
Over the last several decades, teachers, parents, and education researchers have implemented a wide variety of school-wide interventions among children and adolescents in an attempt to address the pervasive and serious problem of bullying among peers. In the literature review that follows, this work compiles much of the contemporary research on the social processes that lead to bullying, the limited success and even harmful effects of our existing anti-bullying measures, and the necessity for a fundamental change in the way schools approach such behavior among children and adolescents. By abandoning the common misconception that bullying is pathological violence to be corrected through the development of “character”, and by instead addressing this behavior as a misguided attempt at social identity formation constrained by our own collective problematic social norms regarding “acceptable” and “unacceptable” difference, the future of bullying intervention moves away from punitive consequences to instead facilitate a healthy social identity formation process. The quasi-ethnographic pilot study presented in this work further illuminates the possibilities for this fundamental change in bullying intervention by noting the potential for the manipulation of the physical features of a play space, the introduction of philosophical foundations of thought among children to address perceptions about difference, and the important benefits of frequent play in natural spaces like gardens and playscapes for social-emotional development. The work concludes with logistical considerations for effective future program implementation and recommendations for future research.
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1 online resource (61 pages) :
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Education