Propuesta del señor Alfonso Salazar, miembro externo, referente al “Informe de la Auditoría Interna AI-035-2017”

While educators were willing to admit that there may be issues of bullying that would occur in their school contexts, overall the tendency was to claim that serious forms of bullying and sexuality-based bullying in particular were not issues that they had or would encounter at their schools. The main reasons given for this reduced likelihood included the size of the school and the age of the students they were responsible for.

In terms of school size, Kathy explained:

So we’re a pretty small school. I can’t say that there’s no bullying happening, but not to the um, I think not to the extent that you hear bullying stories in the media. So I don’t think that we have anything like

that. Um, and again, I think it’s in the older grades that you see more ah, extensive, um, extensive is not the word, but um, more incidents of bullying at an extreme level.

The greater prevalence of bullying in larger schools was also something that Janice expressed through the comparison they made between their current situation and their previous experience as a vice-principal at a larger middle-school. Janice stated:

…as one vice-principal in a school of six hundred kids, I just, I remember feeling really overwhelmed that I wasn’t…I was dealing with the bullies and there was very little time to be supportive to the bullied.

Such ideas from both Janice and Kathy appear to contradict existing research as research suggests that larger social settings with greater numbers of students tends to correlate with lower levels of bullying (Garandeau, Lee & Salmivalli, 2014), and smaller schools have been found to have higher rates of bullying (Klein & Cornell, 2010). While it is not possible to determine the extent of bullying and conclude whether or not their schools are reflective of the trends that have been found elsewhere, it is beneficial to consider a few points about this contradiction.

First, both Kathy and Janice expressed their hands-on approach, explaining how they are quite involved in everyday interactions in their schools. Their educator style thus may not only give them the confidence to assert that bullying is not an issue that occurs as often as in other schools, but it may also be an accurate reflection of the empirical reality where there is less bullying in their schools. Such a reality may not be something that is reflective of or generalizable to other small school contexts though.

Second, one can reflect on the idea that difference has been given as a justification for bullying (Thornberg, 2015). In smaller schools where this diversity is lacking,

differences between students that could be used to justify bullying may become more evident. This may help to explain the research findings that support an increased

likelihood of bullying in those contexts. Given that the smaller schools where Kathy and Janice worked were located within the TDSB however, the likelihood of encountering a diverse student population even within small schools is increased from other school districts that may have a more homogeneous overall population. Such diversity may thus

have an impact on the extent to which difference is seen as something that bullies can use, and therefore on the extent of bullying within such contexts.

Furthermore, as shown in the previous quotes by Kathy and Janice, the age of students also factored into the perception that bullying would not be a significant issue. For example, Kathy explained that while they were often faced with minor instances of exclusion or making fun of someone, bullying did not occur:

In my experience it hasn’t happened overtly where they’re fighting about something, they might call someone names and it might come to me, but nothing really really big. I think it’s because probably I’m in elementary. I’m sure that that snowballs when it’s like middle school, high school… Expanding on this further, Kathy explained that bullying would also not occur since differences between students are not likely to be prevalent until students are older:

I think that the…kid’s maturity level sometimes, they just want to play. It doesn’t matter who they’re playing with, they just want to play and so they don’t start to see kind of differences I think as much as when you start to get a bit older, a little bit more mature, you can see when you’re successful or not successful, whereas kids sometimes don’t see that if they’re playing and they’re um, playing football…they just like to play or if they’re drawing, they just like to draw. But I think when they get older, they start to know what they’re good at and what they’re not good at, they start to see groups starting to form

[…]

they don’t fit in, and I think that they start to see the differences between people, and I think that’s kind of where it starts.

Although Kathy implies that differences are more likely to appear in older grades, the student interviews in the preceding chapter suggested otherwise, as participants felt that they were called out for their non-conformity early in their schooling. This contradiction highlights the importance of trying to determine when perceptions of difference emerge for students, and also whether or not this aligns with educator perspectives.

In addition to explaining why severe bullying would not occur, age was also a reason for why sexuality-based bullying would not be something that the educators in this study would need to be overly concerned with. This notion was expressed most clearly by

Cindy: “…they are at the age, you know, where you know it’s not as prevalent obviously, grade six, it’s grade six. It’s not going to happen”. In contrast, Cindy indicated that such issues would be more likely to occur in grades seven and eight when students notice more about their changing bodies and their attractions to other individuals, further explaining that “…that’s where it comes in. But it’s not big here. That’s why I won’t go into grade seven and eight. I don’t want to deal with that” and “…if I were a high school teacher I would have a lot more to add but honestly, it’s like we don’t deal with that…”.

Sue, the social worker, also made comments in their interview that suggested that issues around sexuality would not likely be something that students in middle school grades would face:

I mean it’s premature for them to identify maybe as gay or lesbian or bisexual

[…]

they’re not in a sexual stage of their life and yes they are in some ways, sorry, but let me backtrack, you know I think labels can be confusing and they are not in that identity formation stage…

Such educator beliefs differ from the student findings that indicated students may at least be grappling with SGM identity issues, if not fully accepting or coming to adopt those identities. Furthermore, this runs counter to the student experiences which highlighted how more generalized notions of difference in relation to the heteronormative and gender binary expectations were expressed and enforced in the middle school grades.

Ultimately, denying that sexuality is an issue for younger students also overlooks, and serves to reinforce, the heteronormative assumptions and mechanisms of enforcement that are present in schools (e.g. Mellor & Epstein, 2006).

Thus, what this section suggests is that while bullying is seen as an important issue for educators to deal with, understandings of the severity of non-physical and identity-based forms of bullying may be downplayed or underestimated by educators. For example, while educators did bring up a few situations where gender was the reason for bullying, this appeared to be framed as an uncommon occurrence, and something that was not considered to be ‘severe’. Furthermore, although most participants did not explicitly

state that sexuality-based bullying would never occur in their schools and in the grades that they were involved with, from their above quotes and their tendency to refer to general forms of bullying throughout the interviews, it seems as though sexuality-based bullying is something that the educators in this study would not expect to see given the size and age composition of the schools. If educators are thus not on the lookout for this particular behaviour, they may be less likely to notice it when it does occur, or less willing to engage in preventative initiatives that may work to prevent this behaviour or help develop resilience and feelings of support for those who may still encounter it.