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"Bullying among special education students withintellectual disabilities" - A Critical Review

Bullying has become one of the glamour issues in education in recent years. The often

sensationalised reporting of school bullying incidents in the media has led some to believe that its thelatest moral panic (Wood, 1997). Others, such as eminent bullying researcher, Peter K. Smi th (1999,p3) view this media hyperbole as a necessary evil that complements research, thus generating strongpolitical interest and, subsequently, additional funding for research and intervention work.

However, beyond the drone of populist sentiment lies a very serious issue that needs to be addressedby all educators, given the wealth of research to support both the short and long term negative effectsof bullying. Such effects include low psychological wellbeing, poor social adjustment, psychologicaldistress, physical unwellness (Rigby, 2003, p.584) and, in extreme cases, suicide. Justifiably, bullyingis no longer just an accepted part of the social dynamic. It is recognised that what happens betweenchildren at school matters here and now and in the future (Rigby, 2007, p.13).

Additionally, the prevalence of bullying in Australian schools (and similar trends, globally) warrantsconcern, with one child in every six or seven being bullied on a weekly basis, or more often (Rigby &Slee, in Smith, 1999, p326).

But what is bullying, exactly? It is largely accepted that bullying is a subset of aggressive behaviour(Olweus, 1999, as cited in Smith & Ananiodou, 2003, p.189) that can be defined as repeatedoppression, psychological or physical, of a less powerful person by a more powerful person or groupof persons (Rigby, 2007, p.15). The key elements that differentiate bullying from other forms ofviolence are repetition and imbalance of power. Olweus (1987, as cited in Raiter & Lapidot-Lefler,2007, p.174) found that bullies gain power over their victims by exploiting their physical, emotionaland/or social weaknesses.

This exploitative factor has serious implications for students with special needs, and indeed there is

evidence to show that these students are at increased risk of bullying when they are mainstreamed orparticipate in remedial classes, compared to students without special needs (Martlew & Hodson,1991; OMoore & Hillery, 1989). Nabusoka & Smith (1993, as cited in Raiter & Lapidot-Lefler, 2007, p.176) state that stigmas and inadequate protection in an inclusive environment may contribute tostudents with special needs becoming victims. Alternatively, they may react aggressively and becomebully-victims that is, students who respond to bullying with bullying, rather than passive inaction orinternalisation (a usual victim response).

There has also been much research around the roles in bullying and the traits associated with theseroles. The standard participants, as derived from questionnaire and peer nomination data are: Bully,Victim, Non-Involved (neither a victim nor a bully) or a Bully-Victim (Smith & Ananiadou, 2003, p.191).Additionally, there has been a raft of studies largely based in regular school settings designed toconstruct typologies of each participant, with varying degrees of concurrence. However, there has

been little research specifically targeting bullying in special education settings (Mishna, 2003), whichis why it is promising to find the article Bullying Among Special Education Students With IntellectualDisabilities:Differences in Social Adjustments and Social Skills (Raiter & Lapidot-Lefler, 2007).

In this article, Raiter & Lapidot-Lefler investigate the differences between bullies, victims and bully-victims in terms of social adjustment and social skills, and attempt to tease out particular typologiesfor each participant in the bullying dynamic, in the context of special education settings. The researchsample consisted of 186 students between the ages of 12 and 21 with mild developmental andintellectual disabilities. The students were drawn from two special education schools in Israel. Thesample is potentially problematic as the gender balance was uneven (56.5% were males, 26.3% werefemales which leads one to wonder what gender the other 17.2% of respondents were). This genderdiscrepancy may well have influenced the finding that bullies exhibit more challenging behaviours,given that males are more likely to participate in overt forms of bullying whilst girls participate in morecovert forms (Smith & Ananiodou, 2003) which may not manifest themselves as challengingbehaviours.

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Data was collected through a series of questionnaires. One questionnaire, the Harassment/BullyingQuestionnaire, was formulated for the students, based on a questionnaire developed by Olweus(1991). It was not stated if the questionnaire was conducted anonymously. The questionnaire wasadapted to cater for the needs of students with physical, cognitive and communication disabilities (theauthors do not detail how this was done) and some additional questions were added to broaden thescope of the study. One area of concern is that the original Olweus questionnaire was translate into

Hebrew then back into English to ensure that the Hebrew version was similar to the English one,however, this does not eliminate the potential that some key elements may have been lost intranslation.

The other three questionnaires were given to teachers. One targeted aggressiveness of students interms of violent behaviour and whether students were quarrelsome, brutal, impertinent, insolent, bad-tempered, aggressive, unruly or had temper tantrums. The second questionnaire dealt with studentssocial skills such as ability to give compliments or volunteering to help peers in classroom activities.The final questionnaire focused on social adjustment, and assessed hyperactivity, challengingbehaviour, interpersonal relations with peers and emotional problems, however the authors fail todefine what is specifically meant by these terms.

On the surface, it seems that such a high reliance on questionnaires is a flawed methodology, giventhe opportunity for personal interpretation (for example, differing opinions of what constituteschallenging behaviour from teacher to teacher) as well as a possible reluctance to admit to bullyingbehaviour or perhaps being blind to it. However, the authors stated that there was a high correlationbetween self-reporting bullies and teacher responses (Reiter & Lapidot-Lefler, 2007. p.178) and thisagreement between internal and external sources is somewhat of a trend when using questionnairesin bullying research, according to Rigby (2007, p32).

The results of these surveys showed that there were no significant differences between bullies,victims and bully-victims in terms of social skills. The authors offer an interesting explanation for thisresult that most students with disabilities experience forms of abuse beyond the school walls,essentially meaning that all students in special education settings experience the role of victim atsome point in time (p. 179). In terms of social adjustment, the study found significant correlations

between being a bully and violent behaviour, hyperactivity and behaviour problems. Conversely,being a victim correlated with emotional and interpersonal problems. But again, these terms remainundefined and open to personal interpretation, offering little to the reader in terms of concreteexamples.

One noteworthy finding from the study was that of the students involved in bullying incidents, 31.5%were identified as bully-victims (compared to 50% bullies and 18.5% victims). This seems a significantamount, and it would be interesting to see how this compares to mainstream settings. Unfortunately,the authors didnt make this comparison.

Overall, this article contributes some small snippets of interest to the growing knowledge base aboutbullying in special education, but nothing of major significance. The authors acknowledge their failureto determine prototypical behaviours of bullying participants in special education settings and suggest

additional research in this area. Meanwhile, their assertion that bullies exhibit significantly higherlevels of challenging behaviours whilst victims experience emotional and interpersonal problems isproviding educators with little more than an empirically-based reinforcement of their own classroomobservations.

REFERENCES

Martlew, M., & Hodson, J. (1991). Comparisons of behaviour, teasing and teachers attitudes. BritishJournal of Educational Psychology, 61, 355-369.

Mishna, F. (2003). Learning disabilities and bullying: Double jeopardy. Journal of Learning Disabilities,36 (4), 336-347.

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