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Abstract

There is a strong case for stating that during the past decades there has been a shift in perspective when addressing questions of how to handle and preserve social order in Swedish schools. As an institution that has focused on social order and education since the 1990s, the Swedish school system has also become an institution that focuses on social order in terms of law and legal issues. The overall purpose of the article is to explore in which contexts and in what ways degrading treatment is articulated in policy documents that relate to social order in Swedish schools. Methodologically, the authors use a discourse analytical approach. They study how contexts and articulations identified in policy documents relate to discourses of degrading treatment, and thus contribute to an understanding of how degrading treatment as a concept is constituted. Articulated in different contexts and in different ways, the results show that degrading treatment is constituted as a somewhat ambiguous concept – for example, social psychological perspectives are sometimes articulated within a legal discourse. Articulations of degrading treatment in policy documents cannot be comprehended as totally mutually dependent events, but rather as multiple and partly mutually independent events. Accordingly, the authors believe that the significance of degrading treatment is best understood as a conjunction of different articulations, contexts and interests. Additionally, the tendency of schools to treat degrading treatment increasingly as a crime has resulted in changing subject positions. The previous position of ‘the bullied pupil’ is now instead increasingly interpellated and moulded as ‘a victim of crime’.

Keywords

Degrading treatment bullying social order discourse analysis school policy

If the courts and greater society are willing to hold immature adolescents criminally responsible for their actions, then mature, professional adults, who have the responsibility to protect and educate students should be held legally accountable if they fail. (Shariff, 2004: 226)

Introduction

As an institution that focuses on social order and education (Qvarsebo, 2006; Wahlgren, 2014), since the 1990s the Swedish school system has also become an institution that focuses on social order in terms of law and legal issues. Actions previously described as teasing and fighting have gradually come to be positioned within a legal discourse, making them a police matter rather than a pedagogical problem (Kolfjord, 2002, 2004; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009a). Such a change can be identified in the political debate, where schools are increasingly being asked to – and also actually do – file police reports on actions that violate the school’s rules of order (Larsson et al., 2010; Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, 2009). Reports from the Swedish National Agency for Education, research, statistics, news reports and evaluations from the Swedish Schools Inspectorate also contribute to creating knowledge that affects the public representation of schools.¹ Surveys from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (2009) show that school is a place where young people are typically exposed to violence. At the same time, self-assessment surveys conducted with students in grade nine from 1995 onwards do not reveal any marked increase in violence among young people (Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, 2009). The focus on social order in terms of legal issues is probably related to societal discourses and school policies, rather than to young people’s behaviour and the actual prevalence of violence (Ring, 2010). There is thus a strong case for stating that, during the past decades, there has been a shift in perspective when addressing questions of how to handle and preserve social order in schools. In this article, we study such a shift, not as a result of a series of rational consecutive decisions, but as a ‘conjunction’, where different discourses constitute a temporary understanding of a phenomenon (Beronius, 1994; Hall, 1996; Nilsson, 2008). In the section on methodology, we will explain this concept further.

Like in the policy documents examined in this article, the concept of ‘degrading treatment’ is used as an overall term for bullying, harassment and discrimination. This article is based on the Swedish National Agency for Education’s (2012: 8) definition of ‘harassment’, which refers to an act that ‘violates a person’s dignity and that is related to discrimination on the grounds of gender, transgender identity or expression, ethnicity, religion or other belief, disability, sexual orientation or age’. If school staff members subject students to harassment, it is defined as ‘discrimination’. This means that a student who is subject to discrimination on any grounds is directly or indirectly disadvantaged. The concept of ‘bullying’ is sometimes used synonymously with ‘degrading treatment’. Yet the concept is disputed and there is an ongoing discursive struggle over its meaning (Bliding, 2004; Laclau and Mouffe, 2008). We define ‘bullying’ in accordance with the definition provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education (2012: 8): ‘a repeated negative action where one or several individuals consciously and intentionally inflict or attempt to inflict harm or discomfort on another person’.

The overall purpose of this article is to explore in which contexts and in what ways degrading treatment is articulated in policy documents that relate to social order in Swedish schools. More specifically, the article intends to answer the following questions:

In this article, we initially discuss historical changes in the perception of what we today define as ‘degrading treatment’. A section follows on the methodology used in our analysis of the policy documents. In the subsequent sections, different policy documents are explored and analysed: Proposition to the Education Act, the Education Act, the curriculum, the Discrimination Act, and reports and recommendations from the Swedish National Agency for Education and the former Agency for School Improvement. The study is limited to policy documents produced during the past decade. The article concludes with a summary and discussion of the results.

Whipping boys and bullying victims

In the following, we present a literature review of degrading treatment and, specifically, bullying in schools as the topic has been addressed in Swedish and international research. We begin with an overview of the basis of reports and research on bullying in Sweden. This section covers the period up to the mid 2000s. The literature review continues with Swedish studies on the school system’s core values and equal treatment, raising questions concerning degrading treatment. The literature review ends with some conclusions from the international research on bullying.

Today, the notion of degrading treatment as something unacceptable is almost an objective ‘truth’ – that is, the discourse is so firmly established that it is easy to forget its possible contingencies (Laclau, 1990). Historically, however, what today is commonly perceived as degrading treatment against and between students was not considered as something unacceptable. In Swedish schools, for example, corporal punishment was used as a method to discipline children until 1958. The teacher was the obvious authority figure and had the right to use physical and psychological punishment (Qvarsebo, 2006). Older students had the responsibility to educate younger students. In secondary schools, bullying was a sanctioned system for integrating new and younger members of the student community. Students who were particularly vulnerable were characterized as ‘whipping boys’. If the violence and the treatment of these students went over the limit, it was considered a moral problem and a violation of the ‘moral contract’, rather than a violation of the law and the individual victim (Ellmin, 2014; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009a).

In the late 1960s, the term ‘bullying’ was established in Sweden. The term was intended to show a pattern of violence and violations systematically and frequently practised by a group of students against a lone student, who in one way or another was considered ‘deviant’. At this point, experts did not believe that the reasons for being a bullying victim were to be found in the personal characteristics of the abused child. Any deviations on the part of the child were, rather, regarded as socially constructed and dependent on context and social relations (Ellmin, 2014; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009a).

In the 1970s and 1980s, a series of changes in the school system influenced the approaches to both teaching and pupils (Arneback, 2012; Englund, 2005; Larsson et al., 2010). The concept of bullying also became part of the discourse used in schools. School health services were developed and professionals such as school psychologists and counsellors were given the task of taking care of students’ mental health and social problems. Through increased student collaboration and democratic development in schools, violence and abuse were phenomena that could be prevented (Ellmin, 2014; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009a). Since the mid 1970s, the Swedish psychologist Olweus (1978, 1979) and to some extent researchers such as Pikas (1975, 2002), with his conflict management methods, and, in recent years, Gill (2007, 2009, 2011) have had a great influence on our understanding of violence and abuse among school students. Initially, Olweus’s theories coexisted with earlier theories of social deviation as a basis for bullying, but in the 1980s and 1990s his psychological theories increasingly came to almost hegemonize our understanding of the causes of bullying. In his theory, the personality of the individual contributes to who will be the perpetrator and who will be the victim. According to Olweus, the perpetrator often has an aggressive personality and the victim an anxious personality. When these two personalities encounter each other in the school environment, conditions for bullying are created (Bliding, 2004; Eriksson et al., 2002; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009a).

In the 1980s and 1990s, the restructuring of the governance of the Swedish school system resulted in increasing decentralization and marketization (Sernhede and Lunneblad, 2011). In the 1990s, a common fundamental value system was established within schools, focusing on gender equality, fair educational practices and equal treatment (Orlenius, 2001). Researchers studying issues related to the common fundamental value system have shown how changes in school governance created opportunities for a range of private actors to sell services that would support schools’ work on their value system. According to Aldenmyr (2012), such developments have promoted use of a therapeutic approach in schools, due in particular to the psychological perspectives found in the various programmes and methods marketed to them. These developments are in no way unique to Sweden. Both in Europe and the USA, different psychology-based programmes and methods have been offered and sold to schools. According to von Brömssen (2013), policy entrepreneurs are selling programmes and methods to schools in order to prevent and deal with bullying. Von Brömssen argues that these programmes are often sold in the form of quick and ready solutions to various problems encountered in daily life at schools. A similar situation is also described in a series of studies from the UK, showing how various private enterprises offer complete solutions and development possibilities to schools (Ball, 2007).

As mentioned earlier, since the 1990s we have also witnessed a radical change in Swedish schools’ approaches to violence and violent behaviour (Kolfjord, 2002, 2004). Increasingly, schools tend to treat bullying and violence taking place on their premises as crimes, which means that these behaviours become legal rather than educational matters. Internationally, similar developments can be observed (Shariff, 2004). Several European countries and most US states have enacted anti-bullying legislation to deal with peer-to-peer bullying in schools. In the USA, for example, both criminal and civil legal interventions have recently been used to prevent or punish bullying (Brank et al., 2012). Most US states have sanctioned anti-bullying legislation that prohibits bullying behaviours. However, there are some issues of definition. For instance, some states focus only on physical forms of bullying or leave definitions entirely up to individual communities and schools, while other states use broader and clearer definitions (Brank et al., 2012; Greene, 2006).

Olweus also influenced the upswing during the 1980s in the international research on bullying. Olweus’s (1978) book Aggression in the Schools: Bullies and Whipping Boys highlights the problem of bullying in, for example, the UK, the USA, Ireland, Canada and Australia. In the 1980s, Norway in particular, but also, for example, Finland and the UK, funded research on bullying, developing various interventions and bullying programmes (Farrington, 1993; Olweus, 1978, 1979, 1991; Salmivalli et al., 1998; Sutton and Smith, 1999). In North America, there was no specific research targeting bullying until the 1990s, at which point the field became very large. This research often categorizes bullying as a subcategory of aggressive behaviour, thus positioning it within an individualistic discourse (Juvonen and Graham, 2001; Pellegrini et al., 1999; Wilton et al., 2000). In the USA, this discussion is also often framed in relation to violence in schools, school shootings, suicide attributed to peer victimization (‘bullycide’), security measures, the presence of gangs and criminal victimization (DeVoe et al., 2011; Hong and Espelage, 2012a, 2012b; Phaneuf, 2009). Another finding from the USA is that students tend to under-report bullying and aggression. Threats are a relatively common experience among school students, but some elements of this mundane and frequent violence are not taken seriously and reported (Nekvasil and Cornell, 2012).

Both the Swedish and the international research on bullying are primarily quantitative and focus on, for example, prevalence, traits, aetiology, risk factors, effects and how bullying is related to the characteristics of different actors, such as gender, age, ethnicity, household conditions, social relationships, personality traits, social vulnerability and so on. Other themes that are focused on are coping strategies, health status, social support measures, bullying prevention/intervention programmes and ‘cyber-bullying’ (Brank et al., 2012; Eriksson et al., 2002; Hong and Espelage, 2012a, 2012b; Salmivalli, 2010; Shariff, 2004; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009a; Wang and Iannotti, 2012). This almost exclusively one-sided quantitative approach has, to some extent, resulted in a situation where we do not yet have a comprehensive and qualitative understanding of bullying behaviour (Hong and Espelage, 2012a). Furthermore, the Swedish and the international bullying research are characterized by their frequent use of psychological and educational theories as their point of departure. Thus, the discourse of bullying is often framed on an individualistic level, disconnected from broader societal structures and contexts, social inequity and power relations (Bickmore, 2011; Brown et al., 2007; Eriksson et al., 2002; Hong and Espelage, 2012a; Meyer, 2008).

Methodology

This article focuses on Swedish policy documents produced during the past decade in which partly renewed and increasingly juridical speech about bullying and offensive behaviour has been consolidated. In the analyses, we have included policy documents that influence, guide and/or force schools in how to prevent degrading treatment. The texts analysed are: Proposition to the Education Act (Prop. 2006/07:69), the Education Act (SFS 2010:800), the curriculum (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2011a), the Discrimination Act (SFS 2008:567), and reports and recommendations from the Swedish National Agency for Education (2004, 2009a, 2009b, 2011b, 2012) and the former Agency for School Improvement (2003, 2007).²

Methodologically, we use a discourse analytical approach (Blommaert, 2005; Foucault, 2000; Laclau and Mouffe, 2008; Talja, 1999). Policy texts contain descriptions that are made possible by discursive structures. These structures give meaning to the categories and concepts used to describe people, practices and processes. We are interested in how contexts and articulations identified in policy documents relate to discourses of degrading treatment, and thus contribute to an understanding of how degrading treatment as a concept is constituted and what social impact it may have. Studying how degrading treatment is articulated in different policy documents, we can also discern competing and sometimes contradictory discourses, suggesting that social change is possible (Laclau and Mouffe, 2008). We also use the concept of conjunction (Hall, 1996). Conjunctions are characterized as fusions of different forms of practice, knowledge and perspectives, including historical practices and perspectives – that is, intertextuality. Policy documents often contain antagonistic positions and perspectives. However, attempts to hide and downplay policy disagreements and construct consensus are common (Laclau and Mouffe, 2008). Antagonism refers to a battle over discursive significance, where different configurations of elements are trying to assert themselves. Discourses are thus always in conflict with other discourses that define reality differently.

An important tool used in our analysis is the notion of ‘articulation’. In Swedish, ‘articulation’ (artikulation) means ‘to express’ or ‘to state’. In English, ‘articulation’ also means ‘to link’ or to create a unity of distinct parts not necessarily given (Hall, 1999). Based on this dual meaning, we examine in what contexts and in what ways degrading treatment is articulated in the policy documents analysed. Our analysis includes listening to the ‘voices’ present in the documents and their intertextual relationships to each other. In the document analysis, we have searched for the following concepts: ‘exposed’, ‘notifications’, ‘degrading treatment’, ‘bullying’, ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’. We are trying to examine the forms of knowledge and social contexts from which these concepts are derived, and how the concepts are articulated.

By temporarily fixating their significance, articulations reproduce or question prevailing discourses. Degrading treatment is constructed differently depending on what signs it is related to (Laclau and Mouffe, 2008). Owing to the potential ambiguity of each oral and written expression, discourses are only temporary closures in a fundamentally indeterminate terrain. Articulations fixate significance in a certain way, yet it does not determine significance for all time. How the concept of degrading treatment is constituted is thus dependent on how it is currently articulated and given shape (Laclau and Mouffe, 2008). Different discourses also offer and make possible different subject positions. In the analysis, we comprehend degrading treatment as an ambiguous sign that has not fully reached significance. Discourses try to transform ambiguous signs into unambiguous signs. We explore how the discourses identified in the policy documents convert, compete with and struggle to transform each other (Laclau and Mouffe, 2008). We are also interested in how different discourses interpellate and enable a variety of subject positions. This discourse order is an area in which a limited number of discourses are in potential or actual conflict with each other (Winther Jørgensen and Phillips, 2000).

From bullying to crime

This section presents the results of the study. Initially, we discuss some changes found in the Proposition to the new Education Act of 2010. Then we analyse the Discrimination Act and, to some extent, the Education Act. In the following paragraph, we analyse reports on bullying from the Swedish National Agency for Education. Finally, we focus on the Agency’s general recommendations for dealing with and counteracting degrading treatment in schools.

Order, safety and school serenity

In September 2006, a new Swedish government was elected. Since then, issues of social order and discipline in schools have been emphasized in the political debate. The former Socialist government was accused of having created ‘slacker schools’. Hence, the education policy of the new government highlighted questions of orderliness and discipline. The education policy constituted from 2006 onwards can thus be understood as the beginning of an old-school discourse on social order – that is, one emphasizing discipline, higher demands, school grades at younger ages and more numerous school inspections.³ In the Proposition, Förbättrad ordning, trygghet och studiero i skolan (‘Improved discipline, safety and school serenity’; authors’ translation), a proposal for a new Education Act is presented in accordance with the new education policy:

In schools there are problems with degrading treatment such as bullying, harassment, vandalism, and a lack of calm and serenity. Both national and international studies show the problems that Swedish schools face in this area (including the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, TIMSS 2003, and the report Attitudes to School 2003, from the Swedish National Agency for Education). This situation is not acceptable. Every condition of degrading treatment is illegal and contrary to the fundamental values the Swedish school system has built upon. Similarly, a calm and safe learning environment in schools is imperative. (Prop. 2006/07:69: 8; authors’ translation)

The Proposition articulates fundamental values in Swedish schools and refers to studies showing a lack of discipline and declining school performance among students. In contrast, previous policy documents focusing on social order in schools emphasize the importance of participation among students (SOU 2002:121). In several policy documents, concepts such as degrading treatment, bullying and harassment are related to fundamental values and the democratic mission of education. In the Proposition, however, they are discursively (re)articulated by adding new elements, such as school achievement, attitudes and discipline (see Laclau and Mouffe, 2008). Degrading treatment is thus constituted in a broader sense, focusing on order, discipline and student achievement. Interestingly, though it certainly describes students who are at risk, the Proposition also makes this a matter of the study environment and teachers’ authority (see Bickmore, 2011):

The negligence does not need to address other students, but the rule can be applied even if students are affected indirectly, if, for example, a teacher is exposed to a student’s behaviour. What is decisive is if the student’s behaviour has a negative impact on security and the study environment of other students. (Prop. 2006/07:69: 19; authors’ translation)

In this excerpt, the vulnerable teacher is used as an example. By focusing on security and the study environment, the Proposition can reasonably be interpreted as mainly addressing the goal of improving teaching and learning. Concepts such as degrading treatment, discrimination, harassment or bullying are not used, contrary to many reports on student victimization in schools. The initiative for a new Education Act can be understood as politically motivated, thus not primarily intended to protect vulnerable children but to improve academic results in Swedish schools (Larsson et al., 2010). However, studies indicate that efforts to improve students’ opportunities to succeed might also facilitate reducing destructive behaviour in schools (Bickmore, 2011). The background of this change can be understood in light of Swedish students’ poor results in international comparison tests, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment. Similar developments can be seen in the UK, for example, where students’ school results have been related to a lack of discipline in schools (Ball et al., 2012). At the same time, these changes result in greater opportunities and requirements for a school to take action when students are subjected to degrading treatment. Furthermore, students are also assigned to other subject positions, such as ‘well behaved’ and ‘disciplined’, as well as their opposites (Winther Jørgensen and Phillips, 2000).

A legal discourse

The implementation of the Discrimination Act (SFS 2008: 567) in 2009 has had a significant impact on how students who are subjected to degrading treatment are articulated in the Education Act and in the national curriculum. The reason may partly be related to a directive from the European Union calling for equality in the Union, regardless of ethnic origin. In Sweden, this resulted in enquiries and propositions that attempted to increase protection against discrimination in a variety of societal fields. One example is the report entitled Trygghet, respekt och ansvar – om förbud mot diskriminering och annan kränkande behandling av barn och elever (‘Security, respect and responsibility – prohibiting discrimination and other degrading treatment of children and students’; authors’ translation; Report 2005/06:UbU4). The report recommends legal changes concerning degrading treatment and discrimination in schools and preschools. These changes were implemented in 2006 and resulted in 2010 in a revision of the Education Act from 1985 (SFS 1985:1100).

The implementation of the new Education Act (SFS 2010:800), prohibiting discrimination and other degrading treatment of children and students, also resulted in the establishment of a Child and Student Equality Ombudsman responsible for equal treatment in schools. In Sweden during this time, there were numerous official representatives responsible for different legal areas: the Gender Equality Ombudsman, the Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination, the Ombudsman against Sexual Discrimination and the Disability Ombudsman. The Child and Student Equality Ombudsman was responsible for safeguarding the rights of those children and students not safeguarded by any of the other ombudsmen. When the Proposition to the new Education Act was being processed in the Swedish Parliament, the right-centre political opposition criticized the large number of ombudsmen and wanted to replace them with a Discrimination Ombudsman and the Discrimination Act. In 2006, a new Swedish government was elected, and the suggested policy changes were soon implemented.

The implementation of the Discrimination Act (SFS 2008:567) resulted in amendments to the Education Act that focused on degrading treatment and discrimination. Each school was required to establish routines to promote equality and counteract degrading treatment and discrimination. The following quotation is from the current Education Act of 2010:

Education will be designed in accordance with fundamental democratic values and human rights such as the inviolability of human life, individual freedom and integrity, equal value for all humans, gender equality, and solidarity between people.

Everyone working in education should promote human rights and actively combat all kinds of degrading treatment. (SFS 2010:800: para. 5; authors’ translation)

The words ‘bullying’ and ‘racist behaviour’, found in the 1985 Education Act (SFS 1985:1100: para. 2), are no longer used in the 2010 Education Act. Instead, the expression ‘all kinds of degrading treatment’ is used. Other policy documents concerning how schools function have also been modified. For example, the Discrimination Act has influenced the current compulsory school curriculum. The concept of ‘bullying’, present in the 1994 primary school curriculum, Lpo 94 (Swedish National Agency for Education, 1994: 3), has, in the current curriculum, been replaced by the concept of ‘discrimination’:

No one in school should face discrimination on the grounds of gender, ethnicity, religion or other belief, transgender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age or disability, or other degrading treatment. Such tendencies should be actively discouraged. Xenophobia and intolerance have to be confronted with knowledge, open discussion and active measures. (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2011a: 7; authors’ translation)

Articulated within the Discrimination Act and constituting a chain of equivalence with new signs, the notion of ‘degrading treatment’ is dislocated from a psychological discourse and situated within a legal discourse. From being potentially bullied or harassed, the subject position of the pupil is now constructed as that of a possible discriminated victim of crime. By way of implication, the bully has become the criminal.

According to Arneback (2012), until 2006 the Swedish school system was characterized by an exploratory approach to handling and responding to degrading treatment, discrimination and harassment. Degrading treatment was to be counteracted, in particular, through communication and teacher–student dialogues. The common fundamental value system and the democratic mission of the school were the main context. With the introduction of the Discrimination Act, the point of departure instead became legal formulations focusing on the school’s obligation to prevent negative exercise of power. All in all, through this discursive shift, students have come to be positioned within new and more juridical subject positions (see Laclau and Mouffe, 2008).

Bullying prevention programmes revisited

In addition to documents legally regulating and articulating schools’ work on degrading treatment, discrimination and harassment, a series of reports affecting the work on these issues has been published. In 2003, the Agency for School Improvement was commissioned by the government to shed light on existing knowledge about how to respond to bullying and harassment in preschools, compulsory schools and gymnasiums. The conclusions are presented in the report Olika lika värde (‘Different equal value’; authors’ translation). The report describes various programmes and models used to prevent and counteract bullying and degrading treatment. The purpose of the commissioned report was to provide practical methods for improving work against bullying and degrading treatment:

The purpose is not to evaluate the below-described methods and thus imply that some are preferred over others. The reader is free to evaluate the different methods in relation to success factors reported previously, and to relate this to their own preschool or school needs. (Agency for School Improvement, 2003: 38; authors’ translation)

Focusing on success factors, the report shows how different programmes and models can be used. In the conclusions, best practices are emphasized (Agency for School Improvement, 2003). In the late 2000s, the Agency for School Improvement continued to publish reports in order to develop efforts to counteract degrading treatment and bullying in schools. In one of the reports, the intention was to map bullying prevention programmes by studying the programmes’ own evaluations (Agency for School Improvement, 2007). The context of the report is the requirement that the bullying prevention programmes used in schools be scientifically validated and proven effective. The results of the report show that the majority of programmes used in different schools lack credible evaluations based on scientific criteria. The report also shows the difficulties involved in evaluating the programmes’ outcomes (see Hong and Espelage, 2012a, 2012b).

Since 2007, the Swedish National Agency for Education has published several reports on bullying and various bullying prevention programmes. In these reports, it is possible to discern an increasingly critical approach to different bullying prevention programmes and models used in preschools and schools. An example of this change is found in the report På tal om mobbning – och det som görs (‘Speaking of bullying - and what is done’; authors’ translation; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009a). This report examines eight of the most common programmes used to combat and prevent bullying and harassment in schools. Two years later, a new report was published: Utvärdering av metoder mot mobbning (‘Evaluation of bullying prevention methods’; authors’ translation; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2011b). The evaluation is based on a three-year study conducted at 39 schools with 10,000 students in grades four to nine. The report sharply criticizes a number of bullying prevention programmes. In a 2011 press release, the Swedish National Agency for Education expresses the criticism explicitly:

The Swedish National Agency for Education has conducted a comprehensive evaluation of anti-bullying programmes and is critical to use ready-made programme concepts. All eight programmes contain elements that are both effective and ineffective or even threaten to increase bullying. Consequently, the Agency cannot recommend schools to use any of the anti-bullying programmes evaluated. (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2011c; authors’ translation)

In the conclusion, all of the programmes and models that were evaluated are described as substandard, and schools are advised not to use them. Overall, it is possible to detect a shift in perspective in these policy texts. Starting with an analysis of success factors and best practices, a few years later the policy documents consist of significant criticism of the programmes and models used in schools. Although this process is not explicit, the discursive change was preceded by an antagonistic struggle between representatives of various bullying prevention programmes and demands for efficiency and scientific validity from the research community. Today, antagonism has decreased and criticism of bullying prevention programmes has an almost hegemonic position in the documents that schools have to comply with.

Governing the school

During the 2000s, the Swedish National Agency for Education published a number of general recommendations and comments aimed at supporting preschools and schools in developing their work against degrading treatment, discrimination and harassment (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2004, 2009b, 2012). The recommendations advise preschool and school staff on how to act in order to comply with the laws and curricula regulating their undertakings. The intention is to guide development in a certain direction and to promote uniformity of law. The general recommendations are thus related to how schools should work. Yet, in what ways, if any, are the general recommendations influenced by the legislative amendments and reports published by the Agency for School Improvement and the Swedish National Agency for Education?

During the past decade, a series of legislative amendments has influenced the obligation of schools to protect children who are vulnerable in the school environment. The impact of the Discrimination Act is also found in various laws cited as the foundation of the general recommendations published by the Swedish National Agency for Education. Focusing on legislative amendments between 2009 and 2012, it is primarily the responsibility to counteract discrimination and degrading treatment that has been increased. Similarly, the legal element has been strengthened, as more actions are considered criminal. One such example is found in the general recommendations from 2009 (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2009b). If a student claims that he or she has been subjected to harassment, sexual harassment or offensive behaviour, the responsible authority is required to investigate this claim. However, in the 2012 general recommendations, these obligations are also extended to teachers, or other staff, who should notify the principal. After this happens, the principal should notify the responsible authority, which is to conduct an investigation. Additionally, in the 2012 general recommendations, both harassment and degrading treatment are considered a crime, while this only applied to degrading treatment in the 2009 general recommendations. At the same time, the implementation of the 2010 Education Act has no impact on the 2012 general recommendations. One explanation may be the fact that the Discrimination Act of 2009 had already been incorporated into the 2010 Education Act and thus became part of the 2009 general recommendations. The education policy discourse of social order and discipline also has no impact on the general recommendations, thus indicating an antagonistic relationship between a politicized educational discourse and an educational discourse grounded in science and well-tried experience (see Laclau, 1990).

In addition to the impacts of legislative amendments, reports from the Agency for School Improvement and the Swedish National Agency for Education have also influenced articulations concerning how to counteract degrading treatment. As we have previously shown, the Swedish National Agency for Education has criticized how schools counteract degrading treatment. Hence, the reason for the 2012 general recommendations revision is especially related to critical reports on bullying prevention programmes published by the Swedish National Agency for Education (2012). According to the Agency, the methods regularly used are not perceived as authentic by students, and hence have counterproductive effects.

Compared to the Education Act and the curriculum, referring especially to school obligations, the vulnerable child is more visible in the general recommendations. In terms of content, it is also possible to discern a modification of the general recommendations in the 2000s. Compared to the 2004 recommendations, the 2012 recommendations explicitly explain how to counteract degrading treatment, and they contain more explanatory and detailed descriptions of how the recommendations should be applied:

The children’s and students’ own narratives, either formulated by themselves or by their guardians, must be taken seriously. Repeated absence from school or if the child or pupil offends others could be other signs of vulnerability. (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2012: 28; authors’ translation)

The notification requirement covers all events in which a child or a student feels they have been subjected to harassment or degrading treatment. In other words, no assessment of the severity of an event should be done before it is reported to the preschool manager or the principal respectively the responsible authority. (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2012: 29; authors’ translation)

In the above excerpts, dialogical and social psychological perspectives on children’s rights are articulated within a legal discourse, constituting a conjunction where different discourses establish a temporary understanding of how degrading treatment should be dealt with (see Hall, 1996). The excerpts also illustrate that the notification requirement includes all situations where children feel they have been subjected to degrading treatment. Moreover, the 2012 general recommendations require schools to communicate what support they offer to children who have been subjected to degrading treatment. The school must inform the child and his or her guardians about the school’s measures and actions taken when an individual harasses another person or exposes that person to degrading treatment. At the same time, the general recommendations emphasize the school’s responsibility to investigate the case, even if the pupil or the pupil’s guardians do not want the school to investigate it, and, if necessary, to report the case to the police (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2012). According to the Discrimination Act and the Education Act, a responsible authority which becomes aware that a student feels he or she has been victimized is obliged to investigate the situation promptly (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2012). The notification requirement thus places no responsibility on the exposed individual to sort out the situation, at the same time as the individual also has no power to define the incident or to decide on the actions to be taken.

Conclusions

Using a discourse analytical approach, we have studied discourses on degrading treatment in schools as conjunctions of various practices, knowledge and perspectives. We have also explored how these discourses are modified, compete with each other and interpellate different subject positions. Articulated in different contexts and in different ways, the results show that degrading treatment is constituted as a somewhat ambiguous concept.

The point of departure of the educational policy discourse (e.g. the new Education Act and the Proposition to the Education Act) focuses on former school policies’ shortcomings with regard to creating the school authority needed to establish a peaceful study environment, order and discipline in schools. Extending the capacity of principals and teachers is presented as one of the solutions. Children exposed to degrading treatment are relatively invisible in the documents. However, these changes result in greater opportunities and requirements for the school to take action when students are subjected to degrading treatment. Consequently, changes in the Education Act are not primarily aimed at protecting exposed students; instead, better results are the main justification for such changes. The background of these changes can be understood in light of Swedish students’ poor results in international comparisons, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment.

The 2009 Discrimination Act has a significant impact on how students exposed to degrading treatment are addressed in the Education Act and curriculum. Interestingly, the context is not related to the situation of Swedish students, but to European Union requirements concerning equal treatment. Regarding the notion of degrading treatment, this development has led to a shift or temporary withdrawal from a psychological discourse to a legal discourse. Beside laws and regulations governing the school, the Swedish National Agency for Education and the Agency for School Improvement have had a major influence on how work intended to counteract degrading treatment in schools is understood. Our analysis shows a shift in perspectives in the policy documents produced by these authorities. Initially, they map success factors in the work against bullying. Yet massive criticism gradually emerges, directed at bullying prevention programmes in schools.

Furthermore, our analysis shows that bullying evaluations designed by the Swedish National Agency for Education have resulted in a revision of their own general recommendations. The focus on the vulnerable child also becomes visible in the general recommendations. The arguments are related to the fundamental value system in schools and the belief that schools should listen carefully to children’s voices. Different articulations identified in the policy documents, justified by, for example, a lack of school authority, emphasizing scientific criteria or children’s rights, are all related to the fundamental value system in schools. We can also identify an antagonistic relationship between the vision of a competent child with his or her own rights and agency and a legal and disciplinary discourse in which the victim loses the power to self-define the event and the measures to be taken.

The tendency of schools increasingly to treat bullying and violence as crimes is a complex matter. On the one hand, there is no positive evidence that an exclusive emphasis on reporting, policy development and implementation of sanctions reduces the extent or severity of bullying in schools (Greene, 2006; Shariff, 2004). More resources for surveillance and discipline may also not facilitate healthy relationships, mutual respect and inclusive school environments (Shariff, 2004). The criminalization of bullying would seem to be unlikely to mitigate the complex social problem of bullying, and could exacerbate the inequities often associated with punitive attempts at peacekeeping (Bickmore, 2011). On the other hand, by criminalizing certain forms of behaviour and legally prosecuting degrading treatment, the legal discourse may contribute to an increasing focus on children’s vulnerability and on schools’ legal responsibility for the creation of a safe and equitable learning environment. Furthermore, bringing many kinds of behaviour – such as sexual harassment, discrimination, racist attacks and hate crimes – under the bullying umbrella may function to dilute their importance and weaken available sanctions and powerful legal rights. It may also separate these phenomena from a civil rights framework and the judicial progress that has been made in addressing them (Brown et al., 2007; Greene, 2006). Categorizing racism, homophobia or sexism as bullying may strengthen an individualistic discourse, resulting in the labelling of children and the psycho-pathologizing of certain behaviours (Brown et al., 2007).

Articulations of degrading treatment in policy documents during the past decade cannot be comprehended as totally mutually dependent events, but rather as multiple and partly mutually independent events. Accordingly, we believe that the significance of degrading treatment is best understood as a conjunction of different articulations, contexts and interests, or as an order of discourse – that is, conflicting discourses in the same field (Hall, 1996; Winther Jørgensen and Phillips, 2000). In conclusion, our analysis shows that the temporary discursive dislocation of degrading treatment has resulted in changing subject positions. The previous position of ‘the bullied pupil’ is now instead increasingly interpellated and moulded as ‘a victim of crime’.

Footnotes

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The school as crime scene: Discourses on degrading treatment in Swedish schools

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Whipping boys and bullying victims

Methodology

From bullying to crime

Order, safety and school serenity

A legal discourse

Bullying prevention programmes revisited

Governing the school

Conclusions

Footnotes

Notes

References