Reducing School Bullying: Key Variables

Due to several extreme cases of violence in schools, school bullying has received extensive media coverage in Bangladesh . However, school bullying remains an understudied subject in most Asian countries including Bangladesh.

When the primary means of dealing with severe bullying behavior is the expulsion and suspension of students, formal institutions of reconciliation are either nonoperational or nonexistent. Until such institutions are strengthened with the formal and informal mutually constituting the other, the prospects of bullies learning to self-regulate and live in peaceful coexistence with others are not high. They may improve, if restorative justice principles operating in an informal setting like the family can be effectively reinforced in more formal settings such as restorative justice conferencing in schools.

Social relationships and shame management are central to the process of restorative justice. An absence of forgiveness and reconciliation destroys the chance to
build the emotional scaffolding that is needed to boost self-regulation. Restorative
justice practitioners need to focus attention on the formal institutional conditions
that enable forgiveness, reconciliation, and adaptive shame management to take
place.

Reference:

Ahmed, E., & Braithwaite, V. (2006). Forgiveness, reconciliation, and shame: Three key variables in reducing school bullying. Journal of Social Issues, 62(2), 347-370.

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