A figurational approach to understanding school climate and peer harassment: Possibilities from Norbert Elias’s work

Abstract

Although psychological approaches have been the mainstay of scholarly research on school climate, offering state-of-the-art measurements and methodologies, sociological perspectives remain essential perspectives because violence is essentially a social phenomenon. This paper offers a theoretical consideration of contributions to this field, focusing specifically on those that provide a critical historical lens. I suggest that while Foucault's approach to the disciplining of docile bodies and self-restraint offers crucial conceptual tools, Norbert Elias's work-which is scarce in scholarly research on school climate-provides a complementary but necessary framework for understanding emotional and relational aspects of peer harassment.