Voices from the classroom: pictorial and narrative representations of children's bullying experiences

There’s a creepy guy on the other end at Google!: engaging middle school students in a drawing activity to elicit their mental models of Google

“…Some studies that have used an open-ended drawing technique to elicit people's mental models of various processes and systems are briefly reviewed here. The studies covered here focus mainly on those eliciting people's mental models of information retrieval systems and processes, although studies have used similar methods to elicit other types of mental models, such as violin students' (aged 8-18) perceptions of the teacher-student partnership, their violin lessons, and the outcomes they had experienced (Creech and Hallam 2006); children's (aged 8-12) perceptions of school bullying and victimization (Bosacki et al 2006); and incoming university freshmen's conceptualizations of the greenhouse effect (Libarkin et al 2015). Westbrook (2006) elicited graduate students' (aged 23-29) mental models of the information-seeking process for a research paper by asking them to sketch a diagram of their process and to write a detailed description of their diagrams.…”

Schoolchildren's social representations on bullying causes

“…Previous research indicates that schoolchildren tend to attribute causes of bullying to the victim by interpreting him or her as deviant or different (e.g., different appearance, behavior, clothes, or way of speaking) (Bosacki et al, 2006;Buchanan & Winzer, 2001;Frisén, Holmqvist, & Oscarsson, 2008;Hamarus & Kaikkonen, 2008;Hazler & Hoover, 1993;Hoover, Oliver, & Hazler, 1992;Teräsahjo & Salmivalli, 2003;Varjas et al, 2008). A recent study has shown that peer-perceived atypical behavior of a child is in fact related to higher levels of social rejection and peer victimization among schoolchildren (DeRoiser & Mercer, 2009).…”

“…Reports of proportions in percentages should nevertheless be interpreted with caution when there are fewer than 100 individuals in the total sample as well as in the subgroups in comparison, which indeed is the case in this study. Some of the strengths of qualitative interviews, however, are -the opportunity to explore the depths of students' conceptions‖ (Thornberg, 2008, p. 50), and to give students an opportunity to discuss their own understanding of bullying experiences in their own voices (Bosacki et al, 2006).…”

“…Other causes of bullying according to schoolchildren are instrumental (e.g., -He wants her lunch/money‖) and psychological motives (e.g., -Because she might be jealous, because the other girl is prettier than her‖ or -It makes him feel better about himself if the other feels bad‖) (Bosacki et al, 2006). In a survey study in which 207 students participated, -didn't fit in‖ was one of the highest rated items of possible factors motivating bullying.…”

“…When positive effects have been identified, the gains have often been short term (for meta-analyses, see Ferguson, Miguel, Kilburn, & Sanchez, 2007;Merrell, Gueldner, Ross, & Isava, 2008; also see Smith et al, 2004). Bosacki, Marini, and Dane (2006) argue that, although quantitative research provides a lot of critical information about bullying, it -does not give children an opportunity to discuss their own understanding of bullying experiences in their own voices‖ (p. 232).…”