The Evolution of Community-School Bully Prevention Programs: Enabling Participatory Action Research La Evolución de Programas de Prevención de M atonaje en Comunidades Escolares: Promoviendo la Investigación-Acción Participativa

Raymond P. Lorion, College of Education. Correspondence concerning this article must be sent to the author, Towson University, College of Education 301 Hawkins Hall, 8000 York Road, Towson, M D 21252-0001. E-mail: rlorion@ towson.edu 1 This paper is based on a class presentation to the Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, M ay, 2003. The Evolution of Community-School Bully Prevention Programs: Enabling Participatory Action Research

as s is t t h e school-community t o t ak e s t e p s t o e x amine h ow b u l l ying t ou c h e d t h e l iv e s of l oc al you t h and t o t rans l at e t h e re s u l t ing inf ormat ion int o a re s p ons iv e and s u s t ainab l e int e rv e nt ion t o p re v e nt b u l l ying .T h e work de s c rib e d h e re in t ook p l ac e ov e r ap p rox imat e l y f iv e ye ars and inv ol v e d u rb an, s u b u rb an and ru ral c ommu nit ie s .E ac h of t h e s e s e t t ing s h ad re q u e s t e d as s is t anc e in q uick ly s e l e c t ing and imp l e me nt ing e v ide nc e -b as e d b u l l y p re v e nt ion p rog rams .T h e s e ns e of u rg e nc y in t h e s e c ommu nit ie s aros e p rimaril y f rom me dia re p ort s of s e riou s v iol e nt e p is ode s t h at h ad oc c u rre d re c e nt l y in s c h ool s f rom s e e ming l y s imil ar c ommu nit ie s .Re p ort e dl y, e ac h of t h e p e rp e t rat ors of t h e v iol e nt ac t s h ad b e e n ( or, in s ome ins t anc e s , we re as s u me d t o b e ) v ic t ims of p e rs is t e nt b u l l ying .I nf l u e nt ial p are nt s in t h e c ommu nit ie s c ont ac t e d me af t e r t h e y h ad c onv inc e d me mb e rs of t h e l oc al s c h ool b oard t h at " s ome t h ing ne e de d t o b e done ab ou t b u l l ying " .Ea c h c o m m u n i t y r e q u e s t e d t h a t " p r o v e n int e rv e nt ions " b e ide nt if ie d and imp l e me nt e d as s oon as p os s ib l e .I n t h e ir v ie w , t h e p rob l e m was c l e ar, i.e ., s ome c h il dre n we re b e ing " b u l l ie d" b y ot h e r c h il dre n.
T h e s ol u t ion al s o t h e re f ore s e e me d q u it e c l e ar, i.e ., f ind and p u nis h c u rre nt b u l l ie s and imp l e me nt a b u l l y p re v e nt ion p rog ram t o av oid f u rt h e r p rob l e ms .M y re s p ons e s u rp ris e d t h os e mak ing c ont ac t .I indic at e d l it t l e int e re s t in s imp l y e x p ort ing an e s t ab l is h e d p rog ram int o t h e ir c ommu nit ie s .I did, h owe v e r, of f e r t o work with t h e m in f ormu l at ing a p roc e s s b y wh ic h the y wou l d de t e rmine h ow " b u l l ying " was manif e s t e d in the ir c ommu nit y and ap p l y t h at inf ormat ion in designing their solution.I explained that "bullying" as I understood the term applied to a wide range of behaviors and thus its nature had to be determined before the means by which to respond to it were selected.I assured them that finding an answer would be easy once the question was clarified.Although I emphasized the importance of their participating in the assessment of need, I did not make explicit the degree to which I intended to have the community own, operate, and evaluate the work.From the outset, I viewed their request as an opportunity to enable them to assess and respond to this and other concerns as a participatory action proj ect.Similar steps were taken in each of the three communities.
How the process unfolded in W est Hope

A Process Emerges
Over the next several weeks, separate workshops were offered to all elementary and secondary (i.e., middle school and high school) teachers.Each meeting increased the school-community's appreciation of the need for it to understand its form of bullying.
As teachers and administrators discussed the data they produced, their desire for additional information grew.Consensus emerged among them that students needed to be brought into the process and become engaged in the community's effort to respond to its "bullying problem."The Middle-School and High-School Principals took responsibility for discussing with their faculties how their students would become involved in the exploration of bullying in West Hope.
Student involvement differed for the middle and high schools.In the middle school, the students and teachers decided that a school-wide discussion of "how people treat each other" should occur.A small group of 7 th and 8 th grade students were selected by the Principal to create a vehicle for catalyzing the discussion.Supported by the high school's highly sophisticated audio-video lab, the 7 th and 8 th grade students edited a copy of the movie "Remember the Titans" to insert a series of sketches that raised questions for groups of students to discuss as they viewed the movie.Readers may recall that the movie focused on the experiences of a seemingly tight-knit school-community that, to meet a court-mandated integration order, must adjust to the imposition of an African-American football coach by the local school board.In many respects, that community was comparable to West Hope.The film examines the relationship between the new and prior (White) coach, the development of understanding between White and Black players, and the means by which segments of the community that heretofore had lived separate lives came together.
The group of 7 th and 8 th graders viewed the movie and selected specific points at which to insert their discussion points.Generally, the scenes selected depicted points of interpersonal strain or the expression of hostility and rejection.Although the West Hope community had a very small African-American population, the tension between the races was palpable in meetings with the 7 th and 8 th graders.
Given the underlying racial themes considered in the movie, deliberation on this issue was unavoidable but tender.Reflecting the sensitivity of the topic very few of the places in the movie at which discussions were introduced involved race directly.
Instead, the issue lay just below the surface and thus could be touched upon or not depending on the audience.At each of the points in the movie selected, the 7 th and 8 th graders scripted scenes that linked the issue depicted in the movie to the experiences of students in the school.They did so, for example, by "interviewing" students in the lunch hall, or by reproducing a scene from the movie on the school bus or in a classroom.Their insertions were poignant, relevant and provocative.
On the selected date, the edited version of "Remember the Titans" was shown to all classrooms simultaneously.At designated points in the movie, the "interviews" were presented followed by an open-ended question for students to discuss among themselves and with their teacher.The movie then resumed until the next insert appeared and the next topic was introduced for discussion.In the weeks that followed, teachers met together to share the  that influenced its nature and consequences for the members of this school-community (Lorion & Jackson, 2004;Lorion & Sokoloff, 2003 ).

Reflections on a Process
As noted, my initial response to West Hope's request for selection and implementation of a "proven" bully-prevention program was negative.

The Partners Collab orate
The challenge before my team, therefore, was to lead the representatives of West Hope to appreciate that the challenge before them was to risk engaging in a process whose outcome was uncertain and which had the potential of making them aware of negative aspects of themselves and of their community.By engaging them in a series of small steps with no obligation to proceed beyond that step, we moved from agreeing to discuss the problem to their engaging in a series of inquiries about its nature that represented, as noted above, actual interventions 3 .Initially, responsibility for addressing the problem rested with the School Superintendent and his immediate staff.
By the end, teachers and students had become deeply involved in trying to understand and resolve their problem.As the process continued, my students and I were less and less involved, frequently not consulted LORION before they chose to take a step and, toward the very end, had to contact them to get updated on the process.In every sense, it had become their process and we had worked ourselves out of the process.By taking it slowly at their pace, we had successfully transformed a request that we solve their problem into a fully participatory process that eventuated in it becoming the school-community's (Lorion, Feinberg, Settani, & Horrigan, 2004).with whom I had parried asked if my retort to him would be an example of bullying.Somewhat taken aback, I noted that bullying represented a pattern of interactions rather than a single event.I also asked if he felt bullied or had been made uncomfortable by my words.He denied both.I then asked those about him if they would comment on their thoughts and feelings during our exchange.One teacher remarked that such exchanges were typical for him and she was used to his challenging whoever was speaking.

The Risk of Engagement
Another said that he was surprised that our exchange had quickly moved to parrying and he wondered whether he would have to engage with me in that way.A third teacher said that following the exchange he planned not to say anything.
These comments allowed us to examine how such exchanges impact far beyond the two or three individuals directly involved in the comments.We heard from another teacher who described her own experience in middle school with a teacher who regularly used insults and criticism as a means to motivate students and punish those she believed had not met her standards.The consequence for her was that in many of her subsequent classes with that teacher she (as a student) avoided as much as possible coming to the teacher's attention and saying anything unless absolutely certain of its correctness.
To this day, the teacher explained, she remembers how uncomfortable she was in that classroom and how little she learned in that subject.She also acknowledged that she had promised herself never to be like that with her own students.
As noted, the high school teachers decided to involve their students in the process of learning about how bullying occurred in their school and how it impacted on students.Following our discussion that day and the exchange I had with one teacher (subsequently identified to me as the one most frequently criticized by students as being "mean" and verbally abusive to students), the teachers encouraged the social studies teacher to include consideration of teacher-teacher and student-teacher exchanges in the PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH students' survey.One such question was "have you ever seen a teacher embarrass of put down a student in the classroom".Not only had many students endorsed this item but those who did reported that they were much less likely to report bullying episodes to administrators that they (the student) experienced personally or that they witnessed.Students endorsing that item also reported that they felt less safe in school that students who did not endorse the item and found it overall less supportive.Surprisingly, students who endorsed the item also reported that were much less likely to inform administrators of weapons in the building than those who did not report observing such negative teacher behaviors.These patterns were consistent across grades 5-12 but most notable during the transition into middle school (i.e., grade 5) and high school (i.e., grade 9).
Apart from the student responses to the teacher items, the surveys of the teachers and those of the The Up and Down of a Participatory

Approach
As noted at the beginning of this paper, the approach to involvement described herein reflected a series of interrelated assumptions about community engagement as a means to the creation of viable and sustainable interventions responsive to community problems: 1.
The community psychologist must appreciate the inherent capacity within settings to identify and solve their problems.

2.
The community psychologist must appreciate the inherent desire within settings of solving those problems.

3.
The community psychologist must appreciate that the problems within settings often interfere with the setting's capacity to understand and solve the problem.In a very real sense, we believe they used our involvement as a cover to address something about which they had concerns.Should we feel?Of course and grateful for the opportunity to serve on their behalf!Engaging in participatory work with communities and their agencies requires an appreciation that each partner influences the nature and direction of the work.From the outset, we asked how we could be helpful and offered to assist them in understanding and responding to bullying.They took us at our word and involved us as long as we were their partners rather than their therapists or their directors or any other role in which we placed ourselves and our interests about them and their concerns.

2
The name of the community is fictitious to protect its anonymity as ag reed on earl y in neg otiations concerning how what woul d b e l earned in our col l ab oration woul d b e shared with other setting s and d iscipl ines.
as an illustration of one approach to community empowerment.The School-Community I use the term "school-community" to refer to the multiple overlapping interpersonal spheres that define an educational setting.These spheres include the administrators, the teachers and the students.Y et their interactions and the setting' s educational success also depend on the involvement of many others necessary for a school to operate.These others include clerical staff, bus drivers, j anitors, s e c u r i t y s t a f f , e d u c a t i o n a l s p e c i a l i s t s ( e .g ., c o u n s e l o r s , s c h o o l p s y c h o l o g i s t s , s p e e c h therapists), as well as substitute teachers, parent volunteers and involved youth volunteers (e.g., tutors from the local college).Ecologically, the school-community extends beyond the building to include the neighborhood within which it is located.Invariably, therefore, it must include the residents and families living within that neighborhood.They may or may not have children who attend that school but their lives are impacted by the school' s presence in their neighborhood.Their views of its occupants, their agreement with its mission and their support for its success represent important ecological elements that influence the educational experiences and success of the students.The neighbors, for example, might value the school, watch for the safety of students on the way to and from the building, watch over the setting when school is not in session and even assist with its multiple programs.They may admire and encourage the teachers or view them with hostility.They may welcome the teachers and staff into the neighborhood or resent their use of scarce parking spaces.Y et another dimension of the school-community is the parents and families of the students enrolled in the setting and of the teachers, administrators and staff who come to school each day to contribute to the children' s education.

T
h e w o r k s h o p s u c c e e d e d f a r b e y o n d m y expectations!Their presentation involved a 20 minutes video composed of media depictions of bullying episodes interspersed with narratives about the lives of bullies and their victims.Its content echoed my emphasis on the multiple varieties of bullying behaviors.In combination, our separate d e p i c t i o n s o f b u l l y i n g g e n e r a t e d s u b s t a n t i a l discussion leading to their conclusion that the District's teachers should be exposed to both presentations.To maximize their informational value, it was agreed that these presentations would include a survey of teachers' experiences with different forms of bullying (Appendix A).
substance and tone of their classroom discussions and to determine what steps they might take to keep the conversation going.Importantly, with minimal i n p u t f r o m o u r t e a m , t h e m i d d l e s c h o o l h a d undertaken a substantive and ongoing conversation about interpersonal relationships.In the process of learning about the nature of bullying in their school they were engaged in an intervention about that very issue.Their reflections and discussions had set in motion a process to change the nature of the setting and sensitize members of the school-community to the impacts of their words and actions on each other.T h e h i g h s c h o o l t e a c h e r s , b y c o n t r a s t , PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH 3It should be noted that we also retained the right to cease our inv olv ement at any step along the way .
recognized that they had yet to involve students in the process.They suggested that students complet e t h e i r o w n s u r v e y.Te a c h e r s p r o p o s e d t h a t students enrolled in the high school's social science course modify the teacher survey to apply to s t u d e n t s a n d c o n d u c t t h e s u r v e y a s a c l a s s assignment.Rather than being assigned the task of surveying the students, my students and I were asked to serve as consultants to the high school students who would actually do the work.Over a series of meetings, we advised the students as they prepared a request to the School Board for permission to alter their curriculum to include work on the survey and, subsequently, to conduct and interpret the survey.Their work began in the fall and by spring they had created the "Student Experience Survey" (Appendix B), distributed to all students enrolled in grades 7 through 12. Nearly 1600 students (in excess of 90% of those enrolled in grades 5 -12) completed the forms.We assisted the students in analyzing and summarizing the survey responses.They, however, decided how to translate their findings into a series of conversations about "how we treat each other in school."Those conversations continue nearly two years after they began!Again, the process of exploring the problem evolved into an intervention

From
the outset, I made clear to them that I had no basis for assuming that I understood the problem they wanted solved.Albeit unspoken, I assumed the same about them!My position reflected longheld skepticism about the lasting value of efforts to solve community problems through the importation of solutions that worked in one setting into another.Those seeking a solution to a local problem may believe that they will best be served by transferring an intervention with some empirical validation to their setting.That approach, however, denies the community the opportunity to understand the unique nature of its problem and relieves it of its responsibility to solve that problem.Rarely is there a sufficient match between characteristics of a community and an intervention developed by others for problems arising elsewhere to allow for the application of an established intervention without change.R e a d e r s s h o u l d n o t e t h a t I d e s c r i b e t h eemergence of "a process" rather than "the process."This is intentional for it needs to be understood that communities can follow a variety of pathways in addressing and solving their problems.Partnerships between community scientists and communities evolve in many different forms.There is no single correct way to partner; the essential element is that all parties are open to the emergence of a true and collaborative relationship.That requires that each appreciate and respect the expertise and commitment of the others to contribute to finding a solution.Granted that this perspective jeopardizes the fidelity of established interventions and thus appears to undermine the diffusion of evidence-based approaches!Balancing that is the fact that requiring a community to grapple with understanding its problem and designing an appropriate solution enhances its likely sustainability.Simply stated, I want to involve those to be impacted by any intervention directly in its development and implementation.Doing so may result in their solution to their problem and in their commitment to continue that solution until the problem was resolved.It may also provide them with the capacity to assess their effectiveness, modify the intervention as circumstances dictate and, most importantly, take credit for their achievements.

A
s n o t e d , w e b e g a n o u r i n v o l v e m e n t b y emphasizing the diversity of forms of bullying.Initially, they associated expressions of concerns about "bullying" with the stereotypic view of the application of physical aggression by one or more students on a small number of victims.With minimal effort we moved beyond physical aggression to consider the verbal harassment, teasing, and insults that characterize much of youths' interactions.We also explored the nature and consequences of social rejection that isolates victimized students from most if not all of their classmates.Such ostracism s frequently observed among girls, especially in schools in which cliques are dominant.These forms of student-on-student victimization were explored in some depth and their implications for preventive interventions examined.Early in the discussions, however, attention shifted from how students related to each other to how faculty related to other faculty and to their students.Somewhat unexpectedly, discussions of bullying among students turned quickly to questions a b o u t h o w f a c u l t y r e l a t e d t o e a c h o t h e r a n d especially to how they related to their students.The t o p i c a r o s e d u r i n g t h e i n i t i a l m e e t i n g o f administrators when a Principal inquired about the impact on a school of a critical colleague.He explained that a long-term member of his teaching s t a f f w a s a b r a s i v e a n d f r e q u e n t l y o f f e n d e d colleagues and students.When questioned about his interpersonal style, the teacher explained that his methods for providing "constructive criticism" were time-tested ways to improve the effectiveness of colleagues and the motivation of students.Given that he rarely received feedback about the style, he saw little reason to change his method.If the recipients of his verbal "corrections" changed their behavior in the desired direction, his strategy was validated; if they did not, their intransigence confirmed!In its own way, each group of teachers arrived at consideration of how the faculty treated each other and treated the students.The group in which that issue emerged most strongly was the high school faculty.Early in my comments, I became engaged in a brief verbal exchange with a teacher.Our words shifted almost immediately from question and answer to verbal parrying before I returned to my planned comments.Later, as I presented a general statement about faculty exchanges with students, the teacher students were quite consistent in their depiction of the nature and extent of bullying in West Hope's schools.Generally, very few students complained of and very few teachers witnessed the kinds of physical acts of bullying characteristic of its stereotypic presentation.Approximately 20% of students of both gender across the grade levels reported being the victim of various forms of social ostracism and, especially, verbal insults.For them, attendance at school was an emotionally negative e x p e r i e n c e .D a y s w e r e d e s c r i b e d a s t e n s e , uncomfortable and lonely.They found little solace in their studies and felt distant from most of their classmates.Focus group discussions that followed the surveys revealed a sense by many victims of being outside of the social world of their classmates, of looking into a world in which they felt unwelcome.
can make lasting contributions to settings by empowering those within the setting to recognize, organize and utilize resources to which they have or can gain access and to apply those resources in ways that maximize the participation of those within the setting and those impacted by the problem.6.The community psychologist must constantly be engaged in reducing a setting's need for the involvement of the community psychologist and in increasing the setting's capacity to understand and solve its own problems and respond to its Hope has been repeated on multiple occasions over the past five years.We have applied it to urban schools, suburban schools and most recently rural schools.In each instance, we disappointed the setting initially by refusing to provide what they wanted because we felt an obligation to work with them to understand what they needed.Repeated experiences with simply replicating a prior solution from one setting in another setting had taught us that even if initially effective in reducing the referral problem, such imported interventions rarely lasted for long after we departed.Subsequent discussions with stakeholders in such settings clarified for us the important difference between an intervention perceived by them as belonging to another (i.e., ourselves or the original designer of the intervention) and one that belonged to them (i.e., had arisen through their efforts to understand and resolve their problem).If the imported intervention did not have lasting effects, the failure was ours.Less frequently did "homegrown" interventions fail because those responsible for their creation and implementation were on-site a n d i n v e s t e d i n k e e p i n g t h e w o r k g o i n g a n d maintaining its success!More often than not that m e a n t c o n t i n u a l l y r e v i s i n g e l e m e n t s o f t h e intervention as circumstances changed or as the deliverers of the intervention learned about its LORION limitations and strengths or simply became routinized in applying the program.The benefits to a community of participatory work are multiple and lasting.If successful, however, they will rarely be attributed solely to the external consultant.Frequently, many within the setting will correctly see themselves as responsible for the work that results from such collaboration.Some may even question what I or my team actually contributed to them.To engage in such work requires that one set one's ego aside and take a sense of accomplish at what they have achieved.We must never lose sight that it is easier for them to withdraw from our intervention than to abandon the product of their work.In West Hope, we contributed to their recognition and confrontation of how teachers related to students because they ra ther tha n we brought it up.T hey invited students to participate in the assessment of the problem and in discussions of how to resolve it.Unquestionably, we would have faced understandable resistance and resentment had we raised the issue.We would have encountered substantial impediments as outsiders because we were outsiders.T hey, on the other hand, assumed responsibility for bringing the issue to the table.
Participatory work is demanding in that respect.It demands that you respect your partners and participate in their work.If nothing else, this and other such efforts have taught us clearly that they must assume responsibility and control for they rather us must live with the consequences!19.Did you ever find it hard to learn because of bullying at this school?Yes No 20.Have you ever had trouble sleeping at night because of bullying at this school?Yes No 21.Have mean or embarrassing messages about students in this school been posted on the internet?Yes No 22.Have you ever wished you had a safe place to go to escape bullying at this school?