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PRE 798 Bullying Prevention and Intervention: A Social Climate Perspective- Fall 2014
Line #: 24422
Instructor: Robert G. Harrington, Ph.D.
Office: 630 JR Pearson Hall
Phone: 785-864-9709 (O)
Email: rgharrin@ku.edu (PREFERRED)
FAX: 785-832-9532 (HOME)
Course Location: ONLINE, Blackboard, No On-Campus Meetings
Description of the Course: PRE 798 Bullying: Prevention and Intervention is a special graduate level
course offering that is being offered this Fall, 2014. It is the only course on bullying at KU, in Kansas and
in the Midwest. The course is being offered in response to the recent Kansas State Legislation that
requires all schools in the state of Kansas to have a bullying policy and a prevention and intervention
plan in place with their respective school districts. Since incidents of bullying are of interest to
individuals in many other settings besides schools, including the workplace, universities, residential
institutions, sports, and among individuals of all ages and positions in life, students from many
backgrounds should find this course interesting.
Bullying is a pervasive problem. It happens in schools, homes, in workplaces. Bullying is all about power
and intimidation over another individual. In this course you will discover that there are many forms of
bullying. You will find that the path to becoming a bully is not always a clear one. There are many routes
to becoming a bully. You also will find that while individuals may be bullied for many different reasons
there are some features that they have in common as victims. Finally the third ingredient in the bullying
social network is the bystander. Bystanders are the individuals who witness what just happened
between the bully and the intended victim. The bystander has the chance to prevent or intervene in the
bullying event. Sometimes they choose to intervene and sometimes individuals or groups of bystanders
choose to do nothing or even participate in the bullying of another individual. By the end of this course
you will understand why this is so.
What makes a person grow into a bully? What are some predisposing factors from development,
personality, social environment, biology, mental health, parenting, societal mores, and the general
climate of a school, and a nation that contribute to bullying? Can we predict who will become a bully?
Wouldn’t it be great if we knew about how bullies operate? How they think? What their rewards for
bullying behavior might be? Olweus has devoted his life to discovering just such factors in decades of
study on bullying. We will take a look at the available research on bullies, victims and bystanders.
There is much emphasis on boys as bullies. Is male bullying the same as bullying among girls? What are
the motivations of boys versus girls to bully? How do they go about it?
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What are the outcomes? We will discover firsthand what it is like to be a female bully and a female
victim of a bully. I think that you will enjoy the comparison between boys and girls. Since this is a class
populated mostly by females I think that you will find it personally interesting as well.
What can schools do to prevent bullying in their schools? What can parents do to be supportive of the
efforts of schools in bullying prevention? There is a role for both in a school-wide bullying prevention
program.
How should schools and other institutions intervene in cases of bullying? Does one size fit all? Should
all bullies be expelled or suspended? Should there be a role for counseling, social skills development,
peer mediation? What does the research say works for intervening with bullies? Can individual teachers/
counselors and other professionals be effective in intervening with bullies or does it take an institutionwide effort to change social climate?
How can an individual professionals be more successful in preventing and intervening in cases of
classroom bullying? We will learn how bullying destroys the classroom learning community and
social climate and what professionals can do to deal with it on their own, with the support of their
institutions and with the support of external resources, such as law enforcement, counseling services
and parent training.
In the end, my goal is to awaken your awareness of what bullying is in all its forms. I hope to introduce
you to the research that has been done in this area. I hope to give you some ideas about how to identify
a bully, a victim, and bystanders. I hope to help you to understand how a bullying policy is developed.
For those of you who might be more interested in workplace bullying and bullying in higher education I
hope to help you accomplish similar goals in the workplace.
In addition to issues of prevention and intervention with bullying I hope to help you understand the
issues associated with various forms of bullying including: cyber-bullying, workplace bullying, LBGTQ
bullying, criminal bullying, male v. female bullying, hazing, parental – child bullying, teacher bullying,
bullying in the academy, and other forms of bullying which you may be interested.
I want you to be familiar with the Kansas State legislation on Bullying in Schools and I want you to be
familiar with school and university policies on safety and bullying. Our goal is to make you aware of
your responsibilities in cases of bullying, how to recognize it, how to prevent it and how to intervene
when it happens. In addition, I want you to see that by changing the social climate of an institution you
can have a tremendous impact on bullying.
A Social Climate Perspective on Bullying Prevention and Intervention
Sustainability Focused Faculty Development Workshop, May 19 and 20, 2014
In May 2014 I was selected to participate in a Sustainability Focused Faculty Development Workshop. I
am very interested in “sustainability” not only in the traditional manner in which it is thought of but also
in a more non-traditional manner as well, but yet a perspective on “sustainability that is recognized and
in much need of attention in the area in which I teach and research-SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY. This course
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will have a decided social climate aspect associated with our understanding of bullying and how to
prevent and intervene when it happens. With that in mind, I thought it would be helpful right at the
start of the course to include right in the syllabus some substantial information about sustainability in
general and school social climate in particular. Here goes.
Sustainability - Definition
Sustainability is an economic, social, and ecological concept. It is intended to be a means of configuring
civilization and human activity so that society and its members are able to meet their needs and express
their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems, and
planning and acting for the ability to maintain these ideals indefinitely. Sustainability affects every level
of organization, from the local neighborhood, school district, university, workplace, to the entire globe.
It is a sometimes controversial topic.
Put in simpler terms, sustainability is providing for the best for people and the environment both now
and in the indefinite future. In the terms of the 1987 Brundtland Report, sustainability is:
"Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their needs."
This is very much like the "seventh generation" philosophy of the Native American Iroquois Confederacy,
mandating that Chiefs always consider the effects of their actions on their descendants through the
seventh generation in the future.
The original term was "sustainable development," a term adopted by the Agenda 21 program of the
United Nations. Some people now object to the term "sustainable development" as an umbrella term
since it implies continued development, and insist that it should be reserved only for development
activities. "Sustainability", then, is nowadays used as an umbrella term for all of human activity.
Types of sustainability
Institutional sustainability: i.e. can the strengthened institutional structure continue to deliver the
results of the technical cooperation to the ultimate end-users? The results may not be sustainable if,
for example, the planning unit strengthened by the technical cooperation ceases to have access to topmanagement or is not provided with adequate resources for the effective performance after the
technical cooperation terminated;
Economical and financial sustainability: i.e. can the results of the technical cooperation continue to
yield an economic benefit after the technical cooperation is withdrawn? For example, the benefits from
the introduction of new crops may not be sustained, if the constraints to marketing the crops are not
resolved. Similarly, economic (distinct from financial) sustainability may be at risk, if the end-users
continue to depend on heavily-subsidized activities and inputs.
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Ecological sustainability: i.e. are the benefits to be generated by the technical cooperation likely to lead
to a deterioration in the physical environment (thus indirectly contributing to a fall in production) or
well-being of the groups targeted and their society?
Social Sustainability is the least defined and least understood of the three pillars of sustainability and
sustainable development and the one that I am most interested in and that has the most relevance to
the topic of bullying prevention and intervention. The triad of Environmental Sustainability, Economic
Sustainability, and Social Sustainability is widely accepted as a model for addressing sustainability, yet
the social aspect has had considerably less attention in public dialogue. The concept of Social
Sustainability encompasses such topics as: social equity, livability, health equity, community
development, social capital, social support, human rights, labor rights, placemaking, social responsibility,
social justice, cultural competence, community resilience, and human adaptation.
According to the Western Australia Council of Social Services (WACOSS)[1]:
"Social sustainability” occurs when the formal and informal processes; systems; structures; and
relationships actively support the capacity of current and future generations to create healthy and
livable communities. Socially sustainable communities are equitable, diverse, connected and
democratic and provide a good quality of life."
Another definition has been developed by Social Life, a UK based social enterprise specializing in place
based innovation (originally set up by the Young Foundation). For Social Life, social sustainability is "a
process for creating sustainable, successful places that promote wellbeing, by understanding what
people need from the places they live, learn and work. Social sustainability combines design of the
physical realm with design of the social world – infrastructure to support social and cultural life, social
amenities, systems for citizen engagement and space for people and places to evolve."[1]
Social Life has developed a framework for social sustainability which has four dimensions: amenities and
infrastructure, social and cultural life, voice and influence, and space to grow.[2]
Nobel Laureat Amartya Sen gives the following dimensions for social sustainability [2]:
Equity - the community provides equitable opportunities and outcomes for all its members, particularly
the poorest and most vulnerable members of the community
Diversity - the community promotes and encourages diversity
Interconnected/Social cohesions - the community provides processes, systems and structures that
promote connectedness within and outside the community at the formal, informal and institutional
level
Quality of life - the community ensures that basic needs are met and fosters a good quality of life for all
members at the individual, group and community level (e.g. health, housing, education, employment,
safety)
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Democracy and governance - the community provides democratic processes and open and accountable
governance structures.
Maturity - the individual accept the responsibility of consistent growth and improvement through
broader social attributes (e.g. communication styles, behavioural patterns, indirect education and
philosophical explorations)
The general definition of social sustainability is the ability of a social system, such as a country or an
educational system, to function at a defined level of social well-being indefinitely. That level should be
defined in relation to the goal of Homo sapiens, which is (or should be) to optimize quality of life for
those living in the social system and their descendants.
After that there is universal disagreement on what quality of life goals should be. Not only do nations
disagree. So do their political parties, their religions, their cultures, their classes, their activists
organizations, and so on.
Therefore we will not attempt to define what quality of life goals should be, even in the broadest sense.
This means that social sustainability on a practical, implementable basis is undefined. Thus it's the
weakest pillar of them all because people can't even agree on which way is up. This is a shame, because
a strong social pillar is the topmost goal of democratic systems.
A possible direction for agreement on what the tangible goals of social sustainability should be may be
found in Bhutan's national goal of optimizing “gross national happiness.”
Do you ever wonder why the sustainability problem is so impossibly hard to solve? It's because of the
phenomenon of “change resistance.” The system itself, and not just individual social agents, is strongly
resisting change. Why this is so, its root causes, and several potential solutions are presented below.
Analysis is the breaking down of a problem into smaller, easier to solve problems. Exactly how this is
done determines the strength of your analysis.
You will see powerful techniques used in this analysis that are missing from what mainstream
environmentalism has tried. This explains why a different outcome can be expected.
The key techniques of SYSTEM ANALYSIS are proper subproblem decomposition and root cause
analysis. Let’s get started in understanding social change.
The Universal Causal Chain
Causal chain
This is the solution causal chain present in all problems. Popular approaches to solving the sustainability
problem see only what's obvious: suspend bullies and counsel victims and do not think about
bystanders. This leads to using superficial solutions such as one, two and three day suspensions for
bullying in schools. Low leverage points of analysis (suspend the bully) are being used to resolve
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intermediate causes that are even more fundamental (problems at home; mental health challenges,
social affirmation by the bystanders for the bully).
Popular solutions are superficial because they fail to see into the fundamental layer, whereas the
complete causal chain runs to root causes. Why do bullies do what they do and what can we do to
prevent and intervene? It's an easy trap to fall into because it intuitively seems that popular solutions
like suspension should solve the sustainability problem. But they can't, because they don't resolve the
root causes. We have evidence of this state since suspensions for bullying are the most common
remediation but bullies keep bullying under these conditions. Suspension does not solve the root cause
of the bullying problem.
In the analytical approach, root cause analysis penetrates the fundamental layer to find the well hidden
basis of the problem. Further analysis finds the basis of causal chain. Fundamental solution elements are
then developed to create a solution which solves the “real” problem.
How to Overcome Change Resistance
Change resistance is the tendency for a system to resist change even when a surprisingly large amount
of force is applied.
Step One: Complete sub-problem analysis
Overcoming change resistance is the crux of the problem, because if the system is resisting change then
none of the other sub-problems are solvable. Therefore this subproblem must be solved first. Until it is
solved, efforts to solve the other higher order sub-problems are largely wasted effort.
The root cause of successful change resistance appears to be effective deception in the political
powerplace of the school; for example, no bullying policies and no attempt to find a better mousetrap,
other than suspension. Too many teachers, parents, and students are being deceived into thinking
social sustainability is a low priority and that it need not be improved immediately.
The leverage point for resolving the root cause is to raise general ability to detect political deception by
educating the populace or stakeholders: Administrators, Teacher, Students, and Parents about Bullying
Prevention and Intervention. We need to inoculate people against deceptive false concepts such as
“boys will be boys” and “girls are just mean” because once people are infected by falsehoods, it’s very
hard to change their minds to see the truth.
Step Two: Complete Sub-problem Analysis
“Life form improper coupling occurs when two social life forms are not working together in harmony.”
In the social sustainability problem, schools and departments of education are making limited decisions
to their own advantage which do not address the entirety of the problem. So, for example, schools are
pushed to have students excel academically at the expense of their social and emotional development.
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They do not recognize that they are in the business of educating the ENTIRE STUDENT including intellect,
achievement, personality, social, emotional, motor, language, and adaptive skils.
The root cause appears to be mutually exclusive goals. Schools claim that they just do not have enough
time to deal with bullying in their schools or they just deny that they have any bullying at all as a
convenient excuse for not dealing with the problem of bullying. The current goal of education is the
maximization of standardized test scores, while the goal of the school as a social institution is the
optimization of quality of life, for those living within the school system. Guess which side is losing? That
is right; the students and the social system of the school.
The leverage point for resolving the root cause follows easily. If the root cause is that the political
climate has schools reaching for the wrong goals, then the leverage point is to reengineer the modern
school to have the right goals.
Step Three: Avoid Excessive Solution Model Drift
Solution model drift occurs when a problem evolves and its solution model doesn’t keep up. The model
“drifts” away from what’s needed to keep the problem solved.
The root cause appears to be low quality of educational decisions. Various steps in the decision making
process are not working properly, resulting in inability to proactively solve many difficult problems. In
short, schools are not consulting with their constituency or their stakeholders about what they want to
see with regard to bullying prevention and intervention.
This indicates low decision making process maturity. The leverage point for resolving the root cause is to
raise the maturity of the educational decision making process. This means that well-informed educators
such as yourselves, by the end of this course need to help to right the ship and help with the process of
organizational change using the most innovative approaches to prevent and intervene in cases of
bullying.
Step Four: Achieve Social Environmental Proper Coupling
The problem of bullying is improperly coupled to the school system. Schools see bullies as
troublemakers who need to be removed rather than students who need a different way to succeed and
get attention in schools.
This sub-problem is what the school system sees as the problem to solve. The analysis shows that to be
a false assumption, however. The change resistance sub-problem must be solved first. Schools must see
that they are at the base of the problem and that they must change themselves before they can change
the bullying situation in their schools.
The root cause appears to be high transaction costs for changing the bullying problem. Translation: It
will take a lot of time, effort, policy development and training.
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The leverage point for resolving the root cause is to allow new types of social agents (such as new types
of educators: YOU) to appear, in order to radically lower transaction costs (i.e., CHANGING THE SYSTEM.
Translation: Hopefully, you will know what you are doing with regard to bullying and can be a positive
force for change!
Step Five: Analysis of False (Popular) Solutions
There must be a reason popular solutions are not working.
Given the principle that all problems arise from their root causes, the only possible reason popular
solutions are not working is popular solutions do not resolve root causes.
Everything changes with a root cause resolution approach. You are no longer firing away at a target you
can’t see. Once the analysis builds a model of the problem and finds the root causes and their high
leverage points, solutions are developed to push on the leverage points.
Because each solution is aimed at resolving a specific known root cause, you can't miss. You hit the
bullseye every time. It's like shooting at a target ten feet away. The bullseye is the root cause. That's
why Root Cause Analysis is so fantastically powerful.
Step Six: How to Overcome Change Resistance
Balancing the needs of the individual with the needs of the group is one of the biggest challenges facing
groups today - whether at home, at school or at work...
Successful relationships don't just happen, yet they are essential for collaboration among classroom
team members; for family cohesion; for retaining staff and for engaging students. They underpin trust
and allow creativity...
Helping to navigate the dynamic tension between individual creativity and group systems is what we do.
We work with schools and families who are looking to balance creative freedom of the individual while
still working within the forms required of the larger group.
Definitions of School Climate
Now that we have addressed social climate and sustainability in general, let’s address school social
climate.
Definitions of school climate include a critical core set of common elements. The definition of school
climate usually encompasses dimensions of the perceived social environment that: (a) have a contextual
influence on the learning and development of students, (b) remain stable over time, and (c) can be
meaningfully aggregated across raters. Definitions of climate characteristically focus on conditions as
they are perceived by students, teachers, or other participants in a school setting, rather than on
objective aspects of the setting. Illustratively, school climate may be reflected in the frequency with
which teachers go out of their way to explain material to students, a behavior that can be observed by
students. However, objective characteristics of the school, such as the percentage of teachers who are
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certified in the area that they teach, would not fall within the scope of climate assessment. School
climate has been conceived as a set of conditions that influence student outcomes, in part by
establishing norms and expectations for behavior. Climate dimensions mediate the effects of
educational interventions on student outcomes, rather than being the final outcomes themselves. For
example, the amount of emphasis that is placed on learning is a common focus of climate assessment,
while students' grade point averages would be viewed as an outcome indicator.
Climate Assessments
Climate assessments are thought to have a contextual effect in the sense that school-level differences in
climate dimensions are thought to be associated with differences between schools in student outcomes
in ways that are not accounted for by individual differences in students' background characteristics and
prior achievement. Climate dimensions are thought to be stable across time, absent any systematic
effort to change them. For example, climate scores in middle schools remain stable over 2 years, even
when the student membership of the building turns over (Brand, Felner, Shim, Seitsinger, & Dumas,
2003), suggesting that climate persists over time independent of the individuals who comprise the
membership of a building. Finally, while students may offer diverse opinions about the climate of their
school building, their ratings can be meaningfully and reliably aggregated to create school-level scores
(Brand et al., 2008; Griffith, 2000).
Research on School Climate
Research on school climate has focused on the proximal conditions affecting students' learning, focusing
on students' and teachers' experiences of the school as a learning environment. A related body of work
on the organizational climate of the school also considers teachers' experiences of the school as a
workplace (Halpin & Croft, 1963; Hoy & Tarter, 1997; Kelly et al., 1986; Rentoul & Fraser, 1983).
Illustratively, the educational climate literature considers such dimensions as teacher support or
achievement emphasis, while the organizational climate literature considers teachers' experiences of
participation in decision-making at work. The present review focuses on the educational climate of the
school, although the influence of organizational climate variables on students' learning and adjustment
must also be acknowledged.
Multidimensional Thinking and School Climate
Implicitly, many educators and researchers think of school climate as being one-dimensional, in the
sense that climate is generally positive or negative. Another form of one-dimensional thinking associates
the entire domain of school climate with a specific dimension. In this vein, the domain of climate is
equated with just teacher support, personalization, sense of community, relationships, achievement
emphasis, or school safety. While each of these may be important aspects of school climate, no single
dimension encompasses the entire domain of school climate. Rather, numerous studies suggest that a
comprehensive assessment of school climate should encompass multiple dimensions.
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School Climate in the Classroom
An early, and very influential, conceptual framework was proposed by Trickett and Moos (1973), who
suggested that classroom climate assessment should address three overarching conceptual dimensions:
Relationships, Personal Growth or Goal Orientation, and System Maintenance and Change. This
conception of climate dimensions has broadened the perspective of investigators on the
multidimensional nature of climate, and has led to efforts to empirically differentiate underlying
dimensions of climate through factor analysis. Illustratively, Brand and his colleagues (2003) report that
students' ratings of the ten ISC-S scales reflect the following higher-order dimensions: Developmental
Sensitivity, Pro-social Emphasis, Contextual Negativity, and Safety Problems. Cumulatively, these
perspectives suggest that efforts to improve school climate need to be cognizant of how school
conditions vary on multiple dimensions.
Approaches to Assessment of Classroom and School Climate
School and classroom climate dimensions have been assessed through structured inventories that ask
participants to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with specific statements about the
social environment. Scale scores are computed by summing or averaging responses to the items that
comprise a dimension. Pioneering work on the development of structured climate inventories was
undertaken during the 1960s by Herbert Walberg and colleagues (Walberg & Anderson, 1968) and
George Stern (1970). During the 1970s Walberg's work led to the development of the Learning
Environment Inventory (LEI) (Fraser, Anderson, & Walberg, 1982) for secondary level classrooms, and
the My Class Inventory (MCI) (Fraser et al., 1982), for elementary classrooms. During the same period,
Edison Trickett and Rudy Moos published the Classroom Environment Scale (CES) (Trickett & Moos,
1973; Moos, 1979). Though the CES was initially developed for use in secondary level classrooms, this
instrument was adapted to assess school-level climate in high schools (Felner, Aber, Cauce, & Primavera,
1985), and classroom climate in the early elementary grades (Toro et al., 1985). Research using the LEI
and CES proved to be critical in establishing the importance of climate assessment for research and
intervention.
Significance of Classroom Social Climates
Investigations of climate have often focused on the social climate of classrooms, even in secondary level
schools where students occupy multiple classes throughout the school day. The classroom-level focus
reflects the interest of investigators in changing instructional practices and conditions in particular
subject-specific classrooms. Over the past two decades, increased attention has been given to the
assessment of whole school climate, reflecting growing interest in implementing and evaluating the
effects of comprehensive school reform models. The emphasis on school-level climate is reflected in the
work of James Comer's School Development Program on the School Climate Scale (Haynes, Emmons, &
Comer, 1993), as well as climate studies by Shaps (Battisch, Solomon, Kim, Watson, & Shaps, 1995) and
Rauden-bush (Raudenbush, Rowan, & Kang, 1991), and the Project on High Performance Learning
Communities (HiPlaces) (Felner, Seitsinger, Brand, Burns, & Bolton, 2008) As part of the HiPlaces project
the Inventory of School Climate (ISC) (Brand, Felner, Shim, Seitsinger, & Dumas, 2003) has been
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administered in more than 3,000 whole-school assessments in the past two decades. This instrument
has also been widely adopted in other projects in the United States and internationally. The ISC assesses
the perceived social environment of middle level and secondary schools, and is also available in a form
that is appropriate for elementary school children. In addition, the teacher version of the ISC has been
found to predict students' climate ratings and outcomes (Brand, Felner, Seitsinger, Burns, & Bolton,
2008). Drawing upon the work of the authors cited above, and factor analytic research in large and
diverse samples, the ISC assesses ten dimensions of school climate, including teacher support,
consistency and clarity of rules and expectations, student commitment to achievement, negative peer
interactions, positive peer interactions, disciplinary harshness, student input in decision-making,
instructional innovation and relevance, support for cultural pluralism, and safety problems. Each of
these dimensions of perceived school climate has been found to be associated with multiple indices of
students' learning and adjustment, as is shown in the following section.
Significance of School Climate for Students' Learning and Development
School climate has been found to be associated with multiple areas of students' learning and
development. A pervasive pattern of relationships has been found between climate dimensions and
students' academic, behavioral, and socio-emotional adjustment, even after partialling out the effects of
poverty on student outcomes. The relationship of climate to each of these adjustment domains are
considered in turn, focusing on findings from large-scale studies of young adolescents (Brand et al.,
2003). The dimensions of school climate discussed below have also been found to be associated with
student learning and adjustment in large scale samples of students at the elementary and high school
levels (Brand, Felner, Seitsinger, & Hupkau, 2006).
To assess the impact of climate on students' learning, it is critically important to examine variation in
students' academic motivation, as well as in their scores on standardized achievement tests. Academic
motivation merits attention because students' aspirations, expectations, and sense of self-efficacy
influence their long-term adaptation to school as well as decisions about the pursuit of advanced
training and education. In schools with higher levels of student commitment to achievement, students
attain higher scores on standardized tests of reading and math. In addition, multiple dimensions have
been found to be associated with students' academic motivation. Higher teacher expectations, academic
aspirations, and academic efficacy have been found in schools with higher school mean levels of teacher
support, structure, positive peer interactions, and instructional innovation. In schools that students
rated as having fewer safety problems, students reported higher self and teacher expectations,
academic aspirations, and efficacy. Better grades and teacher expectations were associated with higher
mean levels of student participation in decision-making, and lower levels of disciplinary harshness and
negative peer interactions, while higher student self-expectations and academic aspirations were
related consistently with higher mean levels of support for cultural pluralism.
School Climate and Behavioral Adjustment of Students
Turning to indicators of students' behavioral adjustment, higher levels of smoking, drinking and drug
use, and more favorable attitudes toward these activities, were found in schools that students rated as
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lower in teacher support, student commitment to achievement, and instructional innovation, and higher
in safety problems. Higher levels of delinquency and teacher-rated aggression were found in schools
that students rated as having higher levels of negative peer interactions, disciplinary harshness, and
safety problems. Higher levels of delinquency and classroom aggression were also found in schools that
students rated as having lower levels of teacher support, student commitment to achievement,
structure, and positive peer interactions. Turning to indices of socio-emotional adjustment, higher levels
of peer self-esteem, and lower levels of depression, have been found in schools in which students report
higher levels of teacher support, structure, student commitment to achievement, positive peer
interactions, and instructional innovation, as well as lower levels of safety problems. In addition to the
climate dimensions noted above, support for cultural pluralism appears to be particularly important for
academic performance, aspirations, and self-expectations among minority students (Brand, Felner,
Seitsinger, Burns, & Jung, 2007). Support for pluralism also moderates the impact of poverty on
students' academic performance and motivation. Gaps between students from low-income families and
those from more affluent families are significantly smaller in schools that have higher levels of support
for cultural pluralism.
Current Research on School Climate
While the majority of studies on school climate have been cross-sectional in nature, initial studies have
examined the longitudinal impact of climate dimensions on trajectories of adjustment, particularly in
early adolescence (e.g., Brand et al., 2007; Kuperminc, Leadbeater, & Blatt, 2001; Loukas & Murphy,
2007). Teacher expectations often decline during the middle school years. However, these declines were
not evident in schools that were characterized by higher levels of structure, student commitment to
achievement, positive peer interaction, and instructional innovation, as well as lower levels of
disciplinary harshness. Gains over time in students' self-expectations and sense of efficacy were
associated with higher levels of student commitment to achievement, positive peer interaction, and
instructional innovation (Brand et al., 2007). School climate dimensions are associated with differential
rates of onset for smoking, drinking, and drug use during early adolescence (Brand, Felner, Seitsinger,
Shim, & Hupkau, 2005). Students who did not smoke, drink or use drugs in sixth grade were less likely to
initiate these behaviors by eighth grade in schools that had higher levels of teacher support, student
commitment to achievement, student involvement in decision-making, and instructional innovation and
relevance, as well as lower levels of disciplinary harshness, negative peer interactions, and safety
problems. Cumulatively, findings from the cross-sectional and longitudinal studies again emphasize the
importance of a comprehensive, multi-dimensional perspective on school climate.
Current Issues in the Conception and Measurement of School Climate
The metaphor of “climate” has often, unintentionally, suggested that the perceived social environment
of the school is like the weather: critically important, but difficult to control. This view of school climate
can, implicitly, lead to the assumption that climate is simply a given, or the product of complex forces
that cannot be systematically and deliberately addressed by educators. However, the findings of
numerous studies suggest that school climate can be enhanced by systematic changes in the social
organization and instructional regularities of the school (e.g., Maehr & Midgley, 1996). Numerous
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dimensions of school climate are associated with differences in the size, structure, and activities of
interdisciplinary teams in middle grade schools (Brand et al., 2007). Other factors affecting school
climate include classroom instructional practices, teacher attitudes toward the implementation of
research-based practices, teacher readiness and professional development, and teacher role strain and
job satisfaction. Change in school climate can result from systematic changes in school organization,
instruction, and other regularities of the school. Indeed, the effects of structural and organizational
changes on students' learning may be mediated by dimensions of school climate.
Student Perceptions of School Climate
Initially, theories of social climate (e.g., Moos,1979) proposed that social climate reflected consensual
perceptions of the social environment of the school that were shared by occupants of the classroom or
school building. However, since the late 1990s, numerous studies have shown that ratings of social
climate vary much more within school buildings than they do between school buildings. Illustratively,
Griffith (2000) reports that only 3% to 6% of the variance in school climate ratings is accounted for by
differences between school buildings. Such findings suggest that the average rating of climate in a
school does not necessarily reflect the perceptions that are shared by all students. However, even
though a school-level mean score on a climate scale may not reflect a consensus of opinion among
students about their building, variations in this score account for a substantial portion of the variance
between buildings in indices of students' learning and adjustment (Brand et al., 2003). Further, school
mean scores also tend to be highly correlated when they are drawn from randomly selected subsamples of students from the same building (Brand et al., 2003; Griffith, 2000). Obtaining a consensus of
opinion across students might not be a necessary condition for obtaining a reliable and predictive
assessment of school climate dimension.
Analysis of Multi-Level Data From Students, Classrooms, and Schools
Efforts to assess the school-level impact of climate dimensions have been greatly enhanced by advances
in the field of Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) (Raudenbush, Rowan, & Kang, 1991). HLM is a
statistical technique that has been developed specifically for analysis of multilevel, hierarchical data.
Initial efforts to relate climate with adjustment examined correlations at the level of the individual
student (which looks at a conceptually quite different level of analysis), or else carried out correlational
analyses of the relationship between school mean scores on climate and adjustment (which tends to
overestimate school-level effects). HLM has enabled investigators to make more accurate estimates of
school-level effects of climate on students' developmental trajectories, and to better understand how
school-level climate can moderate the effects of students' background characteristics on learning and
school adaptation.
Alternative Methods of Assessing Climate
While standard methods for assessing school climate rely on the collection of data from students,
circumstances can arise in which reliable survey data from a representative sample of students is not
available. In such circumstances, investigators may need to rely on alternate sources of information to
assess climate dimensions. Illustratively, Pianta and colleagues (Pianta et al., 2002) have developed an
14
observational system to assess climate conditions, as well as instructional and organizational
regularities, in kindergarten classrooms. This approach is particularly critical for the investigation of
climate among children who are too young to complete climate inventories. In addition to using
observational data, investigators may turn to teacher ratings to assess climate when representative and
reliable student data are not available. However, caution should be exercised when using teacher
ratings as a proxy for student ratings. It may be particularly important to choose a teacher instrument
that has been validated for the purpose of predicting students' ratings and outcomes (Brand, et al.,
2008).
See also: Classroom Environment, School Belonging
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Battisch, V., Solomon, D., Kim, D., Watson, M. & Shaps, E. (1995). Schools as communities, poverty levels
of student populations, and students' attitudes, motives, and performance: a multi-level analysis.
American Educational Research Journal, 32, 627–658.
Brand, S., Felner, R., Seitsinger, A., Burns, A, & Bolton, A. (2008). Assessing the social environment of
middle schools: The validity and utility of teachers' ratings of school climate, cultural pluralism, and
safety problems for understanding and assessing the impact of school improvement. Journal of School
Psychology.
Brand, S., Felner, R. D., Seitsinger, A, Burns, A. & Jung, E. (April, 2007). The longitudinal influence of
school climate on developmental trajectories during early adolescence. Annual meeting of the American
Educational Research Association, Chicago.
Brand, S., Felner, R. D, Seitsinger, A., Shim, M., & Hupkau, A. (2005, August). Prevention of adolescent
substance use: Protective factors at school. Annual meeting of the American Psychological Association,
Washington, DC.
Brand, S., Felner, R. D., Seitsinger, A., & Hupkau, A. (2006, April). Learning support indicators: School
climate. Annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco.
Brand, S., Felner, R. D., Shim, M., Seitsinger, A., & Dumas, T. (2003). Middle school improvement and
reform: Development and validation of a school-level assessment of climate, cultural pluralism and
school safety. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 570–588.
Felner, R.D., Aber, M.S., Cauce, A. & Primavera, J. (1985). Adaptation and vulnerability in high-risk
adolescents: An examination of environmental mediators. American Journal of Community Psychology,
13, 365–379.
Felner, R.D., Seitsinger, A., Brand, S., Burns, A., & Bolton. A. (2008). Whole school, ecological approaches
to understanding and enhancing student motivation, expectations, and performance: Enhancing
opportunities to learn through the Project on High Performance Learning Communities. Educational
Researcher.
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Fraser, B. J., Anderson, G. J., & Walberg, H. J. (1982). Assessment of learning environments: Manual for
Learning Environment Inventory (LEI) and My Class Inventory (MCI). Perth: Western Australian Institute
of Technology.
Griffith, J. (2000). School climate as group evaluation and group consensus: Student and parent
perceptions of the elementary school environment. Elementary School Journal, 101, 35–61.
Halpin, A.W., & Croft, D.B. (1963). The organizational climate of schools. Chicago: University of Chicago
Midwest Administration Center.
Haynes, N.M., Emmons, C.L., & Comer, J.P. (1993). Elementary and middle school climate survey. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Child Study Center.
Hoy, W.K., & Tarter, C.J. (1997). The road to open and healthy schools: A handbook for change
(Elementary ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Kelly, E. A., Glover, J. A., Keefe, J. W., Halderson, C., Sorenson, C., & Speth, C. (1986). School climate
scale (Modified). Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Kuperminc, G. P., Leadbeater, B. J., & Blatt, S. J. (2001). School social climate and individual differences
in vulnerability to psychopathology among middle school students. Journal of School Psychology, 39,
141–159.
Loukas, A., & Murphy, J. L. (2007). Middle school student perceptions of school climate: Examining
protective functions on subsequent adjustment problems. Journal of School Psychology, 45, 293–309.
Maehr, M. L., & Midgley, C. (1996). Transforming school cultures. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Moos, R. H. (1979). Evaluating educational environments. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Pianta, R., La Pero, K. M., Payne, C., Cox, M. J., & Bradley, R. (2002). The relationship of kindergarten
classroom environment to teacher, family, and school characteristics and child outcomes. Elementary
School Journal, 102, 225–238.
Raudenbush, S. W., Rowan, B., & Kang, S. J. (1991). A multilevel, multivariate model for studying school
climate with estimation via the EM algorithm and application to U.S. high school data. Journal of
Educational Statistics, 16, 295–330.
Rentoul, A.J., & Fraser, B.J. (1983). Development of a school level environment questionnaire. Journal of
Educational Administration, 21, 21–39.
Stern, G. G. (1970). People in context: Measuring person-environment congruence in education and
industry. New York: Wiley.
Toro, P. A., Cowen, E. L., Gesten, E. L., Weissberg, R. P., Rapkin, B. D., & Davidson, E. (1985). Social
environmental predictors of children's adjustment in elementary school classrooms. American Journal of
Community Psychology, 13, 353–364.
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Trickett, E., & Moos, R. H. (1973). The social environment of junior high and high school classrooms.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 65, 93–102.
Walberg, H. J., & Anderson, H. J. (1968). Classroom climate and individual learning. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 59, 414–419.
Now, back to the formal syllabus!
Qualifications of the Instructor:
My name is Robert Harrington, Ph.D. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. I have been on faculty
at the University of Kansas since 1980. That males 35 years! I am a full professor in the Department of
Psychology and Research in Education. Prior to coming to KU in 1980 I have been a classroom teacher in
the Boston area and have worked as a psychologist in the schools in Iowa. I regularly teach classes in
classroom management in the PRE Department including PRE 703 Constructive Classroom Discipline,
PRE 798 Overcoming Mental Health Challenges in the Classroom, PRE 455 Classroom Management in
Elementary Schools and PRE 456 Classroom Management in Middle and Secondary Schools. I have
taught PRE 798 Bullying Prevention and Intervention for the past four years at KU and work with schools
to help them develop bully prevention and intervention programs. This semester I have been invited to
speak to students, faculty and staff at Kansas City Kansas Community College on issues related to LGBTQ
Bullying. I have been selected as an award winner of the Social Justice Award at KU for the 2014 school
year. I have been a keynote speaker at the Irish International Conference on Education speaking on
University Professors Bullied by Students and have been a keynote speaker at the Nebraska Autism
Network Annual Conference speaking on Bullying of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. I am
currently publishing an article on An Evaluation of School Bullying Policies and Plans.
Purposes of PRE 798
1. To teach you how to become aware of the bullying problem in your institution and in other social
contexts.
2. To help you understand the factors that contribute to bullying and victimization.
3. To teach you how to prevent the escalation of bullying in the environments in which you work.
4. To help you recognize when bullying is getting out of control and an intervention plan is needed.
5. To help you develop a role for parents in prevention and intervention of bullying.
6. To help students recognize differential features of male as compared to female bullying.
7. To help you understand the components of a bullying program and plan.
8) To help you understand the various forms of bullying, their impact on the victim and how this bullying
behavior can best be managed.
9) To help you understand how a negative social climate contributes to potential bullying.
17
10) To help you understand the current research on bullying.
11) To help you become more aware of how you can be helpful in dealing with bullying in whatever
context you plan to work professionally.
(The next portion of the syllabus shows how this course meets the requirements of various approval
and oversight agencies.)
Conceptual Framework of the School of Education
NCATE STANDARDS MET IN PART IN:
PRE 798 Bullying Prevention and Intervention
The following NCATE Standards are met in part in PRE 798:
Standard 1: Candidate Knowledge, Skill and Dispositions
Candidates preparing to work in schools as teachers or other professional school personnel know and
demonstrate content, pedagogical, and professional knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to help
all students’ learn. Assessments indicate that candidates meet professional, state and institutional
standards.
Standard 2: Assessment System and Unit Evaluation
The unit has an assessment system that collects and analyzes data on the applicant qualifications,
candidate and graduate performance, and unit operations to evaluate and improve the unit and its
programs.
Standard 4: Diversity
The unit designs, implements and evaluates curriculum and experiences for candidates to acquire and
apply knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to help all students learn. These experiences include
working with diverse higher education and school faculty, diverse candidates, and diverse students in P12 schools.
Standard 5: Faculty Qualifications, Performance and Development
Faculty are qualified and model best professional practices in scholarship, service and teaching,
including the assessment of their own effectiveness as related to candidate performance. They also
collaborate with colleagues in the disciplines and schools. The unit systematically evaluates faculty
performance and facilitates professional development.
Standard 6: Unit Governance and Resources
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The unit has the leadership, authority, budget, personnel, facilities, and resources, including information
technology resources, for the preparation of candidates to meet professional, state and institutional
standards.
KSDE STANDARDS MET IN PART
PRE 798 CONSTRUCTIVE CLASSROOM DISCIPLINE
The following KSDE Standards are met in part in PRE 798:
Standard #1: The educator demonstrates the ability to use the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and
structures of each discipline he or she teaches and can create opportunities that make these aspects
of subject matter meaningful for all students.
Knowledge
1. The educator understands major concepts, assumptions, debates, and processes of inquiry, and ways
of knowing that are central to the discipline being taught and can create opportunities that make these
aspects of subject matter meaningful for all students.
2. The educator understands that students’ conceptual frameworks and their misconceptions for an
area of knowledge can influence their learning.
Performance
1. The educator represents and uses differing viewpoints, theories, "ways of knowing," and methods of
inquiry in teaching of subject matter concepts.
2. The educator evaluates teaching resources and curriculum materials for their comprehensiveness,
accuracy, and usefulness for representing particular ideas and concepts.
3. The educator engages students in constructing knowledge and testing hypotheses according to the
methods of inquiry and standards of evidence used in the discipline.
4. The educator develops or adapts and uses curricula that encourage all students to see, question, and
interpret ideas from diverse perspectives.
Standard #2: The educator demonstrates an understanding of how individuals learn and develop
intellectually, socially, and personally and provides learning opportunities that support this
development.
Knowledge
1. The educator understands how learning occurs--how students construct knowledge, acquire skills,
and develop critical thinking--and knows how to use instructional strategies that promote learning for all
students.
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2. The educator understands that students' physical, social, emotional, moral, and cognitive
development influences learning and knows how to address these factors when making instructional
decisions.
3. The educator is aware of expected developmental progressions and ranges of individual variation
within each domain (physical, social, emotional, moral, and cognitive), can identify levels of readiness in
learning, and understands how development in any one domain may affect performance in others.
Performance
1. The educator assesses individual and group performance in order to design instruction that meets
learners' current needs in each domain (physical, social, emotional, moral, and cognitive) and that leads
to the next level of development.
2. The educator stimulates student reflection on prior knowledge and links new ideas to already familiar
ideas, making connections to students' experiences, providing opportunities for active engagement,
manipulation, and testing ideas and materials, and encouraging students to assume responsibility for
shaping their learning tasks.
3. The educator seeks to discover students' thinking and experiences as a basis for instructional activities
by, for example, encouraging discussion, listening and responding to group interaction, and eliciting
samples of student thinking orally and in writing.
Standard #3: The educator demonstrates the ability to provide different approaches to learning and
creates instructional opportunities that are equitable, that are based on developmental levels, and
that are adapted to diverse learners, including those with exceptionalities.
1. The educator understands and can identify differences in approaches to learning and performance
and can design instruction that helps use students' strengths as the basis for growth.
2. The educator understands that diversity, exceptionality, and limited English proficiency affect
learning.
3. The educator knows about the process of second language acquisition and about strategies to
support the learning of students whose first language is not English.
4. The educator understands how students' learning is influenced by individual experiences, talents, and
prior learning, as well as language, culture, family, and community values.
5. The educator has a well-grounded framework for understanding cultural and community diversity and
knows how to learn about and incorporate students' experiences, cultures, and community resources
into instruction.
6. The educator has knowledge of state and federal regulations related to children and youth with
exceptionalities.
20
Performance
1. The educator identifies and designs instruction appropriate to students' stages of development,
strengths, and needs.
2. The educator uses teaching approaches that are sensitive to the multiple experiences of learners and
that address diverse learning needs.
3. The educator makes appropriate provisions (in terms of time and circumstances for work, tasks
assigned, communication, and response modes) for individual students who have particular learning
differences or needs.
4. The educator can identify when and how to use appropriate services or resources to meet diverse
learning needs.
5. The educator seeks to understand students' families, cultures, and communities, and uses this
information as a basis for connecting instruction to students' experiences (drawing explicit connections
between subject matter and community matters, making assignments that can be related to students'
experiences and cultures).
6. The educator brings multiple perspectives to the discussion of subject matter, including attention to
students' personal, family, and community experiences and cultural norms.
7. The educator creates a learning community in which individual differences are respected.
8. The educator is able to recognize learning problems and collaborate with appropriate special services
personnel.
Standard #4: The educator understands and uses a variety of appropriate instructional strategies to
develop various kinds of students' learning including critical thinking, problem solving, and reading.
Knowledge
1. The educator understands the cognitive processes associated with various kinds of learning (e.g.,
critical and creative thinking, problem structuring and problem solving, invention, memorization, and
recall) and how these processes can be stimulated.
2. The educator understands principles and techniques, along with advantages and limitations,
associated with various instructional strategies (e.g., cooperative learning, direct instruction, discovery
learning, whole group discussions, and independent study).
3. The educator knows how to enhance learning by using a wide variety of materials, including human
and technological resources, primary documents and artifacts, texts, reference books, literature, and
other print resources.
4. The educator understands the principles and techniques used in effective reading instruction.
21
Performance
1. The educator meets the learning needs of all students by evaluating how to achieve learning goals
and by choosing alternative teaching strategies and materials.
2. The educator uses multiple teaching and learning strategies to engage all students in active learning
opportunities that promote the development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance
capabilities, and that help all students assume responsibility for identifying and using learning resources.
3. The educator constantly monitors and adjusts strategies in response to learner feedback.
4. The educator varies his or her role in the instructional process (instructor, facilitator, coach, audience)
in relation to the content and purposes of instruction and the needs of all students.
5. The educator develops a variety of clear, accurate presentations and representations of concepts
using alternative explanations to assist students' understanding and presenting diverse perspectives to
encourage critical thinking.
6. The educator uses a variety of reading strategies that are appropriate for students' diverse reading
abilities and that support further growth and development.
NOTE: This Standard #5 is probably the most relevant for the development of a Positive Social
Climate.
Standard #5: The educator uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to
create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in
learning, and self-motivation.
Knowledge
1. The educator uses knowledge about human motivation and behavior drawn from the foundational
sciences of psychology, anthropology, and sociology to develop strategies for organizing and
supporting individual and group work.
2. The educator understands how social groups function and influence people and how people
influence groups.
3. The educator knows how to help students work productively and cooperatively in complex social
settings.
4. The educator understands the principles of effective classroom management and can use a range of
strategies to promote positive relationships, cooperation, and purposeful learning in the classroom.
5. The educator recognizes factors and situations that are likely to promote or diminish intrinsic
motivation and knows how to help all students become self-motivated.
6. The educator understands crisis intervention strategies.
22
Performance
1. The educator creates a smoothly functioning learning community in which all students assume
responsibility for themselves and one another, participate in decision making, work collaboratively
and independently, and engage in purposeful learning activities.
2. The educator engages all students in individual and cooperative learning activities that help them
develop the motivation to achieve by, for example, relating lessons to students' personal interests,
allowing students to have choices in their learning, and leading all students to ask questions and
pursue problems that are meaningful to them.
3. The educator organizes, allocates, and manages the resources of time, space, activities, and
attention to provide active and equitable engagement of all students in productive tasks.
4. The educator maximizes the amount of class time spent in learning by creating expectations and
processes for communication and behavior along with a physical setting conducive to classroom goals.
5. The educator helps the group to develop shared values and expectations for student interaction,
academic discussion, and individual and group responsibility that create a positive classroom climate
of openness, mutual respect, support, and inquiry.
6. The educator analyzes the classroom environment and makes decisions and adjustments to
enhance social relationships, student motivation and engagement, and productive work.
7. The educator organizes, prepares students for, and monitors independent and group work in such a
way that allows for full and varied participation of all individuals.
8. The educator can participate in the implementation of crisis intervention strategies.
Standard #6: The educator uses a variety of effective verbal and non-verbal communication techniques
to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom.
Knowledge
1. The educator understands communication theory, language development, and the role of language in
learning.
2. The educator understands how differences in culture, gender and exceptionality can affect
communication in the classroom.
3. The educator recognizes the importance of non-verbal as well as verbal communication.
4. The educator knows about and can use effective verbal and non-verbal communication techniques.
Performance
23
1. The educator models effective communication strategies in conveying ideas and information and in
asking questions (e. g. monitoring the effects of messages; restating ideas and drawing connections;
using visual, aural, and kinesthetic cues; being sensitive to non-verbal cues given and received).
2. The educator develops learner expressions in speaking, writing, and other media.
3. The educator knows how to ask questions and stimulate discussion in different ways for particular
purposes (e. g. probing for learner understanding, helping students articulate their ideas and thinking
processes, promoting risk taking and problem solving, facilitating factual recall, encouraging convergent
and divergent thinking, stimulating curiosity, and helping students to question.)
4. The educator communicates in ways that demonstrate sensitivity to differences in culture,
exceptionality and gender (e.g., appropriate use of eye contact, interpretation of body language and
verbal statements, acknowledgment of and responsiveness to different modes of communication and
participation.)
Standard #8: The educator understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to
evaluate and ensure the continual intellectual, social, and other aspects of personal development of
all learners.
Knowledge
1. The educator understands the characteristics, uses, advantages, and limitations of different types of
assessments (e.g., criterion-referenced and norm-referenced instruments, selected response and
performance-based tests, observation systems, and assessments of student work) for evaluating how
students learn, what they know and are able to do, and what kinds of experiences will support their
further growth and development.
2. The educator knows how to select, construct, and use assessment strategies and instruments
appropriate to the learning outcomes being evaluated and to other diagnostic purposes.
3. The educator knows the importance of aligning standards, goals, instruction, outcomes and
assessments.
Performance
1. The educator appropriately uses a variety of formal and informal assessment techniques (e.g.,
observation, portfolios of student work, educator-made tests, performance tasks, projects, student selfassessments, peer assessment, and standardized tests) to enhance her or his knowledge of all learners,
evaluate all students' progress and performances, and modify teaching and learning strategies.
2. The educator solicits and uses information about students' experiences, learning behavior, needs,
and progress from parents, other colleagues, and the students themselves.
3. The educator uses assessment strategies to involve learners in self-assessment activities, to help them
become aware of their strengths and needs, and to encourage them to set personal goals for learning.
24
4. The educator evaluates the effect of class activities on both individuals and the class as a whole,
collecting information through observation of classroom interaction, questioning, and analysis of
student work.
5. The educator monitors his or her own teaching strategies and behavior in relation to student success,
modifying plans, and instructional approaches accordingly.
6. The educator maintains useful records of student work and performance and communicates student
progress knowledgeably and responsibly to students, parents, and other colleagues.
7. The educator knows how to align standards, goals, instruction, outcomes, and assessments.
Standard #9: The educator is a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates the effects of his or
her choices and actions on others (students, parents, and other professionals in the learning
community), actively seeks out opportunities to grow professionally, and participates in the school
improvement process (Kansas Quality Performance Accreditation [QPA]).
Knowledge
1. The educator uses a variety of self-assessment and problem-solving strategies for reflecting on his or
her practice and the way that practice influences students’ growth and learning and affects the complex
interactions between student and educator.
2. The educator is aware of major areas of research on teaching and of resources available for
professional learning.
3. The educator understands the school improvement process (QPA) in Kansas schools.
Performance
1. The educator uses classroom observation, information about students, and research as sources for
evaluating the outcomes of teaching and learning and as a basis for experimenting with, reflecting on,
and revising practice.
2. The educator draws upon professional colleagues within the school and other professional
resources as supports for reflection, problem solving, and new ideas, actively sharing experiences and
seeking and giving feedback.
3. The educator demonstrates the skills necessary to contribute to the school improvement process
(QPA) in Kansas.
Standard #10: The educator fosters collegial relationships with school personnel, parents, and
agencies in the larger community to support all students' learning and well-being.
Knowledge
25
1. The educator understands schools as organizations within the larger community context and
understands the operations of the relevant aspects of the system within which he or she works.
2. The educator understands how factors in the students' environment outside of school (e.g., family
circumstances, community environments, health, and economic conditions) may influence students'
lives and learning.
Performance
1. The educator participates in collegial activities designed to make the entire school a productive
learning environment.
2. The educator consults with parents, counselors, other educators within the schools, and professionals
in other community agencies.
3. The educator identifies and uses community resources to foster learning for all students.
4. The educator establishes respectful and productive relationships with parents or guardians from
diverse home and community situations and seeks to develop cooperative partnerships in support of
learning and well-being for all students.
5. The educator talks with and listens to all students, is sensitive and responsive to clues of distress,
investigates situations, and seeks outside help as needed and appropriate to remedy problems.
Standard #13: The educator is a reflective practitioner who uses an understanding of historical,
philosophical, and social foundations of education to guide educational practices.
Knowledge
1. The educator understands how and why the American system of education developed.
2. The educator has critical awareness of the norms and values inherent in the American system of
education.
3. The educator understands how social forces have shaped and continue to shape American
education.
4. The educator is aware of the ethical standards that should guide the professional teacher’s
interaction with all students, colleagues, parents, and members of the community.
5. The educator understands how educational policy is formulated and how it affects classroom
practices.
6. The educator understands legal issues that impact all students, classrooms, teachers,
administrators, and parents.
Performance
26
1. The educator uses knowledge of historical, philosophical, and social foundations of education to
guide interaction with all students, colleagues, parents, and community members in a manner that
demonstrates respect for them as persons.
2. The educator uses knowledge of historical, philosophical, and social foundations of education to
guide instruction, educational practices, and decision making.
3. The educator supports policies and practices that promote student welfare and development.
4. The educator follows all legal requirements for working with all students, other teachers,
administrators, and parents.
Instructional Strategies: The instructional strategies that will be utilized in this course will include direct
instruction, classroom discussion and debate, videos, student-led discussions, home assignments for
development of skills, movie analysis, journal reviews, and responses to discussion questions as well as
afinal project.
Required Readings
1. Swearer, S.M., Espilage, D.L., Napolitano, D.L. (2009). Bullying prevention
and intervention: Realistic strategies for schools. New York, N.Y.: The Guilford Press.
ISBN: 9781606230213
I have selected this book since it deals with bullyng prevention and intervention with specific
references to research-based interventions.
2. Van der Zande, Irene. (2011 ) Bullying: What adults need to know and do to
keep kids safe.
ISBN: 9780979619168
I have selected this book since it includes much original and creative resource materials that can be
used to deal with the problem of bullying
3. Preble, W.K., & Gordon, R.M. (2011). Transforming school climate and learning: Beyond Bullying
and Compliance.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
ISBN: 9781412992688
I have asked you to read this book since the latest trend in the world of bullying is to attempt to
transform the school climate for learning and thus reduce the incidence of bullying at its source. It is
an innovate approach which has much appeal.
27
4. ESPELAGE. Bullying in American Schools : A Socio-Ecological Perspective on Prevention and
Intervention
ISBN: 9780805845600
Publisher: Erlbaum Associates, Incorporated, Lawrence
Publication Date: Jan. 1, 2003
I have asked you to read this book since it addresses the bullying research as it now stands in the U.S.
5. HOLLIS. Bully In The Ivory Tower (p)
ISBN: 9780988478220
Publisher: Nacs
Publication Date: Jan. 1, 2012
This book is a good one as it addresses bullying in academia and I know that we have individuals in
the course who are interested in adult bullying issues, especially in academia.
Current Journal Readings: You will be provided with links on Bb to current primary sourced journal
readings that will enhance the secondary resources listed above. These journal readings will flesh out
the latest readings from the specific disciplines in which you study and hope to work.
Class Policies ( I provide these policies only because I know that it is important to let students know
what is expected, not because I expect policy violations)
1. Do the readings and assignments in a timely manner.
2. Type all work products.
3. Provide the instructor with a copy of all work products using one of the approved techniques.
4. Participate in class discussions.
9. Be polite
10. Cooperate in groups.
Evaluation of Student Performance:
Attendance: 5%. Students are expected to review and respond to all modules in a timely manner.
Individual and Group Participation in Class: 15%. Students are expected to participate in class
discussion, ask appropriate questions about the material and contribute in a meaningful way to class
discussions.
28
Research Participation: 5%. You are expected to participate in a small research study as a part of this
course. If you do not wish to participate you will be provided another option to earn these points
Home Assignments: 25%. Students may be provided with home assignments that correspond to the
readings for the next week. The assignment is usually due the next week at a prescribed date and
time.
Individual Presentation: 15%. Students will be responsible for an individual presentation in this class
on a topic related to bullying. I will give you options for topics or you may suggest a topic yourself.
On-Line Journal 15%: Students will be asked to respond to an on-line journal in response to a question
posed to them over the readings. Eventually, students (once they are comfortable) will be required to
participate in a threaded discussion.
Collaborative Project 20%: Students will work collaboratively on a project related to bullying.
Students will be grouped according to interests and will be expected to create a product that will be
shared with the class. Criteria will be provided for the production of the Collaborative Project.
Grading will be on a letter grade basis. That is grades of A to F will be assigned to you. If you meet
the requirements of an assignment then you will get full credit. If you do not then you will have the
opportunity to redo the assignment. That is mastery learning. In other words, I want you to know
the material in this course. There is no reason why you should not be able to attain an A in this
course. Just work with me and do good work.
PLEASE NOTE: This ONLINE course will be run as a collaborative group effort, not as individuals
progressing at their own pace. We all work together. That means that each week you will be given
new readings and new assignments but the point is that we will ALL progress together, not as
individuals. I believe in learning communities and learning communities are important to reducing
bullying too so we will be practicing what we preach!
FIRST ASSIGNMENT
DUE: Next Tuesday Evening
FIRST, READ THE SYLLBUS CAREFULLY.
SECOND, GET THE TEXTBOOKS.
THIRD, INTRODUCE YOURSELF ON DISCUSSION BOARD. PROVIDE YOUR MOTIVATIONS FOR TAKING THE
COURSE, EXPECTED OUTCOMES, RELEVANCE TO DEGREE AND CAREER GOALS, AND SOMETHING
INTERESTING ABOUT YOURSELF TO HELP US TO GET TO KNOW YOU ON A PERSONAL LEVEL.
FOURTH, ANSWER THE TWO QUESTIONS BELOW FOR THE HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT #1
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HERE IS THE FIRST QUESTION THAT YOU SHOULD ANSWER ON DISCUSSION BOARD. YOU ARE
WELCOME TO CHECK OUT OTHER STUDENTS’ ENTRIES AND PLEASE MAKE A SHORT COMMENT ON ONE
OTHER STUDENT’S FIRST HOMWORK ENTRY AS WELL AS THEIR BACKGROUND INFORMATION.
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT #1
1. WHAT IS BULLYING (DEFINE IT) AND HOW DO YOU THINK IT IS DIFFERENT FROM “MEAN
BEHAVIOR” OR JUST ANY TYPICAL CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT PROBLEM? THIS IS A QUESTION THAT
REQUIRES YOU TO RELY ON YOUR IMPLICIT NOTION OF BULLYING, NOT ON ANY FORMAL DEFINITION.
NEXT WEEK IN YOUR READINGS WE WILL REVIEW A FORMAL DEFINITION OF BULLYING AND SEE HOW
YOUR DEFINTION MATCHED WHAT THE “EXPERTS” SAY.
2. BASED UPON YOUR READING IN THE SYLLABUS, IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU THINK THAT A SOCIAL
CLIMATE APPROACH FOCUSING ON SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY COULD BE A FOUNDATION FOR BULLYING
REFORM IN A SCHOOL.
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