Toward a More Comprehensive Understanding of Bullying in School Settings

The phenomenon of bullying has received a great deal of international attention in the last few decades. In this article, we provide a critical review of some of the major contributions from the field of educational research. We first provide an overall description of the classic concept of bullying, including certain characteristics of bullies and victims that have received particular attention, and then describe what we consider to be the principal limitations of these predominant academic and professional discourses. These include the following three concerns: (1) the restrictive definition employed, (2) a pathologizing bully-victim dichotomy, and (3) a gender-blind or at best gender-essentialist approach to gender difference. Finally, we propose a conceptual shift toward a more comprehensive understanding that is based, in part, on constructivist and poststructuralist perspectives on gender.