Breaking The Boys Code: An Exploration of Bullying Behaviour : Melbourne Indymedia

Breaking The Boys Code:
An Exploration of Bullying Behaviour
Andrew Lavin
2005

This article has been submitted to Melbourne Independent Media Center with the understanding that it is free for distribution for non-profit and educative purposes; that it may be reused, reprinted, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere for non-profit and educative purposes; that the author, Andrew Lavin, retains the moral right to be recognised as the author of the article and that all reproduction is subject to the same principles as laid out here, that is, the same representations of the copyleft of the article must appear alongside the article. As stated on the Melbourne IMC site, under no circumstances may articles or features from the Melbourne IMC site be reproduced in full in a fee-paying or for-profit medium. However, for-profit media may quote from articles or features in accordance with Australian "fair use" copyright principles. The author asks that anyone using or quoting this work, or parts thereof, notify him via email at andrewkildufflavin@yahoo.com.au

In their January 29-30, 2005 issue, The Weekend Australian Magazine published an article titled Bully Boys: The School of Hard Knocks. Author Rosalie Higson (2005: 12) opened with these lines:

“Eleven-year-old Beau Parsons dreaded lunchtimes. While his classmates happily dashed outside to play in the sunshine, Beau bit his lip and cringed when the buzzer sounded. He blinked hard and told himself not to cry – maybe this time nothing would happen.”

Higson went on to recount Beau’s story of being bullied by fellow students at school – a story which is nothing short of heartbreaking. In response to Beau’s situation, the Victorian Department of Education offered to hire a bodyguard, or ‘adult protector’, to accompany him to recess and lunch. Such short-sighted responses do nothing to address the underlying issues behind the bullying that Beau and thousands of other young people face at school on a daily basis and may in fact add to the associated stigma of being a victim.

As Higson pointed out, “Schoolyard bullying is much more insidious than kids just being kids, or one-off, spontaneous fights in the playground. At its worst it can amount to psychological – and physical – torture, leaving lifelong scars… The definition of bullying has also widened from physical violence and intimidation to avoidance, exclusion, cyber-bullying and rumour-spreading.” (2005: 12) If this is true, and the research shows that it is, what long-term value is there in knee-jerk reactions like the assigning of ‘adult protectors’? Clearly such measures may help to protect the Department of Education from future legal actions, but is this really the best that they can come up with? Let’s hope not. Our young people deserve better.

The Weekend Australian piece is part of the continuation of bullying-related coverage prevalent in the local press since Year 9 student Aimee Jenkinson, herself a long-time victim of harassment, ended her own life in August 2003. Aimee’s outcomes have contributed to the amplification of the voices of experts in the field and victims of bullying, young people and parents alike. Increased program funding has followed.

Chief among Australia’s bullying experts is Dr. Ken Rigby of South Australia. In Higson’s article, Rigby suggests that “Aborigines are the most bullied group in society and after 9/11 the Kid’s Help Line [a free anonymous telephone counseling service for kids] rang hot with calls from Muslim children who had been harassed. But some of the most vicious and enduring bullying has been directed at boys who identify or are seen as being gay.” (Higson 2005: 12)

As such, this article has two primary aims: First, to explore the general issue of bullying, its history and our responses to it. Second, to focus on a specific type of bullying behaviour by way of dissecting a number of key factors concerning the development of understandings of masculinity and male social order among boys, as shaped by homophobia and homophobiaphobia. This second focus will afford us the opportunity to see just how complex the many aspects of bullying can be and will demonstrate the need for meaningful and systemic approaches to addressing the problems of bullying. Further, it will reflect the evolution of our understanding of certain bullying behaviours, especially among boys.

While these issues, including the language involved, are complex and we might not be able to unpack them comprehensively in one sitting, we will endeavor to clarify recent demands for broader and more organised sociological approaches to comprehending the mechanisms by which boys seek their understandings of masculinity - arguably the epicenter of bullying behaviour among young people (and among many adults for that matter!) - and to developing intervention strategies.

We’ll do this, in large part, by exploring new knowledge of the ways in which boys use anti-gay behaviour as a means of developing a social order - especially when at school - and as a means of defining their own ‘manhood’, much to their future detriment and often at the emotional or physical expense of other young people.

Research findings seem to convey two primary messages: That boys are sorting through these issues without sufficient adult intervention and via largely homophobic methods which prove harmful to all involved, and that the developmental outcomes of boys would be markedly healthier - especially in regards to internal wellbeing, violence, risk-taking behaviour and socialisation - if intervention was undertaken to reshape boys’ experiences by encouraging respect for and understanding of all forms of masculine expression and by discouraging the perpetuation of hegemonic thinking in regards to these matters. (Plummer 2001, Frosh, et al 2002, Frosh, et al 2003, Kimmel and Mahler 2003, Dorais 2004, Ingraham 2005)

But before looking at those issues more closely, let us briefly examine the history and meanings of bullying. Later, we will touch on two major approaches to bullying intervention, look at some local and international intervention strategies, and review recent measures of program outcomes in hopes of identifying the most productive methods for helping young people caught up in bullying behaviours.

An Issue of Increasing Complexity

When researchers Michael Kimmel and Matthew Mahler of the State University of New York wanted to understand the links between masculinity and violence, they investigated the last twenty-eight school shootings to occur in the United States (between 1982 and 2001 all school shooters were boys). In their report, Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence (2003), they refer to a long history of “violent boy culture” and to a time when “young boys, as late as the 1940’s, actually carried little chips of wood on their shoulders daring others to knock it off so that they might have a fight. It is astonishing to think that ‘carrying a chip on your shoulder’ is literally true – a test of manhood for adolescent boys.” (2003: 1450)

Kimmel and Mahler reflect upon how “the celebrated psychologist G. Stanley Hall, who invented the term ‘adolescence’, believed that a nonfighting boy was a ‘nonentity’ and that it was ‘better even an occasional nose dented by a fist… than stagnation, general cynicism and censoriousness, bodily and physical cowardice.’” (2003: 1450)

In quoting Hall’s “disciple” J. Adams Puffer, Kimmel and Mahler draw from his 1912 work The Boy and His Gang, in which Puffer suggested that “it is not unreasonable for a boy to fight up to six times a week and maybe even more depending on the circumstances”, for “there are times when a boy must defend his own rights if he is not to become a coward, and lose the road to independence and manhood… The strong willed boy needs no inspiration to combat, but often a good deal of guidance and restraint. If he fights more than, let us say, a half-dozen times a week – except of course, during his first week at a new school – he is probably over-quarrelsome and needs to curb.”

Earlier there had been some rather insignificant efforts to understand and control bullying following the 1857 publication of Tom Brown’s School Days, a novel by Thomas Hughes which exposed some of the bullying dynamics alive in private English schools (Smith, et al 2004: 1). But most of our history shows bullying to have been largely considered as part of a normal boy’s childhood.

Fortunately, times have changed. Our understanding and attitudes about bullying have progressed significantly, especially in the last twenty years, or so. Much of the current bullying research identifies gaps created by a long history of the singular use of psychology, and similarly limited approaches, in framing our understanding of how boys develop a sense of masculinity and into why some boys exhibit related anti-social bullying behaviours during this development. But there are, as sociologist and philosopher Victor J. Seidler points out in Man Enough – Embodying Masculinities, “new psychologies”, working in “renewed connection with social theory and philosophy.” (1997: 79) These kinds of connections hold much promise in helping us to continue to move forward.

By way of addressing a classic misconception, there is repeated suggestion in the research that approaches based on simple ‘boys will be boys’ logic have proven to be both irresponsible and damaging; that young people require intervention and, in many instances, quietly prefer not to be ‘left to their own devices’. Most reports seem to argue for a broader sociological approach to understanding these dynamics of youth and a more open and open-minded dialogue with young people about what they are going through. (Newberger 1999, Plummer 2001, Frosh, et al 2002, Frosh, et al 2003, Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1444, Dorais 2004, Ingraham 2005)

Dr. Wendy Craig and Dr. Debra Pepler, in the October 2003 Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, identified bullying as essentially a relationship problem, or the “assertion of interpersonal power through aggression” (Craig and Pepler 2003: 577). To quote:

“Bullying has been defined as negative physical or verbal actions that have hostile intent, cause distress to victims, are repeated over time, and involve a power differential between bullies and their victims. The power relations between victims become consolidated with repeated bullying: bullies increase in power and victims lose power. Where such an imbalance exists, children who are being bullied become increasingly powerless to defend themselves.”

The Craig and Pepler view on bullying may be true in some circumstances, but Kimmel and Mahler’s research shows that, at least in some situations, the nature of bullying is growing much more complex. Their findings show an emerging trend among victims to seize whatever power is available for fighting back against bullies - turning the tables, if you will. The results can be quite tragic for all involved, indicating that the price of failing to address these issues early and in meaningful ways is perhaps increasing and that there is nothing simple about understanding bullying behaviour; that bullying as a human behaviour is evolving in catastrophic directions.

To explain:

There are exceptionally strong links between bullying, adolescent boys, masculinity ‘myths’, homophobia, homophobiaphobia and violence, including murder and suicide in the most extreme instances (Kimmel 2000: 2, Plummer 2001: 7, Kimmel and Mahler 2003, Myrttinen 2003, Dorais 2004). From the experts we are hearing a call for reforming the ways in which we address these issues with young people, parents, educators and other stakeholders in our communities, so that young people might come to experience healthier shorter and longer-term outcomes. ‘Unlearning’ homophobia instilled in early childhood can be a difficult endeavor, as is evidenced by the current so-called workplace bullying crisis and rising awareness of the depth of bulling present in some areas of our Defense Forces.

“For some boys, high school is a constant homophobic gauntlet and they must respond by becoming withdrawn and sullen, using drugs or alcohol, becoming depressed or suicidal, or acting out in a blaze of overcompensating violent ‘glory’.”
- Kimmel and Mahler (2003)

Kimmel and Mahler (2003), in a quest to understand the links between adolescent masculinity, homophobia, and violence, examined America’s random school shootings occurring between 1982 and 2001. There were a staggering twenty-eight incidents to examine, all of them having taken place in middle and high schools (US grade levels 6 to 12). It became clear to both of them that most of the boy perpetrators had been “mercilessly and routinely teased and bullied and that their violence was retaliatory against the threats to manhood”; that “the specific content of the teasing and bullying is homophobia.” (Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1439) They suggest that “any approach to understanding school shootings must take gender seriously – specifically the constellations of adolescent masculinity, homophobia, and violence.”

They observed a striking similarity in all of the shootings whereby the shooters had had accounts of being victims of homophobic moral harassment for “inadequate gender performance”. They did not “measure up to the norms of hegemonic masculinity” (Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1440). The authors suggest that “instead of asking psychological questions about family dynamics and composition, psychological problems, and pathologies, we need to focus our attention on local school cultures and hierarchies, peer interactions, normative gender ideologies, and the interactions among academics, adolescence, and gender identity” (Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1444). They go further to report that, “Using such an approach to interpret the various events that led up to each of the shootings, we find that a striking similarity emerges between the various cases. All or most of the shooters had tales of being harassed – specifically, gay-baited – for inadequate gender performance; their tales are the tales of boys who did not measure up to the norms of hegemonic masculinity. Thus, in our view, these boys are not psychopathological deviants but rather overconformists to a particular normative construction of masculinity, a construction that defines violence as a legitimate response to a perceived humiliation.”

Similarly, in his 2003 report Disarming Masculinities, Henri Myrttinen of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research uncovers connections between masculinity development and violence and looks specifically at the militarisation of boys as a response to the perceived “crisis of masculinity” following the rise of “softer masculinities of the late 1960’s and 1970’s” (Myrttinen 2003: 41, see also Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1450). He describes the intimate relationships that exist between boys and weapons, the “flight back to a more extreme, imagined version of what men are ‘traditionally’ like, a reaction to insecurity posed by perceived threats to one’s masculinity” (Myrttinen 2003: 42).

Some researchers point to a lack of clear models coupled with the prevalence of “complex and confusing” models of masculinity (Frosh, et al 2003: 1) while others, like Myrttinen, warn that by “analyzing and labeling certain models of male behaviour as ‘manly’ or ‘masculine’, we risk reinforcing the same violent models of males we seek to deconstruct by claiming that men are essentially violent ‘warriors’ and or ‘protectors’ drawn to weapons. This shuts out alternative male models of behaviour – those that do not exhort violence – as being ‘unmanly’ and further perpetuates the notion that to be a man is to be inherently violent.” (2003: 43)

In Dead Boy’s Can’t Dance: Sexual Orientation, Masculinity, and Suicide (2005), Canadian researcher Michel Dorais looks at the suicidal outcomes of boys who find themselves developing one of these ‘alternative male models of behaviour’. He finds that, “In spite of accumulating studies with convincing evidence, there is ongoing reluctance to recognize the link between the traditional social stigmatization of homosexuality and the elevated incidence of suicide attempts and suicides by adolescent and young adult males identified as gay by themselves or by others.” (2004: 4-5)

Importantly, Dorais finds that the year during which boys are identified as gay or bisexual is a particularly vulnerable time; that “links exist, at least for some young men, between the revelation of their homosexual or bisexual orientation – coming out [or being outed] – and the period of high risk for attempting suicide” (2004: 13). He continues:

“The cited results may suggest that having a homosexual orientation is causal in suicidality, but the evidence from studies indicates otherwise. Instead, it appears that having a homosexual or bisexual orientation in highly homophobic environments [Dorais’s emphasis] adds to many of the reported risks associated with suicide behaviours.” (2004: 13)

For the second time in recent years, Dr. Lynne Hillier and her team of researchers at LaTrobe University’s Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society (ARCSHS), have investigated these dynamics and have confirmed for us that our schools are still highly homophobic environments, too. In fact, their Writing Themselves in Again: 6 Years On project (n = 1106) reveals that incidents of sexuality-related abuse in Australian schools have increased as much as 4% since 1998. (Hillier, et al 2005: 39)

How did these ‘highly homophobic environments’, which seem responsible for so much of the bullying problem, come about? And how are they maintained? Some of the answers may lie in the intricate social and behavioural web known as ‘The Boys Code’.

‘The Boys Code’

Despite attending schools in different communities and at different points in history, and despite variations in family structure, class, and the like, almost all boys come to understand a certain ‘code’ regarding masculinity (Plummer, 2001: 1, Frosh, et al 2002: 53, 75-98). That is, through socialisation, observation and experience, these boys develop an internal sense of how to behave in order to demonstrate a sufficient degree of ‘manhood’. This sense manifests primarily from:

a) Perpetration, by the boys themselves, of stigmatising homophobia, and

b) Associated fears of that homophobia - or homophobiaphobia

(Frosh, et al 2002: Chapter 2, Greig, et al 2000: 6 and 13, Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1440, 1444 and 1446, Plummer 2001: 8).

Homophobiaphobia causes boys to feel the need to learn to avoid homophobic taunting, evade moral harassment, and do anything necessary to escape ostracism (Plummer 2001: 8). Perhaps despite their natural tendencies, some boys learn, for example, what not to say, how not to dress, and what not to do, in an effort to avoid being labeled ‘fag’, ‘homo’, ‘poofter’, etc. and avoid suffering the attendant social stigmatisations (Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1446, Frosh, et al 2002, Dorais 2004: Chapter 6, Plummer 2001 regarding ‘compulsory homosociality’, Newberger 1999: 262-265).

Research shows that this code, while steeped in homophobic vocabulary, is established well before boys are aware of sex, sexuality and what it really means to be same-sex attracted, and thus has larger social implications. Some call this universal understanding ‘The Boys Code’ and it clearly represents a broader meaning of homophobia than is generally understood. (Kimmel 2000: 2, Plummer 2001: 8, Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1445 and 1450)

Gregory Herek (2004) maps the entrance of homophobia into our vocabulary and identifies psychologist George Weinberg as the first to use the term, in his 1972 book Society and the Healthy Homosexual (some suggest that he coined the term in 1967). It was with this invention, Herek observes, that the ‘problem’ of homosexuality shifted in ownership from the same-sex attracted individual to the perpetrator of hatred and fear of the homosexual. Longstanding hostility towards same-sex attraction finally had a name and homophobia as a social problem was popularised. (Herek 2004)

Some prefer to relate homophobia to heterosexism (the assumption by society that everyone is heterosexual) and some see homophobia as an extension of misogyny (the hatred of women), or effeminophobia (the hatred of effeminate behaviour in males). (Plummer 2001: 1, Herek 2004: 9)

There may in fact be some truth to these ideas and in certain circumstances these meanings might have genuine application, but as time has passed and as more of us have attempted to make sense of what is happening with our boys or have tried to gain insight into our own experiences of boyhood, bullying, and masculinity development, we have observed that none of these meanings go far enough in explaining what has happened or what is occurring now. (Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1440, Frosh, et al 2003: 2, Rigby 2003: 4)

Thus, it can be argued that we need to create a term other than ‘homophobia’ to describe these dynamics of The Boys Code, so as not to confuse the technical meaning of homophobia and so as to more accurately convey the spirit, content and outcome of boys’ behaviour. Sociologists Kimmel and Mahler (2003: 1440) might suggest the alternative ‘gay-baiting’.

Herek (2004: 9) explores the ambiguous nature of the term homophobia, with its literal meaning conveying a fear of man or fear of humankind. Interestingly, Herek goes on to refer to Kimmel’s earlier 1997 argument that “contemporary homophobia is ultimately men’s fear of other men – that is, a man’s fear that other men will expose him as insufficiently masculine” (Kimmel in Herek 2004: 9), and suggests that the real dynamic at play is homosexophobia or, alternatively, that society has become so used to the derogatory term homo (as in ‘He’s such a homo!’) that homophobia is less about Homo sapiens and more about ‘homos’ (homosexuals).

This might all seem like useless semantics but there is value in being clear about exactly what is going on, especially as this language is being used to target boys for victimisation and stigmatisation.

There are similar problems with the use of phobia, as phobias, diagnostically, indicate the psychodynamic condition of “intense fear response to a particular object or category of objects. It is irrational, recognised by the patient as not objectively appropriate. And it is associated with unpleasant psychological symptoms that interfere with the life of the phobic individual” (American Psychiatric Association, 1980, as quoted in Herek 2004: 9-10).

Herek suggests that, “a complete understanding of antigay hostility requires analysis of its roots in culture and social interactionism as well as in individual thought processes. Using the language of illness to discuss antigay… hostility may seem like a useful political or rhetorical tactic, but I believe it diverts us from understanding the phenomenon.” (Herek 2004: 11)

More on this matter will certainly be written in the years to come and perhaps some more nuanced terminology will be assigned to genuinely reflect the full spectrum of processes underlying this form of bullying behaviour. Here, however, we will continue to use the commonly accepted language available to us.

“Gay-baiting suggests that he is a failure at the one thing he knows he wants to be and is expected to be – a man.”
- Kimmel and Mahler (2003)

Homophobia is indeed an active and insidious part of nearly all young men’s lives, whether those young men or boys are same-sex attracted or not. And much of the homophobic activity that boys engage in or are engaged by is in fact not about being gay, as such, and is not about gay sex but is instead about masculinity and perceived acceptable or unacceptable masculine behaviours. Further, the stigma of being marked as ‘gay’ or ‘faggot’ or ‘poofter’, etc. carries far-reaching social and emotional effects for all involved. (Plummer 2001: 3, Herek 2004, Frosh, et al 2002: Chapters 2 and 7, and Frosh, et al 2003; also of interest Kimmel and Mahler 2003 and Newberger 1999: 184-202 and 262-263)

In his research, Herek (2004: 14) highlights five features of stigma that apply here:

1. “Stigma refers to an enduring condition or attribute, a physical or figurative mark borne by an individual.”

2. “The attribute or mark is not inherently meaningful; meanings are attached to it through social interaction.”

3. “The meaning attached to the mark by the larger group or society involves a negative valuation. The attribute is understood by all to signify that the bearer is a criminal, villain, or otherwise deserving of social ostracism, infamy, shame, and condemnation.”

4. “Stigma engulfs the entire identity of the person who has it. Stigma does not entail social disapproval of merely one aspect of an individual… Rather, it trumps all other traits and qualities. Once they know about a person’s stigmatized status, others respond to the individual mainly in terms of it.”

5. “The roles of the stigmatized and normal are not simply complementary or symmetrical. They are differentiated by power. Stigmatized groups have less power and access to resources than do normals.”

There are many fiery arguments continuing to take place about the origins of masculinity and links are often drawn between masculinity, gender, sex, and sexuality. Generally, the debates are about whether masculinity is a result of nature, nurture, or a combination of the two. And if a combination of the two, to what degree does each shape boys’ outcomes. (Plummer 2001: 6, Greig, et al 2000: 3, Jackson 2005 in Ingraham 2005: 15-37, Newberger 1999) Frosh, et al suggest the possibility of viewing the construction of masculinity as “products of interpersonal work, accomplished through the exploitation of available cultural resources such as the ideologies prevalent in particular societies.” (2003: 2)

“The processes that confer privilege on one group and not another are often invisible to those upon whom that privilege is conferred.”
- UN Development Program (2000)

In Thinking Straight: The Power, the Promise, and the Paradox of Heterosexuality, Dr. Chrys Ingraham (2005:2) observes that more often than not, heterosexuality is presented as the “good, normal and natural form of sexual expression”, with heterosexuality in opposition to a socially constructed homosexuality (See also Herek 2004: 16 and Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1440). Some would argue that sexuality ‘categories’ have been created in order to provide a value system in which we can place ourselves (Ingraham 2005: 1-11). “This means”, writes Ingraham, “we attach to these categories levels of acceptability and claim social status and legitimacy depending upon which level we occupy. In this heteronormative system where heterosexuality becomes institutionalized and is held up as the standard for legitimate and expected social and sexual relations, bisexuality is less valued and homosexuality is least valued.” (2005: 2)

Dr. Ingraham (2005: 6) predicts that there is a “distinct possibility that the patriarchal institution of heterosexuality and its marriage requirement is rapidly changing and becoming less compulsory.” This in part due to the decreasing importance of religious institutions and increasing awareness and change in regards to gender, sexuality, gender politics, etc. It has yet to be seen what, if any, effects this will have on the ways in which boys idealise a certain type of masculinity.

Kimmel and Mahler (2003: 1446) suggest that, “Research has indicated that homophobia is one of the organizing principles of heterosexual masculinity, a constitutive element in its construction. And as an organizing principle of masculinity, homophobia – the terror that others will see one as gay, as a failed man – underlies a significant amount of men’s behaviour, including their relationships with other men, women, and violence. One could say that homophobia is the hate that makes men straight.”

Taking a similar stance, Plummer (2001) claims that it is by understanding homophobic meanings in a chronological fashion - as they are entered into a boy’s vocabulary; as they evolve - that one can deconstruct boys’ use of anti-gay tactics and begin to draw conclusions about the “foundations of homophobic prejudice” inherent in The Boys Code. In pursuit of this argument, he identifies distinct stages in the development of homophobic moral harassment among boys:

Stage 1
Homophobia because of perceived immaturity
(Usually starting in mid-primary school)

Stage 2
Homophobia because of a lack of group conformity

Stage 3
Homophobia because of perceived weakness, gentleness, pacifism or lack of courage

Stage 4
Homophobia because of a boy’s relationships with girls, or a lack thereof

Stage 5
All of the above with implied sexualisation
(Usually starting in secondary school)

It is in mid-primary school that anti-gay terms find their way into boys’ vocabularies - terms like fag, homo, poofter. By the middle of their secondary schooling these boys will be able to place such terms, according to specific ranking, on a scale of severity and stigma. Some terms will, over time, become worse than others and more sexualised in their implications. (Plummer 2001)

At this mid-primary stage, boys are too young and underdeveloped sexually to genuinely incorporate sexual meanings into their use of these terms. However, their language is loaded with a certain power and it is used to great effect in schoolyard politics, is clearly understood to be derogatory, and is never directed towards girls - it is often gendered years before its users have much of a notion of the meaning of homosexuality. (Plummer 2001: 1 and 2, Kimmel 2000: 4, Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1453, also of interest Newberger 1999: 184-185 and 191-192)

The implied meanings evolve and become richer as the school years pass. At first, homophobic terms are likely to be directed towards boys not because of perceived sexuality but because they cry or in some other way appear not to be tough enough (whatever ‘tough enough’ is). Additionally, they can be used to label boys who are prone to certain actions or behaviours or styles, certain “subtle departures from collective standards” (Plummer 2001: 2 and 5; see also Greig 2000: 3, Kimmel 2000: 4). These non-gendered uses of generally homophobic terms might be applied in response to a boy’s achievement of high academic standards, his obedience towards a teacher, etc. And, in these early stages, homophobia might be exercised on boys who have bodies which are slow to reach physical maturation, who show vulnerability, who are not physically strong, or who lack assertiveness or aggressiveness. In many ways, physicality is the primary gauge for measuring masculinity at this level. (Plummer 2001, Frosh, et al 2003, Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1445)

A boy’s relationships with girls might also determine his vulnerability to homophobic treatment. In primary school it is expected that boys will socialise only with boys. Plummer calls this dynamic “compulsory homosociality” and observes that later on, in secondary school, everything begins to change and it is the boy that does not socialise closely enough with girls that becomes “suspect” (Plummer 2001: 2). Further, there may be attempts to measure a boy’s femininity or test his willingness to objectify girls (Frosh, et al 2003: 3, Plummer 2001: 5 and 13, Kimmel and Mahler 2003: 1453-1454).

By early-to-mid secondary school, homophobic words are ripe with meaning and possess well-established codes regulating their use (e.g. to whom they should be directed and under what circumstances). They begin to embody sexual connotations which are added onto their earlier meanings of weakness, etc. Plummer suggests that: aggressively and obviously heterosexual boys generally avoid criticism; boys thought to be bisexual or ‘active’ gay boys (those who receive oral stimulation from boys but do not provide oral stimulation to other boys or who penetrate but are not penetrated by other boys) are more vulnerable; boys believed to be ‘passive’ (providing oral stimulation to other boys or being penetrated by other boys) are victims of the harshest homophobia.

Still, pre-secondary school homophobia among boys is generally not sexual in nature but continues to stem from the non-sexual triggers identified earlier (failure to socialise according to the ‘norm’, getting good marks, dressing outside of the ‘norm’, etc.). It is only in the rare instance that homophobia results from an individual victim’s actual sexual behaviour. And boys who attract homophobia need not be gay, for homophobia is often heading their way years before they reach anything like sexual maturity. (Plummer 2001: 5, Frosh, et al 2002: Chapters 2 and 7)

It is here in early-to-mid secondary school that homophobic terms reach their peak usage (Plummer 2001: 2). Their use is by now quite frequent among boys located in peer groups, boys at recess, boys on their lunch break and boys on their trips to and from school. And homophobic graffiti has found its way onto desk tops and toilet walls. Mapping these developments assists in identifying what Plummer (2001: 3) calls ‘Safety Zones’ and ‘Danger Zones’:

Safety Zones = Classrooms, libraries, hallways, close to school buildings, near staff rooms, and, increasingly, in front of computer monitors in campus computer labs…

Danger Zones = Sports grounds, toilets, change rooms, secluded areas, school perimeters, trips to and from school, secluded laneways and on school busses…

Homophobia is occurring most frequently outside of adult-supervised areas. In fact, adults have very little to do with any of these developments, save their failure to adequately address homophobia and masculinity directly with young people (Rigby and Barrington 2002: 55, Plummer 2001: 3, Frosh, et al 2003: 1, see also Dorais 2004).

How are these dynamics, many of which are generally considered to be adult concepts, reaching young boys if not through adult interactions?

Plummer offers ‘rolling peer pressure’ as one very strong possibility. Through rolling peer pressure, other boys - older siblings or students in higher years -“induct” younger boys into homophobic “codes” (Plummer 2001: 3, see also Rigby 2003: 4) and their attendant meanings are thus passed through the generations while both avoiding adult intervention and avoiding the effects of any progressive changes happening in the world of adults (e.g. an unchanged Boys Code despite the enactment of anti-homophobia legislation or a raised appreciation of diversity in the larger community). It is a legacy of initiation designed to aide in policing norm violations.

By the later years of secondary school the use of homophobic language becomes more infrequent. Bullies drop out of school; victims drop out school; the pursuits that were once a source of ridicule (such as academic achievement) become important to the wider student population. Developmentally, this change might be a result of a completion of meanings in that homophobic terms have now acquired their entire, sexualised, meanings and boys have largely matured, their identities finally starting to stabilise. Yet the trouble is likely not entirely over, especially for those who were on the receiving end of years of homophobic moral harassment.

Some of the homophobic pressures ease around the time that a genuine gay identity might emerge in some boys. That is, some boys are starting to realise their own same-sex attraction as the use of homophobic terminology lessens. Some experts, including Plummer, caution against assuming that all perpetrators of homophobia are themselves fighting emerging same-sex attractions, as the idea that it is the maladjusted gay or bisexual boy that is responsible for most of the homophobia would in and of itself be homophobic. It is a convenient but unlikely notion and, in Plummer’s words, an “unsustainable interpretation” as homophobia is a “widespread and modern phenomenon that infiltrates many mainstream institutions and far exceeds the minority of [boys] who become gay” (Plummer, 2001: 4). In other words, these problems are systemic problems and responses must be equally as far-reaching.

“The first step in effectively addressing bullying problems is to understand their nature and assess the extent to which they affect children’s daily lives.”
- Craig and Pepler (2003)

Before moving away from the more universal Boys Code to discuss intervention and prevention strategies, it is worth considering the Australian findings reported in the July 2005 paper Mapping Homophobia in Australia, released by The Australia Institute’s Dr. Clive Hamilton and LaTrobe’s Dr. Michael Flood. Their study set out to measure and map the extent of homophobia among Australians aged 14 and over (n = 24, 718), linking homophobia “with those who believe that homosexuality is immoral”. (Flood and Hamilton 2005: 1)

We will avoid implying that all homophobic young people perpetrate violence towards others. But it does follow that people with homophobic views are more likely to exact heterosexist or homophobic judgments on others in the form of bullying, or moral harassment, and Mapping Homophobia in Australia tells us interesting things about young people’s attitudes towards same-sex attraction, some of which bring us to think a bit beyond Plummer’s ‘rolling peer pressure’ model. That is, even if Plummer is right, where do the ideas originate from? Who teaches them to young people and do they realise the impact of their teachings?

Flood and Hamilton found that 35% of participants think same-sex attraction immoral. That is, 43% of male respondents and 27% of female respondents ‘oppose’ same-sex attraction. Respondents from the “14 to 17 age group, especially boys, are much more inclined to hold ant-gay views than young and middle-aged adults”, and “[homophobic] attitudes are closely related to levels of education…” (2005: 2) And while not every young person who considers homosexuality immoral will resort to violence, they are, as Flood and Hamilton convey, “more likely to contribute to a general attitude of intolerance that is interpreted by those who are actively homophobic to condone their vilification of gay and lesbian people.” (Flood and Hamilton 2005: 3) The findings suggest that those of us who are young and middle-aged adults are perhaps best placed to have a positive impact on this issue.

"It would seem that high school is a particularly toxic environment promoting anti-gay beliefs… It is not surprising that young people are afraid of any homosexual tendencies they perceive in themselves, for same-sex attracted youth experience very difficult times at school."
- Flood and Hamilton (2005)

Intervention and Prevention Strategies

Smith, Pepler and Rigby (2004) point out in their preface to Bullying in Schools: How Successful Can Interventions Be? that “for some two decades now, bullying has been widely recognised as a societal problem.” Ken Rigby, perhaps the ‘father’ of bullying research in Australia, points to Norway’s Dan Olweus as the overall pioneer of this work. Olweus conducted research into school-based bullying in Scandinavia starting in the 1970’s.

In 1983, in response to the consecutive suicides of three Norwegian boys, Olweus organised and implemented the first major school-based bullying intervention project, a system that would come to be known as the Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme. (Smith, et al 2004: 1)

Drawing on the work of Olweus and others, Smith, et al (2004: 2) identify several key elements of successful anti-bullying programs, to include:

1. Recognition of the need for the entire school community to have awareness of both the prevalence and seriousness of the issues at hand.

2. Time spent in discussion of these issues with teachers, parents, and students, as appropriate.

3. Acceptance of a ‘whole school approach’ to addressing bullying issues in which all facets of the approach are coordinated at various levels, as appropriate.

4. Publication of an anti-bullying policy statement which a) makes clear the anti-bullying stance and b) outlines how coordination of the policy will be managed. This statement might also outline methods for the discouragement of bullying behaviour and directions for seeking help in the event of victimisation.

The fourth element, according to Smith and company, “is sometimes described as the indispensable core feature of an anti-bullying policy.” And while these combined elements might shape the average successful anti-bullying effort, there will of course be minor variations from program to program, to include: the degree to which preventative or interventive measures are stressed; the stage at which teachers or students receive formal training in how to manage bullying; or marked differences in the ways in which surveillance and reporting are conducted. (Smith, et al 2004: 3) Additional insights can be found in each of the case studies conducted by Rigby and his team, the results of which are located in Bullying in Schools: How Successful Can Interventions Be? by Smith, Pepler, and Rigby (2004).

Generally speaking, there are two main approaches:

a) ‘Rules and Sanctions’ (Olweus largely advocates a ‘Rules and Sanctions’ approach to addressing bullying behaviours), and

b) ‘Problem-Solving’ (which shows very positive results in many circumstances).

These terms seem self-explanatory. Rigby, following a 2001 request from the Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department, set about examining the outcomes of several intervention projects which had, in various ways, employed ‘Rules and Sanctions’ and ‘Problem-Solving’ approaches. His research brought him to review programs here in Australia and programs abroad in Norway, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Spain, and Finland.

Rigby found that successful programs involve systemic change “rather than limiting the focus to controlling a child with aggressive behaviour problems or fortifying a child who is victimised [as was done in Beau’s situation as reported in The Weekend Australian]” (Smith, et al 2004: 310) Further, they address the ways in which young people form peer relationships and the ways in which peers support or reject bullying. They rely on teachers and school administrators to “create a climate that discourages bullying and encourages peer processes that support and include vulnerable children” (Smith, et al 2004: 311) and they involve open and ongoing dialogue with parents and the wider community.

“A consistent response to bullying and harassment problems within the school serves several purposes: it signals support for the child or youth being victimised or harassed; it highlights the need for interventions to support the individual who has been harassing; and it conveys a public message that bullying and harassment will not be tolerated within the school or organisation, with the aim of promoting a positive and safe climate.”
- Smith, Pepler, and Rigby (2004)

History has taught us, and Craig and Pepler (2003) insist, that the best practice is to have an array of responses available to interveners at all times and that, in order to determine specifically which response should be put into action, interveners should first gauge participants’ level of involvement in bullying. Craig and Pepler (2003: 579-581) identify three possible levels:

Level 1
Those who are relatively uninvolved in bullying or victimization, although they are negatively influenced when they form the peer group that watches bullying.

Level 2
Those who are occasionally involved.

Level 3
Those who are frequently involved
(more than twice weekly)
or have a stable involvement over time.

According to Craig and Pepler (2003: 580), “these levels of risk guide the nature and intensity of interventions for bullying and victimization… For most peers who are involved in bullying, a universal program directed at developing awareness of bullying and empowering children to intervene on behalf of victims will likely be sufficient. [Young people in Level 1 above] will benefit from a selective program specifically designed to address and prevent the developmental continuity of their peer relationship problems… [Young people in Levels 2 and 3 above] are at highest risk for involvement in bullying and victimization and experience the highest rates of associated emotional, behavioural, and social problems… [Young people in Levels 2 and 3 above] require an indicated intervention focusing not only on the serious emotional, psychological, physical, educational, and social adjustment difficulties that they experience but also on their relationship problems within such significant social systems as the family, peer group, school, and community.”

They go on to offer four questions that interveners can ask when facilitating risk assessments:

1. How frequently does bullying occur?

2. Over what period of time is the young person involved in bullying and/or victimisation?

3. In how many different places or relationships does the bullying and/or victimisation occur?

4. How serious is the aggressive behaviour and the impact associated with the bullying?

Rigby offers similar guidance and has developed a questionnaire for those who work with young people. The questions therein help respondents gauge their own particular style of responding to bullying situations and a scoring system places them (the respondents) into one of five categories:

1. Those who ascribe responsibility to the victim, “who needs to develop the capacity to resist being bullied or in some way prevent it from happening.”

2. Those who ascribe responsibility to the bully and “want to blame the bullies and treat them in an uncompromising and tough manner so as to deter their behaviour.”

3. Those who ignore bullying and “tend to ignore or belittle the issue of bullying and feel that it is generally not their responsibility.”

4. Those who problem-solve, “who are not interested in placing blame, but rather in reaching a constructive outcome for both the bully and the victim.”

5. Those who adopt a ‘smoothing approach’, who “generally feel that bullying need not be taken very seriously and that children can be best prevented from bullying others by reducing their opportunities and/or their motivation to do so.”

Rigby makes his questionnaire available via email request to ken.rigby@unisa.edu.au

Once an intervener knows their tendencies in regards to bullying intervention or prevention, measures can be developed to adjust behaviour to suit the situation.

Again, most of this knowledge has been reached within the last two decades and is still therefore quite new to us. The trend now is to incorporate consideration of these findings into prevention and intervention strategies. Awareness is on the rise in measurable ways.

In Australia, the Student Learning and Support Services Taskforce (of the Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, or ‘MCEETYA’) drafted a National Safe Schools Framework in 2002 for delivery to the public in early 2003. A large portion of the document, which is designed to guide all Australian schools in becoming safer places for all students, is dedicated to providing schools with a template in which to develop ‘whole-school’ approaches to bullying.

It declares that:

“Promoting and providing a supportive learning environment in which all students can expect to feel safe is an essential function of all schools.

Students have a fundamental right to learn in a safe, supportive environment and to be treated with respect. The Australian community rightly expects authorities charged with managing our schools, both in the government and non-government sectors, to take all available measures to ensure the safety of students, to support students and to set out clearly, transparently and explicitly the policies and programmes they have in place to fulfill this important responsibility.”

- National Safe Schools Framework, Section 2

The language of the Framework is promising and clearly reflects a new appreciation of the true underlying causes of bullying behaviour in Australia. It sets out to give schools the best possible opportunity for improving the health and wellbeing of all students, which is not to suggest that there is not more room for understanding the phenomenon of bullying. There are, after all, some elements of society that benefit greatly through maintenance of the status quo and they are not sitting idle while the rest of us try to make things a little easier for our young people. We certainly do not hold all of the answers yet and not all areas of the community are ready to swallow the truths that must be swallowed (especially regarding gender and sexuality) if real, lasting, and meaningful changes are to occur. In some communities hatred and ignorance run deep.

But there are, in addition to influential documents such as the National Safe Schools Framework, a number of organisations, both public and private, which have made it their mission to impact positively on Australia’s bullying situation. These include, but are certainly not limited to, Bullying No Way! (found at http://www.bullyingnoway.com.au), Kid’s Help Line, and a handful of social support group for victims and families. And resource materials are more readily available than ever before, such as the ‘Homophobia Exposed’ video available through Way Out (Central Victorian Youth & Sexual Diversity Project) and the SSAFE (Same-Sex Attracted Friendly Environments) teaching materials available for free download from http://www.ssafeschools.org.au or by contacting Family Planning Victoria.

Individual schools have also made tremendous headway, many of them working off of reports released over the last few years in which educators, parents, youth workers, and the like are warned that something needs to be done and needs to be done right away. Most suggest possible starting points.

We should perhaps allow these advances in understanding and practice, and the prevalence of solid evidence-based bullying-related information, to be signposts to us that Australia is heading in the right direction and at a steady and acceptable pace. And while situations like the one that Beau and so many others face daily show us that we still have some distance to cover before the vision of the National Safe Schools Framework is realised, the progress we’ve made since the days of G. Stanley Hall and J. Adams Puffer is something worth celebrating.

References

Dorias, M., 2004, Dead Boys Can’t Dance – Sexual Orientation, Masculinity, and Suicide, McGill-Queen’s University Press: Quebec

Flood, C., Shaffer, S., Safe Boys, Safe Schools, WEEA Digest, November 2000, Women’s Educational Equity Act Resource Centre: Newton, Massachusetts

Flood, M., Hamilton, C., 2005, Mapping Homophobia in Australia, The Australia Institute: Canberra

Frosh, S., Phoenix, A., Pattman, R., 2002, Young Masculinities: Understanding Boys in Contemporary Societies, Palgrave: Hampshire

Frosh, S., Phoenix, A., Pattman, R., 2003, The Trouble With Boys, The Psychologist, Vol.16, pp. 84-87, British Psychological Society: Leicester

Greig, A., Kimmel, M., Lang, J., 2000, Men, Masculinities & Development: Broadening Our Work Towards Gender Equality, United Nations Development Programme: New York

Herek, G., 2004, Beyond “Homophobia”: Thinking About Sexual Prejudice and Stigma in the Twenty-First Century, Journal of the National Sexuality Resource Center (NSRC), San Francisco State University: San Francisco

Higson, R., 2005, Bully Boys: The School of Hard Knocks, in The Weekend Australian Magazine, January 29-30, 2005, The Australian: Sydney

Hillier, L., Turner, A., Mitchell, A., 2005, Writing Themselves in Again: 6 Years On, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society (ARCSHS), LaTrobe University: Melbourne

Ingraham, C. (ed.), 2005, Thinking Straight: The Power, the Promise, and the Paradox of Heterosexuality, Routledge: New York

Kimmel, M., Mahler, M., 2003, Adolescent Masculinity. Homophobia, and Violence, American Behavioural Scientist, Vol.46 No.10, June 2003 pp.1439-1458, Sage Publications

Kimmel, M., 2000, What About the Boys?, WEEA Digest, November 2000, Women’s Educational Equity Act Resource Centre: Newton, Massachusetts

Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), Student Learning and Support Services Taskforce, 2002, National Safe Schools Framework, MCEETYA: Carlton South, Victoria

Myrttinen, H., 2003, Disarming Masculinities, Disarmament Forum 2003, No.4 pp.37-46, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research: Geneva

Newberger, E., 1999, The Men They Will Become: The Nature and Nurture of Male Character, Perseus: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Plummer, D., 2001, Policing Manhood: New Theories About the Social Significance of Homophobia, In: Wood, C. (ed), Sexual Positions, Hill of Content pp.60-75, Melbourne

Rigby, K., 2003, Addressing Bullying in Schools: Theory and Practice, Australian Institute of Criminology: Canberra

Rigby, K., Barrington, T., 2002, How Australian Schools Are Responding to the Problem of Peer Victimisation in Schools, University of South Australia: Adelaide

Seidler, V.J., 1997, Man Enough – Embodying Masculinities, Sage Publications Ltd: London

Smith, P., Pepler, D., Rigby, K., 2004, Bullying in Schools: How Successful Can Interventions Be?, Cambridge University Press: Port Melbourne, Victoria