94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good
Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.
Find out more
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1497681
This article is part of the Research Topic Advancing Understanding and Mitigating Antisocial and Bullying Behaviors: Insights and Strategies for School-Based Intervention View all 7 articles
School Bullying: Children and Adolescent Norms, Cultures and Identity Development
Provisionally accepted- Unviersity of Teacher Education Valais, Switzerland, St-Maurice, Switzerland
School bullying arises from a system of peers who form bonds through the repeated victimisation of others. This empirical research article examines the function of bullying within the context of children and adolescent norms and cultures, aiming to highlight the motivations underlying inappropriate and anti-social behaviour in school. The study is a multi-method qualitative inquiry undertaken in one school system in Switzerland, including participants from the two main linguistic and cultural areas (French and German-speaking regions). Primary and secondary school students took part in focus groups (76 students) or seven individual interviews (7 students), while non-participant observations were carried out in seven primary school classes (185 students). The findings indicate that when bullying occurs, it is mainly expected among peers, directly reflecting the prevailing but changing social norms within youth groups. They point to how children and adolescent identity development is related to bullying and provide ways in which education actors can act when faced with anti-social behaviours or bullying situations.
Keywords: Bullying1, norms2, youth culture3, Identity4, child5, adolescence6. (Min.5-Max. 8
Received: 17 Sep 2024; Accepted: 26 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Moody and Stahel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Zoe Moody, Unviersity of Teacher Education Valais, Switzerland, St-Maurice, Switzerland
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.