ABSTRACT
Pikas has expounded his ideas in a couple of articles (1989), and, in much more detail, in a book in Swedish (Pikas, 1987) for which an English translation is being prepared. He claims great success for his method, though his own published evaluation seems to be based solely on a small number of case studies. Pikas has not been without his critics, foremost amongst whom is Olweus (1988). Olweus challenges Pikas’ claim that pupils who bully others feel guilt and argues instead that clinical evidence shows the opposite: pupils who bully others do not show empathy for their victims’ feelings. Olweus points out that the method does not include involvement with parents and considers that this is a weakness since parents could co-operate with the teacher to reinforce and sustain the changed attitudes and behaviours. His most stringent criticism is that the method is unethical since it is ‘built on manipulation and latent threats’ disguised as co-operation between the bullying pupil and the teacher. He says that it would be more honest for the teacher to put his or her cards on the table and simply state that bullying is unacceptable and that there will be dire consequences if it does not stop (rather as in Pikas’ ‘direct method’, in fact).
