ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the limitations of the approach and the unique contribution it makes to international conceptualisations of, and responses to, peer-on-peer abuse. Building upon the potential for Pierre Bourdieu's theory to illustrate the particular contextual dynamics of the adolescent experience, scholars who have used Bourdieu in exploring experiences of abuse and notions of childhood are particularly helpful. The chapter demonstrates the purpose of developing a contextual account of peer-on-peer abuse, the conceptual framework through which such an account can be built. Using Bourdieu's argument of an interplay between the rules of social fields and human behaviours, Chris Jenks used the concept of 'development through dependency' to discuss the nature of 'childhood'. In the UK, US, Australia and other Western social contexts, young people move through a socially constructed period of adolescence — largely defined from the age of 13 through 18.
