ABSTRACT
According to The Good Childhood Report (Pople, Gwyther, Main, … Bradshaw, 2015), the most common response to the question about what prevents a good life in childhood, is bullying. There is evidence that children’s experiences of bullying are significant predictors of well-being, not only in childhood, but also into adult life and mental health and well-being therein (Copeland, Wolke, Angold, … Costello, 2013; Wolke, 2014); resilience is key here. Resilience as a concept has been the property of well-intentioned researchers with a focus on identifying a particular set of outcomes, behaviours and processes that are indicative of mental health and well-being (e.g. Rutter, 2006; Ungar, 2004). (See also Cefai in chapter 12). Rutter (1985) argues that resilience is a dynamic process that varies over time and is dependent on the interaction and accumulation of individual and environmental factors. In this chapter, we take the view that discourses around resilience that inform contemporary approaches towards bullying are shaped by neoliberal notions, which emphasise decontextualised readings of bullying, and locate accountability and responsibility for coping with this with the individual (see also, Joseph, 2013). Neoliberal education policy as Webb, Gulson, and Pitton (2013) claim, complements and extends the production of the self, whilst teaching practice linked to this promotes the development of autonomous and free individuals, who are provided with self-regulated mechanisms with the ultimate goal to become responsible for their own care (2013, p. 3). In this chapter, we show that self-responsibility, self-care and accountability are tricky concepts to apply to victims of bullying. Victims of bullying generally don’t have a choice, and the power-imbalance that is integral to this means that ‘self-responsibility’ cannot be assumed or expected.
