Bullying needs to be nipped in the bud; Bullies should know their actions have consequences: Elizabeth Nassem was bullied as a child and has made it her business as an adult to explore the reasons why schools have a continuing problem with the issue. The Huddersfield University researcher is now poised to set up a bullying consultancy, which she believes is the first of its kind. Hilarie Stelfox reports.
Byline: Hilarie StelfoxELIZABETH NASSEM is convinced that most of us have experienced bullying in some form and at some time in our lives.
Her own childhood in West Yorkshire was blighted by bullies at school, who threatened, taunted and beat her. Even pupils she regarded as friends would call her racist names.
The legacy of that ordeal remains with her and it still distresses her to talk about it.
As an Anglo-Egyptian - her mother is from Hemsworth near Wakefield and her dad from Cairo - Elizabeth was an obvious target. "At my primary school I was the only person of mixed race and even at secondary school there weren't many of us.
"But I don't think that was the only reason.
* RESEARCH : The reasons for bullying are very complex," she says. Today Elizabeth, 30, is critical of the anti-bullying policies used by schools and believes they are not just ineffective but may actually make the problem worse. For the last four years she has been interviewing hundreds of schoolchildren throughout the region and researching the issue of bullying for a Doctorate in Education at the University of Huddersfield. has made a detailed bullying and aims expertise to help it She has also been able to draw upon her own school days as well as her experience of teaching in many different educational institutions.
Elizabeth, who has a Masters degree in applied psychology and learning disability, can remember the isolation she felt as a result of bullying.
"I'm quite a sociable person but I felt as if I was alone for a long time and retreated into myself.
"I began to feel self-conscious and at one point, when I was 11 and 12, I got really low," she explained.
It's not unknown for victimised children to take their own lives.
Although her parents intervened on a number of occasions, Elizabeth said she never felt able to report the bullying at school.
"Children know that if you tell a teacher that can make it worse. The interventions schools are using are not working," she added. She cites an example from her time at secondary school: "There was an instance where one girl hit me, calling me names, and we had a fight.
Elizabeth Nassem, "The head teacher then made it worse by lining us up in assembly and we had study of use her others deal with zztmc190810eliz.jpg to tell him why we were fighting. Then he gave us 18 merits for making up - so another girl said she wanted to fight me to get some merits as well."
After taking her masters degree Elizabeth did a teaching diploma and has worked in both the public and private sector and with children and young people of all ages. In her early twenties she also worked in a hospital for adults with severe learning disabilities and was horrified to discover staff were abusing the patients.
"Staff stole the patient's food and let them sit in their own faeces and urine. When I complained I was told to leave and banned from the hospital," she said.
"It broadened my perspective of bullying and made me understand the overlap between bullying and abuse, oppression, vulnerability and intellectual ability.
"There is a culture of silence in some institutions because no-one wants to say anything and lose their job," she added. With her PhD almost at an end, Elizabeth is now launching a consultancy for schools who want to adopt more effective anti-bullying approaches.
She has the backing of the university's Business Mine.
Schools, she says, need to take an holistic approach: "There are discipline issues in many schools, which need to be addressed.
"One of the things that surprised me most from my research was that children say they like strict teachers who control the class.
"Bad behaviour and bullying need to be dealt with in the very early stages when the children are just calling names and squabbling. "But behaviour like that tends to get left and can easily escalate."
Elizabeth has looked into the reasons why children become bullies.
"One of the main reasons is that it makes them popular. Most of them are not thugs but they get admiration and respect, power.
"Bullying achieves things for the bully," she said.
"For the victim it causes depression, anxiety and stops them being able to do their work and achieve," she added.
Elizabeth has touched upon cyber bullying with her research and says that this new form of intimidation has dramatically increased opportunities for bullies and the magnitude of their influence.
"The whole Facebook thing, with having friends and rejecting friends, is awful really," she said.
After such extensive research Elizabeth knows that it's not easy to remove bullying from schools and institutions but believes that teachers and parents must start by encouraging children to take responsibility for their actions. "Some of the actions of bullies are actually criminal offences and once a child is past the age of criminal intent then they should understand that what they are doing is a crime," she said.
"They should know that their actions have consequences and take responsibility for themselves," she added.
She also believes its wrong to punish offenders by excluding and isolating them.
"For example, children with learning problems can become bullies because they are unofficially excluded by the fact they can't read.
"They are already disengaged from education so it just makes it worse to exclude them from school," she explained.
"Schools need to pick up learning difficulties early enough to prevent the disaffection." According to Elizabeth's research there is no such thing as a typical bully. They come from all social classes.
"Bullying is associated with people from poor, deprived backgrounds, but I came across bullying in private schools, it just tended to be more sophisticated and less physical," she said.
CAPTION(S):
* RESEARCH : Elizabeth Nassem, has made a detailed study of bullying and aims to use her expertise to help others deal with it zztmc190810eliz.jpg * THREATENED : Posed by models, this picture shows the very really fear and shock of a child being bullied. 'For the victim it causes depression, anxiety and stops them being able to do their work and achieve,' says Elizabeth Nassem * SO ALONE: People who are bullied, whether adults or children, often share the same feeling of isolation
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| Title Annotation: | Features |
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| Publication: | Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, England) |
| Date: | Aug 25, 2010 |
| Words: | 1051 |
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