Bullying, Shame and Pride Management Projects

This project began in 1996 when Eliza Ahmed undertook a PhD involving children from 32 ACT primary schools and their parents. Questionnaires were used to assess who had experienced bullying and who had been involved in bullying, how families coped with these problems, the degree to which schools were successful in controlling bullying problems, and parents' concerns and wishes for how they wanted schools to respond to the problem in the future. The project was progressed by Braithwaite, Ahmed and Morrison in 1999 when a grant from the Australian Institute of Criminology made it possible to follow up children and parents in 1999 to find out how their lives had changed. 

The project has been theoretically important in allowing Ahmed to develop her notions of shame management and how poor shame management is central to the cognitions of children who bully others and children who are bullied by others (Ahmed, Harris, Braithwaite and Braithwaite, Shame Management through Reintegration, 2001, Cambridge University Press). Survey questionnaires can be downloaded here - LifeatSchool 1996 (Child) (pdf-2,329Kb) and LifeatSchool 1999 (Child followup) (pdf-2,810Kb); LifeatSchool 1996 (Parent) (pdf-4,018Kb) and LifeatSchool 1999 (Parent followup) (pdf-1,477Kb).

In conjunction with this research program, Brenda Morrison developed a program in the Australian Capital Territory with primary school children to teach them to recognize bullying, to manage bullying problems, and to look after others who were encountering difficulties. Morrison has brought her work together in a new book from Federation Press, From Bullying to Responsible Citizenship: A Restorative Approach to Building Safe School Communities.

The Bengali version of the modified “Life at School Survey” (Ahmed, 1996) was administered in nine schools in Bangladesh to children in grades seven to ten. As in the Australian study, parents participated along with children. Participants were recruited from nine co-educational schools, both public and private, located in three school regions. These regions were targeted on the basis of their representativeness of the socio-economic diversity of urban and suburban communities.

The demographic information collected from students’ parents indicated diversity in socio-economic backgrounds. Of the entire sample of parents (n = 1362), approximately 26% belonged to the high socio-economic group (e.g., employees who hold supervisory and professional positions), 60% to the middle socio-economic group (e.g., school teachers, public servants who do not hold supervisory roles, support staff), and 12% to the lower socio-economic group (e.g., garment employees, clerical employees). The people of Bangladesh are ethnically and culturally homogeneous (98% of the population are Bengali and 83% are Muslims), and hence, information was not sought on either ethnic or religious affiliation. The average monthly salary of parents was 40,000 taka (US$ 688.00) ranging from 1,000 taka (US$ 17.00) to 380,000 taka (US$ 6535.00).   

The purpose of the study was to gain a better understanding of factors that facilitate and impede bullying in schools, workplaces and families, with a particular focus on how poor shame and pride management can exacerbate these problems. In dealing with resolution of conflicts in all three settings, the work has explored the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation and their role in promoting healthier forms of shame and pride management.

Nathan Harris has used data from the Reintegrative Shaming Experiment (RISE) to examine the relationship between shame and guilt and how the social process of shaming interacts with institutional settings and personal characteristics to produce shame/guilt feelings. An important part of this work is the challenge it mounts to assumptions that shame is an externally imposed emotional reaction, while guilt is something that we feel within as a result of our own conscience. Harris, like others in the micro foundations of democratic governance research group, argues that conscience is both personal and social, and plays a critical role in triggering both guilt and shame.

The work on the institutional factors that promote adaptive shame/guilt draws heavily on Reintegrative Shaming Theory and the idea that institutional processes that are stigmatising impede the capacity of individuals to manage shame and guilt well. What is required instead is disapproval of actions that offend or hurt others along with support and respect for the worth of the "offending" person, a form of social regulation that is captured by the phrase "reintegrative shaming."