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Explore the issue of bullying in Hong Kong schools and the strategies implemented to address it. This article discusses real-life cases and the policies in place to prevent and address bullying.
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School Bullying and Tackling Strategies in Hong Kong Prof. Dennis S W WONG Department of Applied Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong dennis.wong@cityu.edu.hk
The Bullying Issue in Hong Kong • Bullying is commonly perceived to be a rite of passage that everyone has to go through when they were young; • The common notion in Chinese communities is — no big deal, you learn to stand on your own feet after going through those pains.
La Salle Incidence Secondary school boy seriously assaulted in attacks This violent attack case was made known to the whole community in mid December 2003. It’s a typical bullying incident which happened in a secondary school in Hong Kong. The victim was Kit (not a real name), a quiet and skinny 15 year-old school boy. He has been seriously attacked by his classmates in various occasions dating back to 21 November 2003. On that day, a group of students kicked and punched Kit in the male changing room, bruising him and damaging his glasses. A week later another attack took place. A student pushed Kit to the floor in the classroom while others kicked his stomach and face. He then picked up a chair, threw it on Kit and put his foot on a chair.
La Salle Incidence On 1st December, the boys surrounded and pushed Kit to the floor. After kicking him in the back and head, he was turned over and punched in the face for about a minute. The attack did not stop until Kit started bleeding. Later a teacher at the school discovered the injured boy and the attack was reported to the police. Meanwhile some students secretly took video clips of the assaults and the video clips were uploaded in a website. The event immediately spread around through the internet. The bullying issue was picked up by some media agencies thereafter. The police arrested most of the attackers the next day. In the end, a total of 11 Form Five students aged between 16 and 19 were prosecuted, and eventually placed on probation, or sentenced to rehabilitation or detention centres.
CASE 2: BULLYING AND REVENGE • Kelvin, a big, twelve-year old boy, often made use of his strong body to bully other. One incident happened when Kelvin was playing in the basketball ground with three friends just after lunch at school. As an eleven-year old classmate called Andy passed by, Kelvin and three classmates threw pencils at him for fun. • Although Andy stared at them with hatred, they continued, throwing soft drink cans and garbage at Andy. Unable to take it anymore, Andy picked up a broom and hit them. As there were a lot of people on Kelvin’s side, and since he was so big in size, they easily knocked Andy down. • Andy was extremely angry; he went up to the second floor and returned to Kelvin with a cutter knife. During the fight, the cutter hurt Kelvin’s left eye seriously. Andy was charged by the Police for the assault on Kelvin.
THE VICTIM OF BULLYING WAS EVENTUALLY CHARGED • In the above case, the one who was seriously hurt had been involved in bullying others for a certain period of time. • For many bullying cases, it is noted that the offenders and victims are often classmates or friends before the violence occurred and physical violence is either a result of the continuing bullying or revenge taken against the bullies by the victim. • For the second, Andy was eventually taken to police for seriously injuring Kelvin’s eye. Ironically, the offender, Andy, was in fact a victim of continued school bullying. • This incident is a typical case of school violence which is a manifestation of an abuse of power.
Policy against Bullying • To tackle bullying, the Education Bureau has developed 2 packages since 2003, namely “Co-creating a Harmonious School” and “Co-creating a Harmonious School: Stop Bullying”, to encourage schools to formulate a “zero tolerance” policy against school bullying and to apply different preventive strategies, so as to help schools face the issue. • The “Co-creating a Harmonious School” CD-ROM is distributed to secondary and primary schools with suggestions and teaching materials to prevent and handle school bullying. • The web-based resource package on “Co-creating a Harmonious School: Stop Bullying”, which provides implementation lesson plans to develop students’ empathy through the use of drama skills and suggestions on parent education with “Whole School Approach”. (Education Bureau, 2010)
Suggested Campaigns in Anti-bullying Package • Schedule “Anti-bullying Day / Week” for primary schools and secondary schools to promote harmony and deliver anti-bullying message • Activities -Good People and Good Deeds -Peace Ambassadors’ Election -FM Caring Radio Lunchtime Jukebox -Four-panel Comic Script Design Competition -Stop Bullying Slogan Design Competition -Harmony School Poster Design Competition -Lyrics Writing Competition -Interclass 3-on-3 Football Tournament -Interclass Bulletin Board Design Competition -Harmony School Photo Contest • Curriculum / Lesson Plans -15 lesson plans for Primary Schools -11 lesson plans for Secondary Schools • Create Websites for reference (Education Bureau, 2010)
Watch video • Please take a look of a case of traditional bullying occurred in a secondary school.
Bullies exist: but the authority has not taken any proper action to deal with them A Vicious Cycle of Bullying 2. Victims exist: but they do not know how to escape from victimization 3. Bystanders exist: but they do not intervene properly
We advocate for the use of Restorative Practice • Research has found that children from an aggressive background are more likely to get involved in violence. The process by which school bullying is learnt is circular: a victim becomes a bully, and in turn, creates more victims and more bullies; • As teenagers enmesh themselves in bullying subcultures, they become insensitive to others’ feelings. So, instead of harsh disciplinary action, restorative practices of mediation and of mending broken relationships in tackling bullying are effective ways; • It helps to rebuild a harmonious culture in schools and implement Life Education curriculum to uproot bullying.
Publications on Restorative Justice Application, Development & Limitationsof Restorative Justice in the Hong Kong Juvenile Justice System (in Chinese)
School Leadership Teachers Social workers Vision and skills in Restorative Practices Students Parents Curriculum and out-of-class room activities A Whole-school Restorative Approach • A clear set of policy highlighting restorative strategies and procedures for dealing with bullying and other misbehaviors; • The policy should be made known to all parties • Teachers, social workers or counselors, parents should be trained to use restorative practices in handling students’ conflicts and misbehaviors; • Involvement of students in conflict resolution; • Providing students with life education curriculum with emphasis on skills training in conflict resolution and restorative questions enquiry.
School Leadership Teachers Social workers Vision and skills in Restorative Practices Students Parents Curriculum and out-of-class room activities Elements of the Whole-school Restorative Approach • Work closely with the school principal and management committee to sign a “protocol” fight against bullying; • Provide 6-session social skills training for bullies and 6-session assertiveness training for victims; • Provide 8-session life education curriculum for students from primary 4 to secondary 3; • Organize one-day staff development program for all teachers and some intensive workshops for class-masters; • Organize talks for parents and some intensive workshops for parents of bullies or victims; • Provide mediation skills training for school social workers, counselors and senior students; and • Conduct on-going sharing on the implementation of restorative practices among senior personnel in schools.
Social Skills Training for Bullies • Understanding individual differences; • Experiencing exclusion and documenting feelings; • Thinking from other’s viewpoint: Ways for develop and show empathy; • School bullying incidences and impacts; • Understanding victim’s and their family members’ feeling; • One-day in probation home; • Restoring relationships: How good is harmony; • Ways for proper emotion release and anger management; • Expanding word power: Use of new phrases • or wordings.
Assertiveness Training for Potential Victims • Individual human rights and your own rights; • Facing challenges: starting from self-protection; • Be strong in posture and movements; • Appropriate verbal and non-verbal expressions; • Use of ‘I” Message; • Gaining true friendship and work with mentors; • Develop self-competence by documenting your feelings and thinking.
Essences of Peace Education Curriculum • Revenge vs Resolve; • Using restorative conference to break bullying cycle; • How to practice restorative enquiry; • How to resolve simple conflicts on your own; • Learn to be a peer mediator; • Be a harmony ambassador. • Learn to use “Restorative Enquiry”
Instead of calling the police, I suggested the school to use restorative conference to resolve the issue.
After mediation, the boy and his father apologized to the girl and the girl pleaded the school principal not to report the case to the police; • As you can see that the case was eventually properly handled. What could have been a tragic, ruined future for the boy turned out to be a happy resolution for both parties.
Train Teacher/ Student Counselor be a Good Facilitator As the teacher/counselor involved in this case has been under our supervision, I provided her the following advices and assisted her to conduct the conference. • Restorative conference is a delicate process critical to the outcome of restoration. To be a good facilitator, one has to be genuine, impartial, speak less and listen more; • A facilitator has to be able to apply the reframing technique to facilitate understanding of the conflicting positions and interests of the parties involved; • A facilitator often induces forgiveness and acceptance of the conflicting parties, healing both the bully and the victim. That is the most difficult part about the whole thing.
Basic Restorative Practice Skills • Showing warmth and compassion; • Parties own the problem, be patient for an agreement; • Impartial and non-judgmental; • Respect all parties; • Empathically listening; • Empowering participants to come up with options; • The less facilitator says the better; • Be impartial: following the conference script.
Conclusion • An effective approach should educate bystanders, deter bullies and at the same time empower victims. • Students may develop an empathy as well as resiliency that protects them from becoming violent themselves or that makes them less vulnerable to the influence of violence. • Empathy is an important factor of internal harmony and personal emotional stability. • Resiliency is related to protective factors, which are crucial for keeping the youngsters from committing law-breaking acts.
References • Chan, H.C. & Wong, D.S.W. (2015). The overlap between school bullying perpetration and victimization: Assessing the psychological, familial, and school factors of Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong, Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24 (11): 3224-3234. • Chan, H.C, Wong, D.S.W. (2015 online first), Traditional school bullying and cyberbullying in Chinese societies: Prevalence and a review of the whole-school intervention approach, Aggression and Violent Behavior, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2015.05.010. • Education Bureau. (2010). “Zero Tolerance School Policy” Co-creating a harmonious school: Stop bullying. Hong Kong: Guidance & Discipline Section, Education Bureau. • Sullivan, K., Cleary, M. & Sullivan, G. (2004). Bullying in Secondary Schools - What it looks like and How to manage it. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.Wong, D.S.W., Chan, H.C.O., & Cheng, C.H.K. (2014). Cyberbullying perpetration and victimization among adolescents in Hong Kong. Children and Youth Services Review, 36 (1), 133-140. • Wong, D.S.W., Cheng, C.H.K., Ngan, R.M.H., & Ma, S.K. (2011). Program effectiveness of a restorative whole-school approach for tackling school bullying in Hong Kong. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 55 (6), 846-862. • Wong, D.S.W., Lo, D.P.P., Lo, T.W. & Ma, S. K. (2008). School bullying among Hong Kong Chinese Primary Schoolchildren, Youth and Society, 40(1), 35-54. • Wong, D.S.W. (2004). School bullying and tackling strategies in Hong Kong, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 48, 537-553.
