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Exploring school bullying: designing the research question with young co-researchers

O'Brien, Niamh orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-2738-8514 and Doyle, Audrey orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-7731-6845 (2023) Exploring school bullying: designing the research question with young co-researchers. International Journal of Social Sciences, 12 (5). pp. 276-291. ISSN 1205-0276

Abstract
Participatory Action Research (PAR) empowers young people to work alongside adult researchers to determine the purpose/scope of research projects. By naming the purpose of the research, young people have the potential to transform it. Beginning with a broad question, we worked in collaboration with secondary school students (co-researchers) and staff to decide on the focal research question. Prior to recruiting the co-researchers, we conducted an ‘exploration study’ using a qualitative online questionnaire distributed to the wider school population, to ascertain the core bullying issues. Although the questionnaire highlighted complexities in recognising bullying, misogynistic behaviour was stressed as a particular concern. In-depth discussions with the coresearchers and reflections on the questionnaire findings over several months gave us further insight into this issue, as well as the complexities of determining bullying/banter. Our research question was determined as: “Does gender bullying happen at this school?” Two distinct methodological and process-related insights arose from this work: power dynamics and the construct of time as duration and a non-linear process. This paper contributes to the literature on hearing stakeholder views as well as on actively including students in designing and developing research foundations, that is the research question, an under-explored topic in the wider literature.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Additional Information:Special Issue Selected Papers from the 7th World Conference on Qualitative Research)
Uncontrolled Keywords:Research Question; Bullying; Co-researchers; Participatory Action Research; developing the research question; young people as co-researchers; secondary school; power; time as duration
Subjects:Social Sciences > Education
Social Sciences > Racism
Social Sciences > Gender
DCU Faculties and Centres:Research Institutes and Centres > Anti-Bullying Research Centre (ABC)
Publisher:MDPI
Official URL:https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12050276
Copyright Information:© 2023 The Authors.
ID Code:28384
Deposited On:29 May 2023 15:43 by Audrey Doyle . Last Modified 18 Sep 2023 14:38
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