School characteristics and bullying: Björn Eriksson theory

When we talk about bullying, we usually relate it to a specific environment, the school environment. But why is that? Why don’t we talk as much about bullying in the street or a sports club? Do schools have specific characteristics that allow and promote bullying to appear? This last question is the one I will try to answer in this post. 

Eriksson (2001) and Eriksson et al. (2002) refer to four aspects of the school context that impact bullying. First, pupils spend a long time, or an undefined amount of time, at school. Second, pupils are unable or limited in their ability to choose who they spend their time with at school. Third, pupils are not permitted to leave school. And fourth, the number and presence of pupils is somewhat arbitrary, the class can exist with one more or one less pupil and they don’t have defined roles, so any kid is necessary for the class to function (Strindberg & Horton, 2022). 

We can try to understand how these characteristics may be impacting students and therefore bullying. Spending a long time with the same people modifies interactions, we do not act in the same way with someone we will only see once in our lives than someone we will be forced to see every day for years. And this factor is also important for the relevance school has in the life of kids, school and family are their main contexts, where they spend most of their time. Therefore where they create their identities, self-stem, learn how to interact with others, and so on. 

Not being able to choose who they spend their time with is also relevant in the sense that it is uncomfortable for any human to be forced to spend time with people they do not necessarily want to be with. In other contexts, like the park, kids can choose if they want to play with one kid or another, and distance themselves if they feel like it. Which brings us to the fact that kids cannot leave school, this is considered a last resort in bullying situations. And sometimes the issue gets to the new school because the classmates find out what happened in the old school. 

And the number of kids in each class is often dictated by the space and teachers each school has instead of the wellbeing of infants and teens. That affects the type of communication there is between people, and the creation of sub-groups in the class. 

But this is just hypothetical, let’s look in detail into Erikssons theory. For this author “as a social phenomenon bullying is a consequence of normal social processes, under special conditions” Eriksson (2001). So, Eriksson claims that in organizations there are two systems operating, the administrative system and the social system. The tension between these two systems results in bullying (Institutionen, 2010).

The administrative system is the formal structure of the school, it is formed by formal leaders such as teachers and directors, classrooms and how they are organized. It also considers school laws and rules which everyone must follow. This is the framework in which interactions between pupils take place. 

The social system is the informal relationship between pupils. Without any instructions classes break down into smaller groups with their own values, rules and hierarchy, that impact the big group. The smaller groups compare themselves positively with other groups. Some people may be left out of all the small groups and therefore be associated with negative characteristics by everybody else.

“Eriksson claims that bullying is a result of four mechanisms, mechanisms that once activated are very difficult to stop. In order to stop bullying, the social system that they rely on probably needs to be destroyed.” (Jacobsson, 2010)  

Three triggering mechanisms:  

1- Aggressiveness. 

2- Power games.

3- Systemic restoration, the social system rejects individuals that are forced back into the system by the administrative system. 

And one continuity mechanism: 

4- Marginalized actors become associated with negative properties, properties that other

actors can disassociate themselves from. Which strengthens their identity. 

This theory provides an explanation for why bullying can continue for such a prolonged amount of time. In classes with a social system more powerful than the administrative system marginalized pupils assume a disadvantage position. “Eriksson argues that bullying probably does not develop where there is a powerful administrative system, as this system will stop the differentiation.” (Jacobsson, 2010)

For Eriksson the solution is to make stronger administrative systems that prevent bullying by not allowing the social systems to develop in such a way that some students become marginalized. Another possible answer would be to enhance the social systems in such a way that every student can find their group. This could be done by modifying three of the four characteristics schools have: providing easier mobility between classrooms, giving students specific roles in the classroom so everyone is somehow necessary and letting pupils choose whom they want to be in class with. 

To conclude Erikssons theory gives us more factors we can consider while trying to understand how bullying works and what can we do to solve it. But more research is needed regarding the validity of the theory and its implications. 

- ERIKSSON, B. (2001). Mobbning: en sociologisk diskussion. Sociologisk Forskning, 38(2), 8–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41203032

- Jacobsson, T. (2010). Explorations of the discourses that shape contemporary bullying prevention in Swedish schools. https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/22066

- Strindberg, J., & Horton, P. (2022). Relations between school bullying, friendship processes, and school context. Educational Research, 64(2), 242–256. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2022.2067071