Citation

Chan JHF. J. School Violence 2009; 8(2): 177-190.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/15388220802074199

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

For many researchers, the concept of a power imbalance is central to the understanding of bullying, and its presence in the bully-victim relationship is a prerequisite condition that needs to be fulfilled before bullying is deemed to have taken place. Despite the concept's central importance in many definitions of bullying, the nature of the power imbalance in many types of interpersonal aggression invariably labelled as bullying remains unexplored and unclear, and the concept itself has not received much empirical investigation. One major reason for the absence of experimental data on this important issue in bullying can be attributable to the over-reliance on anonymous questionnaires in the extant bullying literature. From the data collected using a newly developed non-anonymous instrument, Chan (2002) found that in the elementary school sample surveyed, a large percentage of bullying was carried out by one's peers or age-equals, and not by someone outside of one's class. The importance of these findings was examined in the context of the conceptual difficulties ensuing from the power imbalance assumption, as well as the implications for school management (e.g., play-time arrangements) and teacher training.