Anti-bullying tensions in Chile: a figurational social-ecological analysis of policies, schools and families

In this paper we use the idea of tensions to describe the ways the Chilean Ministry of Education, schools, and families fail to converge over the enactment of anti-bullying policies and the demands that they place on each party. Although schools have always been charged with prescribing appropriate norms for peer behaviour, a contemporary characteristic of this moral order is the prescriptive and controlling nature of anti-bullying policies. We use a figurational social-ecological perspective to analyse qualitative interview data with teaching and professional staff generated in 12 schools across two Chilean cities. Our findings are focused on staff members' divergent expectations about the effectiveness and exigencies of anti-bullying policies, and their subjective ideas about childhood and behavioural norms and tendencies. We find they are almost unanimous in reproducing a blame culture that makes socially deprived homes and communities responsible for poorer conduct. In effect this leads the schools to view themselves as disconnected from their surroundings, despite the anti-bullying policies requiring them to have ever-greater chains of dependency with these communities. By combining a figurational perspective with a social-ecological model, we identify webs of action and interdependence across multiple levels (and times) of society affecting how anti-bullying policy is implemented.