The Analysis of Bullying Behaviors in a Classroom using the Theory of Power and Goffman’s Dramaturgy Model

• Main Authors: Shi-Qi He, 何世麒
• Other Authors: Yih-Sheue Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/q5cj24

碩士 === 國立東華大學 === 教育與潛能開發學系 === 107 === Having employed the theory of power and Goffman’s Dramaturgy Model, this research aimed to analyze the elementary school bullying, to understand it and to hopefully develop possible practices which might help changing such culture. The research took place in a sixth-grade class in an elementary school in Hualien County. The original plan was to use action research to observe and analyze the conflicts happened within the field so that the anti-bullying courses could be revised accordingly. It was also attempted to incorporate the perspective of Multicultural Education even though due to the short time frame the course wasn’t completed. The researcher used both the theory of power and Goffman’s Dramaturgy Model to probe into the peer structure, the culture and the norms of the class. The findings are: 1. The teachers and students have different powers within the class as well as within any conflict; therefore, different people can have different ‘feelings’ toward even the same behavior. Nonetheless, the homeroom teacher and the researcher had different perspectives toward conflicts as well. 2. The culture of a class or even a school may unconsciously support bullying, e.g. the dominant social culture can reinforce the statuses of students; furthermore, the high-power students may make use of discrimination and prejudice to highlight the difference between them and their low-power classmates. 3. Goffman’s Dramaturgy Model adds to the understanding of class bullying, e.g. high-power students were more capable of controlling information in bullying and low-power students were so concerned about being depreciated that they had attacking behaviors. Even though bystanders did not really need to worry about ‘impression management’, they still needed to take into consideration the possible aftermath given by the bully/bullies. 4. The researcher also learned from this research about his own teaching by reflecting and understanding the difficulties encountered by multicultural educators. For example, what position did he take regarding the class structure? What was the role that he played? What was the possible impact he had regarding the bullying? Some suggestions were made to inform the school culture, anti-bullying courses and future research.