Vouchsafing the Contradiction: Exploring School Principals’ Perception and Practices to Manage Bullying

Abstract

This study explores the perceived effectiveness of the disciplinary approach where
the bully is openly confronted for his actions by establishing negative consequences
to strengthen the victim approach, where the victim is provided with a skill set backed
by the research to handle various types of bullying on his own. I purposely selected
and interviewed five school principals to understand their take on two intervention
approaches, using a self-constructed, semi-structured interview guide. All the
principals worked in five different private schools in Lahore, with a minimum of 2
years of experience as a principal and a pre-requisite of managing bullying using
both intervention approaches. The data were coded and arranged in themes using
reflexive thematic analysis. The findings elaborate that although principals may
discourage traditional disciplinary approaches, they nevertheless regard them as
highly effective in managing bullying in their schools.