From Bystanders To Mediators

School bullying bystanders can have a strong influence on the escalation of school bullying events.Yet,it is difficult to require them to react positively to bullying considering that many concerns may be involved.This study uses the Shared Concern method and conducts case mediation among primary school students in order to explore a simple and effective procedure of bullying mediation.This procedure is then applied to the study of group counseling of peer mediation of school bullying as an attempt to explore the way of transforming passive bystanders to active mediators.This study reports the process of teacher's mediation method and the process of peer mediation training and guidance designed for students.Firstly,this study reviews the existing literature on the topics of school bullying,school bullying bystanders and peer mediation.The concept of school bullying is defined,and strategies of anti-school bullying are explained from the perspective of restorative justice.In addition,bullying incidents are collected from fifth grade students from a primary school in Shanghai,and case mediation are systematically conducted.Based on these cases,a simplified procedure and its criteria are established under the framework of the Shared Concern method.Furthermore,group training and guidance based on the concept of the Shared Concern are provided to the students by the researcher,with details involving cognitive intervention on bullying recognition and perception.Lastly,the students are post-tested by using the role orientation scale and pro-victim attitude scale,and the results are compared so as to validate the effect of group counseling.Through case mediation,it is discovered that the effective application of the Shared Concern method in China needs more flexible mediation procedures and criteria.Firstly,depending on how the bullying is discovered,mediation can begin with the victim.Secondly,when the bullying gang is not strict and the suspected bullies are highly trusted by the teacher,collective conversations between the teacher and the suspected bullies can play a positive role in the mediation.Thirdly,mediation can be brief and on a multiple basis.Lastly,two-way commitment is necessary when the victim behaves aggressively.The data obtained from the questionnaires before and after the test shows that group counseling with peer mediation has a significant impact on participants' role orientation when students encounter bullying(P<0.01).There is an increasing number of students who are willing to take positive action when bullying happens.In addition,the increased score of students' pro-victim attitude shows that group counseling also has a significant impact on students' pro-victim attitude(P<0.05),and that students are more likely to approach victims.According to the findings above,this study suggests that the simplified procedure derived from the Shared Concern method can be an effective method for teachers and students to resolve school bullying in China.It is important for teachers to acquire the method of mediating bullying before providing training and guidance of peer mediation.It is an effective anti-bullying strategy that teachers should mediate difficult bullying cases while students can actively participate in peer mediation of tackle minor bullying cases brought by class disputes and conflicts.