Listening to the voices of the socially marginalised: Perceptions, reality and the view from the playground.

1. Listening to the voices of the socially marginalised: Perceptions, reality and the view from the playground. Richard Taffe, PhD Charles Sturt University, Albury, NSW.

2. The aim of the presentation • Brief background to the study • Understanding rejection • Case studies of extreme rejection • Principal effects of prolonged, extreme rejection • Implications

3. Describing the peer relations experience • Popular • Average • Neglected • Controversial • Rejected

4. Understanding rejection Peer rejection is associated with a range of interpersonal and intrapersonal problems, for example: • difficulties joining in games and playing by the rules • an inability to resolve conflict • loneliness • depression • social anxiety and despair

5. Understanding rejection A consistent finding in research over the past 40 years has indicated that negative peer relations in childhood are predictive of negative long term outcomes such as • low self-esteem • dropping out of school • antisocial behaviour • delinquency • adult criminality

6. Understanding rejection • All children will experience some form of rejection during their school lives • Most children’s experience of rejection will be brief • For some children, rejection is extreme and prolonged

7. Understanding Rejection • Estimates of peer rejection vary • Most modern estimates would be around 1-2 children per classroom • Of those children identified as rejected in the first year of school 50% remain rejected six years later.

8. Understanding Rejection • Children rejected by their peers fall into two main sub-types: • Rejected (non-aggressive) • Aggressive-Rejected

9. Treating the Aggressive-rejected child • Highly resistant to standard behaviour modification • Low level of adoption of new or improved behaviours • Treatment effects often don’t last

10. The present study Typical Social Skills Training program: • Clinical training program • Peer modelling, self-as-model sessions • Classroom program • Self-monitoring in class and playground

11. Case studies • Firstly, a desire to examine more closely those cases where children remained rejected or their rejection deepened over the course of the study. • Secondly, a need to listen to the voices of those intimately involved with the experience of rejection.

12. Sources of data • Children who partnered aggressive-rejected children in the study • Other children from their classroom • Classroom teachers • Parents • Aggressive-rejected children themselves

13. Teacher thoughts about targets • Responses were often negative and occasionally reflected hostility toward the child • Many responses indicated that teachers had become exasperated with target children’s behaviour and how this was affecting the classroom atmosphere • Teachers were often inclined to accept and pass on reputational information about rejected children • Many teachers appeared to harbour grudges against particular children • Most teachers believed that rejected children were academically weak or lazy

14. Teachers’ views of targets T:He’s been to the paediatrician, as I said, and [the paediatrician] has actually said that Dennis has got very low self-esteem and he needs to be getting more in the classroom. But it’s really hard to give that to Dennis because he doesn’t give you anything to reward.

15. What peers were thinking about targets • Stories aplenty about violent or aggressive behaviour • ‘Doesn’t play fair’, ‘cheats’, ‘starts a fight when he loses’ When probed for more detail: • Peerssometimes found it hard to describe clearly or recall the details of occurrences of the target child’s misdemeanours (including their own encounters with such children) • Claims re target’s aggression were sometimes based on hearsay • Concerns about targets often related to classroom incidents, especially teacher-child interactions, not peer-to-peer playground incidents • Targets were often ignored or actively avoided in the playground

16. Children’s views of targets… Int: What do you think people might like about Dennis? Jeremy: I don’t really know because he’s usually naughty in class. And later… Int: What do you think Dennis could do to make people like him more? J: He could be… more better in class. Int: What else could he do in the playground so that people would like him more and let him join their games? J: He’s not usually naughty outside. Only sometimes.

17. What the aggressive-rejected said about themselves Interviewer: What sorts of things do you and your friends like to do? Marcus: I don’t really have any friends. And later… Int: When is it easy to play a game and have fun with other kids? Marcus: It’s never easy for me… Int: When is it hard to play a game and have fun with other kids? Marcus: Nearly always. Int: Why is it hard? Can you tell me why it’s hard? Marcus: Because everybody thinks I’m going to tackle them and be rough.

18. The aggressive-rejected Other rejectees expressed similar concerns. Int: When is it hard to play a game and have fun with other kids? Shane: Every day at school. Int: Can you tell me why it’s hard? Shane: Because sometimes they don’t want to play with you because they’re playing with other kids.

19. The aggressive-rejected Sadly, some children had actually begun to internalise their reputation with peers: Interviewer: Is there someone you don’t like at school? Marcus: Myself.

20. Cases that were resistant to treatment effects • Playground experiences were unfulfilling • Relationship with teachers was poor • Discipline measures meant that they spent periods of time isolated from peers • There was a depressing sameness about their negative school experience every day of the week. • Few opportunities to socialise with other children outside school

21. Cases that were resistant to treatment effects • Lonely • Misunderstood • Depressed about their social situation • Socially anxious • Victimized • Powerless

22. Issues arising from the cases • Reputational effects • Exclusion

23. Reputation • Status as an ‘aggressive kid’ is often maintained through hearsay • ‘Aggressive’ rejected children’s behaviour is interpreted differently to other children’s behaviour (by peers and adults) • School (and class) level processes can make instances of rule violations highly conspicuous leading to a deepening of reputational effect. • Teachers participate in practices that promote reputation-building and consolidation. • Classrooms (and schools) are interpersonal ‘hothouses’. It is hard to escape the reputation established in these environments.

24. Exclusion • Excluded children have reduced opportunities to interact with others and practise social skills • Induces a sense of learned helplessness with respect to attempts to act prosocially • Accentuates their ‘difference’ and enhances reputational effects • Increases the sense of alienation from the peer group, the class and the school • Increased alienation may lead to rejection of socially approved standards of behaviour

25. What this means for our understanding of aggressive-rejected children • We need to look carefully at the systems that maintain children’s social status in schools • Intervention models that focus only on the individual ‘dysfunctional’ child need to be revised • How we look at children who are aggressive-rejected needs to be changed • Are they ‘Architects of their own downfall’ or ‘victims of circumstance’? • The role of social context and especially classroom teachers needs to be carefully evaluated

26. Turning things around for the aggressive-rejected • A greater emphasis on relationship-building in teacher education programs. • Adoption of relationship-building approaches to education in schools (cooperative learning, class projects, school-wide citizenship, cross-grade activities). • Sensitizing peer groups to the anatomy of interpersonal relations (e.g., talking about how to make friends, how to share, take turns; what to do if someone doesn’t want to play with you, share etc). • Intervention must be focussed on the child in context. Interventions are unlikely to work when the effects at the classroom and school level are ignored or underestimated.