Implications: academic and practical

The aim of this research was to investigate school level factors using a multilevel model analysis. New measures were developed as school inclusion had not been measured adequately in previous studies. The findings of this research provide further evidence that there are differences between schools in terms of inclusion and attitudes towards inclusion and that the way in which schools approach inclusion even impacts upon the students’

general experiences of bulling and victimisation, regardless of whether they have SEND. Previous studies which examined school level factors including inclusion in schools have used fairly limited approaches. Many studies rely on the pupils to provide information about the school climate. For example, Gendron et al. (2013) asked children about their perceived school climate (8 items), focusing on their school environment. Fink, Patalay, Sharpe and Wolpert (2018) used a 7 item measure with the children to measure school climate. Similarly, Hung et al. (2014) used a scale (36 items) to measure children’s experiences of a variety of factors including classroom social climate, school climate, discipline-clear rules, fair treatment, safety, etc. Shetgiri et al. (2013) used a similar approach, using one item to ask parents how safe they felt their child’s school was. More specifically, Georgiadi et al. (2012) investigated typically developing children in inclusive and non-inclusive settings. The children were considered to be in an inclusive setting if the school had an inclusion classroom operating and a non-inclusive setting if the school did not have an inclusion classroom or other special education inclusion practices and there were no students with intellectual disabilities in the class or the school. These various approaches to measuring school inclusion indicate that a more robust approach was needed in order to access school inclusion. The decision was taken to use a policy analysis score, the Ofsted report analysis score, parent experiences, the actual Ofsted grades, child climate perceptions, teacher attitudes and an additional measure of parent attitudes to complement teacher attitudes. All of these different measures aimed to access school inclusion from different aspects, with the intention of creating an overall, holistic approach to measuring inclusion. This was a newly developed approach and again provided information on how to measure school level differences rather than relying on student reports.

While the newly developed school level measures were not entirely useful in predicting victimisation, bullying, and follower behaviours in the model, this may be due to the small sample of schools, which meant there was not enough variance in these measures between schools to indicate a pattern. However, for bullying, follower behaviours and victimisation, overall Ofsted grades (Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, or Inadequate) were significant predictors, i.e. as Ofsted grades improved, reports of bullying and victimisation decreased. More specifically, all the subscores within the Ofsted report (pupil achievement, teacher quality, leadership, and pupil behaviour) significantly predicted victimisation, bullying and follower behaviours and in the expected direction. This indicates that as each of these facets of the Ofsted report increased, levels of bullying, follower behaviour and victimisation decreased. The new measures, however, did predict defender behaviour, with parent experiences, policy scores, Ofsted scores, teacher attitudes, and parent attitudes all positively predicting defending. This is important to consider, as it suggests that school level factors are associated with bullying incidents and that there is something that some schools are doing that is associated with lower levels of bullying/victimisation. As stated above, it is interesting to consider why the new

measures appear to predict positive behaviours, i.e. defender behaviour, while they are not useful at predicting negative behaviours, i.e. victimisation, bullying and follower

behaviours.

The newly developed measures, while not successful at predicting any of the

bullying roles (except defenders), could prove useful in future research into schools. There was a rigorous process for the development of the Ofsted and policy coding schemes, with several revisions. These coding schemes would be useful in future research that aims to investigate school inclusion because they could be used as a means to triangulate data collected using other methods/sources. The policy and Ofsted coding schemes had a moderate significant correlation, indicating that they are both measuring similar concepts,

potentially acting as a measure of school inclusion. Both measures could be used together to create an overall impression of school inclusion based on the different sources (policies as well as Ofsted reports). Future research could investigate whether the measures

developed in this research correlate with children’s perception of school climate beyond just inclusion, looking at whether they correlate with the factors presented by Hung et al (2015), such as authority, student behaviour, student support, etc. Previous research relies heavily on children’s perception of school climate (Gendron et al., 2013; Hung et al., 2014; Shetgiri et al., 2013) and so it would be interesting to investigate whether children’s

perceptions of their school climate reflect the more objective measures. If there is no association, research could be carried out into the potential reasons as to why; if whether their bullying role influences their perceptions of climate, as suggested by Nickerson et al. (2014), who found that defenders perceived their school to have a more positive climate than children who were bullies or victims. It is clear from the research carried out in this thesis that it does matter what schools do and how they approach inclusion, as the different measures of inclusion were related to bullying or victimisation. This indicates that school level factors are important to consider in future research and researchers should focus on exactly how schools create a climate that is associated with lower levels of bullying and victimisation.

Very little previous research has been conducted into the bullying participant roles in children with SEND. Kaukiainen et al. (2002) and Nabuzoka and Smith (1993) did not investigate roles beyond bully, victim and ‘not involved’ and so there was limited

understanding as to what roles children with SEND had within bullying. The current research found that children with SEND were more likely to be followers than children without SEND. This may be due to the low levels of self-esteem that children with SEND typically have (Miyahara & Piek, 2006; Westwood, 2001). Children with SEND may follow the dominant child, who may be a bully, because they do not have the confidence to go against the bully or stand up to them. Additionally, children with SEND may become followers in order to avoid being the target themselves, deciding that supporting the bully would be safer than opposing them (Salmivalli et al., 1999). Programs such as the KiVa program could be more widely used and developed in UK schools, as this provides highly structured materials in class to promote discussion, group work, online activities, and role playing exercises to encourage students to consider the bullying process (KiVa, 2018). These programs encourage students to reflect on what behaviours they adopt when

bullying happens, which could lead to them evaluating and changing their own behaviour. Additionally, students with SEND could be supported in terms of their confidence and self- esteem in order to potentially reduce the amount of follower behaviours they carry out. However, if they become followers to avoid being victimised themselves, they need to be reassured they will not become a target. This can be done by addressing and reducing identity-based bullying in schools, so that children with SEND feel safe enough to not take on the follower role. Research needs to be done specifically on this area, investigating the actual reason why these children fall into this behaviour, and whether, if they become a follower they are, indeed, less likely to be victimised.