The Absent Victim: Schools’ Assessment of the “Victimization Process”

Introduction

In institutions such as schools, categorizations are important tools for professionals in making sense of their daily work and in helping them to manage various dilemmas and problems in their work (Anthias, 2005; Järvinen & Mik Meyer, 2003; Lipsky, 1980). Such institutional categories can also be understood as related to discourses on a societal level. In the present study, we are interested in how schools define and categorize students who have been subjected to violence and harassment at school. The focus is on how the category of “victim” is present in the talk about violence, harassment, and bullying.

Swedish investigations have shown that the risk of being a victim of different sorts of violence is prevalent and extensive in schools (Brottsförebyggande rådet [BRÅ], 2009). This pattern is also more visible and widespread when it comes to older children in the age group 13 to 15 years (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2012). Since the 1990s, we have also been witnessing a radical change in schools’ approaches to violence and violent behavior (Estrada, Pettersson, & Shannon, 2012). Increasingly, schools tend to treat violence in schools as a crime, which means that it becomes a police matter rather than a pedagogical problem. Another change is that the Discrimination Act is now part of the Education Act. Overall, there has been a development whereby behavior previously categorized as fights and teasing in various policy documents is now described using a legal discourse, such that juridical concepts like discrimination and harassment are used (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2011). One result of this is that the number of police reports has increased (Estrada et al., 2012). At the same time, there is no clear evidence that violence and degrading treatment are actually increasing in Swedish schools. There is evidence suggesting that it is societal norms and school policies that are changing rather than the actual prevalence of violence (Svensson & Ring, 2007).

Violence in schools encompasses a wide range of behaviors, from school shootings to minor theft, bullying, and sexual harassment (Jeynes, 2012; Sundaram, 2013). These expressions of violence are, of course, not in any sense new phenomena, but the ways in which these behaviors are classified, defined, and treated in the institution of the school are changing today, as is the relation between the school, the juridical system, and the social welfare system. The tendency, seen since the 1990s, is to not only to focus on the offender but also on the crime victim (Nilsson, 2003). This development has been driven by different forces, not least various national and international associations working to improve support to crime victims. Overall, this development has led to different kinds of legal regulation of the entire area of social relations and violence.

In the next section we will present an overview of the research literature in this field of research. It will be followed by a section on aim and research questions, on conceptual framework, and on methodology. The empirical data are analyzed in three different sections, and the results are discussed in the concluding section of the article.

Literature Review

The definition of “school violence” and “harassment” has changed over time. For example, corporal punishment or even bullying may not have been considered to be violence in the past. The variation of definitions in both policy and research makes it difficult to compare the frequencies and types of student victimization in schools (Warner, Weist, & Krulak, 1999).

Closely related to the research on victimization in the school context is the research on bullying. Bullying is often defined as a subtype of aggressive behavior, in which groups or individuals humiliate, attack, and/or exclude a relatively powerless individual. There are also several studies showing a significant correlation between bullying and other antisocial behaviors. Both students who act as offenders and those who are victims are at greater risk of being subjected to aggressive and violent behavior later in life (Ttofi, Farrington, & Lösel, 2012) Thornberg (2011) found a strong correlation between bullying and harassment, on the one hand, and elements of intolerance in the student’s peer culture, on the other. These results correspond with Hong and Espelage’s (2012) meta-analysis of peer victimization and bullying. Their results reveal that risk factors for bullying in school can also be found in aspects such as peer relations, parent–youth relationship, teacher involvement, neighborhood environment, and cultural norms in society. Research also shows that students tend to underreport acts of bullying and aggression. Threats are a relatively common experience among school students, but some aspects of this mundane and frequent violence are not taken seriously and are, thus, not reported (Nekvasil & Cornell, 2012). The research literature on bullying shows that it is often difficult to differentiate the offender from the victim (Bradshaw & Johnson, 2011; Heber, 2014). Research also shows that many of the models and categorizations used by educators to explain the causes of violence and bullying in school have been based on psychological theories; thus, deviant behavior and mental disorders in both the bully and the victim are used as explanatory factors (Salmivalli, 2010).

Individual explanations for student victimization have also been recognized in studies on school officials’ work in student welfare teams (Hjörne & Säljö, 2004). The results indicate that key professionals took their way of teaching and how they responded to the students for granted and that almost no efforts were made to change the school environment or to avoid similar situations in the future. Klingner and Harry’s (2006) study on special education teams’ work with English language learners has pointed out similar patterns. The investigated meetings mainly focused on students’ poor academic achievements or behavioral difficulties, rather than trying to find explanations in the school culture. Results from a Swedish study on young students’ perceptions of and attitudes toward school violence show that young people often have a situated conception of the difference between quarrels and more serious violence (Uhnoo, 2011). Interpretations of violent outbursts are also dependent on the situation, place, and the relations between the involved youth. Notably, like school officials, students also seem to use individual explanations to understand why their peers are exposed to bullying (Thornberg, 2011; Thornberg & Knutsen, 2011; Thornberg, Rosenqvist, & Johansson, 2012).

However, research has questioned these categorizations and explanatory models, and instead emphasized social processes in the peer group and contextual factors in the school (Salmivalli, 2010). Swedish research shows that students who have been exposed to violence often have been involved in multiple occasions of violence (Göransson, 2011). There is also a strong connection between the school environment and school violence. Effective and safe schools are characterized by clear goals, positive expectations of students’ achievements, and close collaboration with parents (Sprague & Walker, 2005). Moreover, the research shows that it is important to involve teachers in discussions on how to prevent violence in schools (Finley, 2003; Miller & Kraus, 2008). The school climate and social environment are closely connected to and a part of either a violent or a safe school culture (BRÅ, 2009; Finley, 2004).

Another part of the literature on victimization deals with risk factors. School violence tends to cluster in certain peer groups (Nekvasil & Cornell, 2012). Certain variables stand out as predictors of victimization, such as race/ethnicity, gender, and lifestyle (Schreck, Miller, & Gibson, 2003). American research shows similar patterns for youth growing up in poor neighborhoods and especially for African American male students in regard to lack of academic performance, discipline difficulties, and distress. Furthermore, this group of students are more likely to be exposed to violence and categorized as suffering from a learning disability or having a diagnosis (Ellis, Rowley, Nellum, & Smith, 2015; Noguera, 2003; Peguero, 2011). There is also a strong connection between exposure to violence and students’ association with delinquent friends (Peguero, 2011). Moreover, there are studies showing a considerable overlap between victims and offenders (Melde & Esbensen, 2009).

In conclusion, the survey of the field presented here is, of course, only partial. However, we can discern some tendencies in this field of research. First, there is a movement from psychological and individual explanations toward more sociological approaches to violence in schools. Second, there are great differences in terms of prevalence of school violence and ways of framing it in different countries, and finally, there is a lack of studies looking more closely at how schools tend to frame and define violence, victims, and offenders.

Aim and Research Questions

Given the picture described above, it is our hope that the present findings will add to the knowledge on schools’ strategies and ways of framing school violence. The focus of the present study is on how a number of Swedish urban secondary schools define and categorize students who have been exposed to different forms of violent or abusive acts at school. We are interested in how the category of victim is used, narrated, and perhaps even successively re-defined in school practices. We primarily study the narrative level, but we have also made observations during student welfare team meetings. The focus is on whether and how the category of victim is present in the talk about violence, harassment, and bullying. Our research questions are as follows:

In the present study, the concept of juridification refers to processes in schools that involve shifts toward more and detailed legal regulations. The welfare team meeting refers to a weekly meeting in which key school officials—such as the principal, school nurse, counselor, special education teacher, class teachers, and sometimes other school officials—are present. The aim of these meetings is to discuss students’ wellbeing and find solutions for students who need some kind of extra support. During these meetings, different issues are discussed: students who are in need of special education; conflicts between students; school drop-outs; students with poor academic achievement and at risk of not getting any grades; students who need family support; students with health-related problems, and students with criminal behavior or at risk of committing crimes.

Conceptual Framework

The focus of the study is on institutional practices and norms. We are interested in how the categorizations and forms of explanation used in the schools by the professionals emerge from central institutional and professional discourses (Anthias, 2005; Järvinen & Mik Meyer, 2003; Lipsky, 1980). Institutional theory has been criticized for being too deterministic and for depicting the transmission of values, norms, and rules for professionals in organizations as unidirectional (Cooney, 2007). Influenced by Giddens (1984), Cooney proposes that we study both the constraining and enabling aspects of organizational life. Thus, studying the dual structuring process in schools and in student welfare teams, we are interested in capturing how social practices are repeated and how actors reproduce certain patterns of understanding. Language is, in this sense, not a reflection of reality or of actor’s self-understanding, but it should instead be understood as performativity, and as a productive movement and a producer of a temporary “truth” (Weinberg, 2013). Institutional theory helps us capture not only the top-down but also the bottom-up processes taking place in organizations. As Burch (2007) so succinctly puts it,

Through interactions, individuals and organizations can transform the meaning of policy and create new tools and frames for addressing social problems, frames that then are incorporated into new policies and the institutions created to support them. (p. 84)

To analyze the institutional and subjective interpretational dynamics represented by the professionals, we need to place the narratives and discourses present in a contextual framework. In the present article, we will focus on three analytical dimensions: professional cultures, material context, and external context (Ball, Maguire, & Braun, 2012). The professional culture dimension is related to norms, values, and school climate. At this level, we will study different discursive approaches used when the student welfare teams account for “school problems.” The material contexts refer to space/place and urban segregation. We are interested in how the strategies and policy approaches correspond to different urban contexts. Finally, we will also focus on external contexts, mainly political expectations. The effects of the external contexts, mainly politics, will be discussed in the concluding section, whereas the other two dimensions will be more present in the actual analysis of the empirical data. Consequently, both “inside-of-school” and “outside-of-school” factors will be taken into consideration when analyzing the narratives of the professionals (Milner & Lomotey, 2014).

Methodology

The empirical study is a part of an ongoing research project on schools’ strategies for handling victims of violence and crime. The study is designed as extensive case studies of three Swedish secondary schools situated in three different contexts and focuses on students in the seventh to ninth grade. With regard to ethical considerations and ensuring confidentiality, all names of informants as well as schools are pseudonyms (Vetenskapsrådet, 2011). When using quotations from the study, we will label the schools in the following way: School A, B, and C. The professionals will be labeled in a similar way, for example, Principal, School A.

The schools selected for the study are located in different geographical and socioeconomic areas. We refer to the areas where we have done our research as urban, as all three schools are located in areas that could be categorized as urban, although the definition of urban and not least urban education is far from consistent and uniform (Milner & Lomotey, 2014). In Sweden, as well as in most European countries, suburban and inner city areas are characterized differently compared with the American terminology (Milner & Lomotey, 2014). The inner city urban areas in Sweden often refers to upper middle-class and middle-class neighborhoods that are wealthier than average. When referring to suburbs in the Swedish context, this refers to multi-ethnic, socially and economically disadvantaged suburbs that are located in the outskirts of the cities. Although there are also wealthier suburbs in Sweden, they are generally not categorized as suburbs (Beach & Sernhede, 2012; Sernhede, 2007).

School A is located in middle-sized municipality in a smaller town with a population of 20,000 inhabitants. The educational level in the municipality is higher than the national average. Nearly 250 students attend School A, which is located in a relatively mixed neighborhood with families with different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Schools B and C are both located in metropolitan area with a population of 550,000 inhabitants. About 600 students attend School B, which is an inner city urban school located in a White middle-class area, with approximately 60,000 inhabitants. This population has the highest educational level in the city and the average income is higher than the average income in the municipality. School C is located in a suburb and around 500 students attend this school. The population of the surrounding area is approximately 22,000 inhabitants, and the majority of people in this neighborhood have their roots in the Middle East, Far East, East Africa, and the Balkan states. Municipal statistics indicate that the proportion of unemployed adults in this neighborhood is higher than in other parts of the city, and the average income is among the lowest in the municipality. The three schools are selected to allow us to examine how the different discourses studied in the present article are situated in various urban contexts of social, ethnic, and economic inequalities and patterns of urban segregation (cf. Bunar, 2011). The selection of three differently situated schools also allows us to explore how the professional culture, material context, and external context impact variously depending on urban context.

The three case studies are similar in structure, but access to the student welfare teams differs (see Table 1). At least three different types of empirical material have been gathered: (a) official documents, such as equality plans and other types of action plans; (b) interviews with the principals; (c) interviews with school nurses, counselors and other school officials; and (d) observations from student welfare team meetings. Table 1 above demonstrates the case studies at respective schools. The numbers in brackets demonstrate the number of interviewed participants and number of observed student health team meetings.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Empirical Data and Demographics of Participants.

Empirical data	School A (town school)	School B (inner city urban school)	School C (suburban school)
Official documents	X	X	X
Interviews with principals	X (1)	X (2)	X (1)
Interviews with school nurses	X (1)	X (1)	No access
Interviews with counselors	X (1)	X (1)	X (1)
Interviews with other school officials	X (1)	No access	X (1)
Observations of student welfare team meetings	X (3)	No access	No access

We have studied different kinds of documents, for example, equality plans and different action plans. According to national guidelines, all schools in Sweden are required to have an equality plan. In this official document, the schools have to formulate aims and goals concerning how they intend to work with gender equality and equality within the school. Other types of actions plans refer to how schools will create a safe and good learning environment for students. However, in the present article, we will focus specifically on the narratives of the school officials interviewed.

The interviews lasted from 45 min to 1 hour, and all were held at the respective schools. In the present study, we have interviewed different key school officials, but the representation of school officials differs to some extent. For example, there was only a school host working at one of the schools. The school host is a key school official, normally without any formal pedagogical education, who meets the students in informal ways, outside the classroom—for example, in the school cafeteria, the halls, and the canteen. The other explanation for the variety in representation is related to our access to the key officials, which also varied between the investigated schools. To cover the studies’ research questions, the interview guide includes four main sections: (a) questions focused on the schools’ historical background and present situation; (b) questions on the schools’ work to support victimized students; (c) questions on the schools’ collaboration with other officials; and (d) questions on equality plans and other types of action plans. The study also includes observations from student welfare meetings, but for various reasons we only had access to these team meetings at School A. These meetings lasted for approximately 2 hours.

Methodologically, we approach the different statements and stories from a discourse analytical and narrative perspective (Blommaert, 2005; Foucault, 1969/2000; Talja, 1999). We are influenced by discourse theory in the broadest sense. When using discourse methodology, there is always a risk of losing wider perspectives and a contextual framework (Wodak & Krzyzanowski, 2008). Here, the ambition is to theoretically explore and use quotations to study how professionals in the student welfare team shape and reshape their understanding of violence and harassment in schools (Irwin, 2005). The categories used to label persons, processes, and acts derive their meaning from different discourses. We are interested in how the different discourses discerned in the empirical data connect to and feed upon more general societal and cultural discourses on violence, victimization, social welfare, and pedagogy.

By studying how—in the different case studies—principals and experts talk about situations and “problems” related to the students, both perpetrators and potential victims, we hope to better understand the competing and sometimes contradictory discourses (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985/2001). Although we analyze our data step by step in an attempt to identify the most central discourses, we are aware that these discourses already exist on a societal level and have a constant impact upon our thinking, decisions, and acts. What we will be able to see here is how these discourses are expressed and formulated, in more detail, at the micro-level at three Swedish schools by key officials working at these schools. We are especially interested in how these officials use categories to understand what happens when violence causes ruptures and leads to the need to act and to make decisions on how to handle the situation. Dealing with the violence means that other discourses and professionals get involved, such as social workers, the police, and the legal system. We are especially interested in how these different systems are used and form the foundation for different discourses and talk regimes in relation to the schools.

We conducted a qualitative analysis of the different categorizations that emerge in the narratives. In the narratives we searched for connotations of violence, bullying, or harassment and examined how this content is framed and categorized in the professionals’ narratives. The focus of our analysis is on investigating what categorizations the interviewees used to describe and construct certain situations and individual students in their narratives. In the analysis of the empirical data, three themes related to juridification and categorizations of the victim emerged in the professionals’ narratives: juridification in practice, the category of the victim, and medical discourse. Our analysis of the empirical data will be organized into these three separate sections. In the first section, we will analyze how the interviewees draw the line between “inappropriate behavior” and behavior they need to report to the police. In the next section, we will look more closely at how the professional staff interviewed define and categorize the “victim.” The third section will deal with the relation between different institutional discourses. The first two sections are directly connected to Research Questions 1 and 2, respectively, whereas the third research question is addressed using the analysis from all three sections to discuss different and overlapping discourses.

Juridification in Practice

One main finding emerging from the interviews with school officials is that it is often difficult to draw a definite boundary between inappropriate and criminal behavior. There is considerable overlap between the two. The interviews also show that everyday violence is often perpetrated at the micro-level. This kind of low-level violence is the most frequent form of school violence, and it appears in many different forms and shapes (Dupper & Meyer-Adams, 2002).

There are lots of violations, and it goes on all the time actually. Quite common is that students use subtle methods, such as gazes, turning their back on each other, and not greeting each other. And this behavior, well, it is not possible to make a police report out of this, but it’s very inappropriate behavior, definitely. (Principal, School A)

This principal also points out that, before the school decides to use disciplinary measures, there is a check list of other possible means to use, such as communication, conflict resolution, and social support. He also stresses that it is important to be very clear and decisive in these situations, at the same time as he emphasizes that the work done in the school must build on common values, respect, and communication.

There is a great deal of support in the interviews for the notion that writing a police report or contacting the social welfare office is often counterproductive. There are certain logics underlying work at the school, and they build on thoughts about learning, respect, communication, trust, and relations. Moreover, these logics are disrupted and sometimes even dissolved by contact with the police or social welfare office.

Even though I’m not supposed to think that way, I sometimes wonder—should I really report this? If I do, the only result will be that my relation with the parents will be disrupted, and in addition the student will probably see this as a form of betrayal. Then I’ve done more harm than good for the student and his parents. (School nurse, School A)

This reaction is quite common in our material. Reporting to the police or to the social welfare office is seen as counterproductive, and as a threat to the fragile relation between the school, the child, and the child’s parents. The price for reporting may be a damaged relation, which would make it impossible to improve the situation for the child. The principal of School C has another kind of experience of school violence, policies, and the school’s reactions to violent behavior. As previously described, School C is situated in a socio-economically relatively poor urban area with higher rates of crime among young people. Although she has the same opinions as many of the other interviewees in this investigation, the presence of gang-related crimes in everyday life may influence her perspective on these issues.

I don’t think we necessarily have more crimes here compared to other schools, but I do think that the crimes we see here are of a different character and that there’s also a tendency for us to judge this type of crime more harshly. When I worked as a principal in a small town, we certainly had as much crime as here, but the crimes were of a different character and most important, at that school there were a tradition of not reporting these kinds of crimes to the police. (Principal, School C)

In the interview, the principal describes the professional culture at School C, comparing this with her experience from working at another school. She also states that School C is under pressure from the external context, which wants them to report suspected crime to the police more often (Ball et al., 2012). The interviews with the special education teacher and the counselor at the same school confirm this picture. They talk about a kind of normalization of the violence at the school, but also about a generally high degree of more severe violence, and an increasing tendency to report this violence to the police. In general, the narratives indicate that the professional culture at this school seems to be strongly influenced by the material and external context of the school. The school climate is described as disorganized and there is also a lack of trust among staff and students. The school is also situated in a part of the city that is portrayed as problematic. This neighborhood is generally under heavier surveillance and control, which affects the school climate. But there is nonetheless a strong and almost hegemonic discourse on the importance of learning/communication, what could be called a relational and pedagogical discourse. The age of criminal responsibility in Sweden is 15 years, and rather than promoting a legal reaction to the violence, the officials tend to be skeptical about these kinds of solutions.

What is the purpose of a police report? Last week I went to a lecture given by a police officer. He told us that they get lots of police reports, but as long as the student is under 15, nothing happens. So, then this is useless. You really need to have a good reason for making a police report or a report to the social welfare agency. What do you imagine will improve or become better? (Special education teacher, School C)

These interviews confirm the impression that the school officials experience great pressure to report incidents to the police, but that this, at the same time, creates an uncomfortable situation. The relational and pedagogical discourse is clearly in conflict with a legal discourse. The counselor at School C expresses this by saying, “We adults declare to the children that we have failed to manage the crisis and solve the problems, instead we just surrender and leave it all to the police and the legal system.”

There is a common picture of a need to react and act upon signs of violence and antisocial behavior on the part of students; the professionals interviewed also seem to agree about the need to begin with a relational and pedagogical approach. This means that there is a great deal of ambivalence concerning when and how to react to violence and “inappropriate behavior.” However, there seems to be skepticism about framing young people’s behavior in a legal discourse. Instead, the teachers and professionals in the student welfare team, as well as the principal, seem to experience a loss of control when they yield to the pressure to use these kinds of measures. Although the framing of the “problem” is often talked about as an individual issue, there also seems to be awareness that the violence must be understood in relation to material and external contexts. Segregation stands out as an important factor, but also the increasing demand on teachers and school officials to govern and control the students. These political demands push principals, professionals, and teachers working in schools toward the legal discourse, and toward certain solutions to school problems. However, in conclusion, the societal development of juridification is both present and absent in the investigated schools. This legal discourse is present in the sense that school officials need to relate to and respond to it, but it is absent in the sense that school officials try to frame and define violence in other terms, and in other discursive registers.

The Category of the “Victim”

In the online Oxford dictionary, a victim is defined as “a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.” This broad definition also captures some of the difficulties schools have when trying to categorize someone as a “victim.” The same applies to the distinction between the offender and the victim, which the research shows is usually difficult to maintain (Heber, 2014; Melde & Esbensen, 2009). The framing of this “relation” seems to be much clearer in certain schools, however. The principal of School B—the inner city school—compares her experience from working at schools in different kinds of areas.

When I worked in a multicultural school for 10 years, we talked a lot about “victims of crime.” We also talked about crime steps, about how someone starts to deviate and then successively over time takes different steps toward a deviant career. But we don’t talk this way at all at my new school. (Principal, School B)

There is some evidence that the relational pair of offender/victim as well as more general policy questions are framed differently and talked about in different material contexts (Ball et al., 2012; Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke, & Robert, 1978). When moving in socially and economically disadvantaged urban areas, there is more talk about gangs, violence, and victims. But the situation in Sweden still differs from, for example, that in the United States, where we see more clear patterns of policing the crisis and using legal and police action (Chen, 2008; DeVoe, Bauer, & Hill, 2011; Warner et al., 1999).

In School C, the professionals rely on the relational/pedagogical discourse rather than on the legal discourse. Although there is an external pressure to report and police, the professionals are trained to think differently, to act and reflect on possibilities to intervene and influence young people’s attitudes and behavior. The counselor told us about one case, where a young boy had been harassed for some time by two other boys. After several interventions, such as antibullying programs, meetings with the parents of the three boys, and counseling with the “victim,” the three boys gradually became friends.

Now they socialize a lot. When we discovered that this boy was being bullied, there was one of the guys taking the lead. This boy was fragile and in need of strong support and counseling, and we have worked a lot with him. Both the “offenders” were going through an emotional process, and there were lots of problems in their families. (Counselor, School C)

This counselor tells us that, in cases of bullying, the school tries to refrain from making police reports, and instead uses all means available to work with these issues at the school. She also told us that the parents of victims are often acquainted with the parents of the “offenders,” and they do not always want the school to report the bullying to the police, but would prefer that the school try to deal with the situation. When asked how he and the school define “victims of crime,” the principal of School B says,

It’s a hard balancing act. We try to communicate the idea that we are bound by the same laws in the schoolyard as in society at large. We don’t have any specific penal code for the school, so if you push someone either here or outside the school—it’s just as bad, so to speak. We have lots of guidelines regarding how to make police reports, and we also have certain forms to fill in, etc. But you also have to make a certain distinction—the students are not in school just to learn different subjects, but also to become socialized into society, and become “good” citizens. This is the dual task we have to relate to all the time. (Principal, School B)

In conclusion, there seems to be a division between different schools and different material contexts (Ball et al., 2012). Schools operate under regulations, and they have to follow certain guidelines and policy documents. At the same time, schools also have to work in and deal with a complex social reality, where the distinction between offender and victim is not always particularly clear and distinct. External pressure, in the form of politics and new regulations, can have a strong influence on how schools choose to react to violence such as bullying and harassment. We can see how the two discourses discussed and exemplified here intersect and result in difficult decisions and actions.

The material conditions seem to influence the way the category of “victim” is used. In socially and economically disadvantaged urban areas, there seems to be more talk about violence and victims. This observation, however, must be investigated and supported with further evidence. We also find that school officials are uncomfortable with the concept of the victim, and rather talk about the complex relation between victims and offenders.

Medical Discourse

Discourses are not merely abstract language games, but also ways of thinking and acting, influencing how we make decisions, enact policies, and to a certain extent also form our social reality. Many times, the school professionals tend to treat the figure of the offender/victim as a problem located at the individual level, but not always. However, there is a strong tendency to package and frame relational problems as individual problems. At School A, one girl is discussed during a meeting with the student welfare team. She has an ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder) diagnosis, and the team—the principal, the psychologist, the nurse, counselor, the special education teacher, the school host, and the teacher are present—discusses how to work with this girl. Her teacher leads the discussion:

Klara is spontaneous in a devastating way. When she started in the class, her mentors had given her the advice to keep a low profile, and not necessarily tell the other students that she had a diagnosis. Klara did not manage to keep quiet, and on one occasion she just cried out: I have an ADHD diagnosis! Before this incident, Klara fit well into the group, but suddenly things changed. Klara also talks about herself as weird. This has contributed to the current situation and to Klara being ostracized. (Teacher, School A)

Many of the discussions at the three schools focus on diagnoses and how to support young people with a diagnosis. Several of the cases discussed during the student welfare team meetings are also focused on such students. These discussions and the terms used to label students are framed in a medical/psychological discourse. This discourse further complicates the discussion and evaluation of agency as well as role differentiation concerning the boundaries between offender and victim. This is succinctly expressed by the principal of School B.

What is a crime? It’s not that simple to narrow down and define. Sometimes one can be exposed to something, but maybe the offender did not have any intent to act. When working with these impulse-driven children / . . . /we have children with or without a diagnosis. When you have a diagnosis, it’s a bit easier to handle the whole situation, and you will get help from specialist competency and so on. When they take their medication, everything just works fine. But no child is identical to another. (Principal, School B)

Here the medical discourse and medication are seen as a “blessing,” as they make it easier to handle impulse-driven children, and they also shift the responsibility for handling the situation away from the principal and the teachers and toward psychiatric specialists. When it comes to handling children and young persons who act out, thus crossing social and normative boundaries, the medical/psychological discourse is commonly used. It is very clear that there are many different ideas about how to deal with this growing group of young people characterized as impulse-driven. Obviously, all three discourses relational/pedagogical, medical, and legal coincide and influence the use of different categorizations—and consequently also lead to alternative ways of responding to these students. This is clearly illustrated by how the special education teacher at School C discusses and frames the “problem”:

We have quite a lot of teachers here who think that the best solution to the problem is to write police reports. They think that these youngsters should be kept somewhere else. If we just had developed clearer norms, and punishments, then everything would be just fine. I do not agree at all. If you are acting out, then it means that you have some kind of a social and psychological problem. (Special education teacher, School C)

In some senses, the medical and legal discourses align themselves, whereas the relational and pedagogical discourse stands out as an alternative way of thinking. Although the medical discourse can lead to an individualized way of dealing with and confronting school “problems” and violence, there are also openings to other ways of thinking. Learning processes take place in a material, social, and cultural context, and therefore it is also possible to locate problems in contexts rather than individuals.

Conclusions and Discussion

In the empirical part of the article, we have used our limited case study material to present some preliminary results and analysis of school violence and the schools’ strategies for defining and framing the category of the victim. We have found that (a) there is a resistance to framing “relational problems” in legal terms. Thus, there seems to be a tension between societal processes of juridification, on the one hand, and the resistance and doubt raised regarding legal discourses by the school officials interviewed in this study, on the other, and (b) the same applies to the category of the victim. There is rather a tendency toward framing “school problems” and “violence” in terms of a relational and pedagogical discourse. We will now turn to research question three and a more elaborated discussion of how different and partly overlapping discourses become activated and used in discussions on how to define and support potential victims of crime.

In the present study, we have shed light on whether and how the category of victim is present in school officials’ talk about violence, harassment, and bullying. The study is influenced by discourse theory, in that we have theoretically explored the narratives of professionals in student welfare teams and how they construct their understanding of violence and harassment in school (cf. Irwin, 2005; Wodak & Krzyzanowski, 2008). The professional cultures at schools, that is, norms, values, and school climate, and the different discursive approaches the student welfare teams use to define and categorize “school problems” are also essential to the analysis. Professional cultures at schools should also be framed in relation to the material context and how increased urban segregation, privatization, and a changing school system that promotes diversification and individualization lead to a more segregated and unequal society (Ball et al., 2012; Beach & Sernhede, 2012; Bunar, 2011; Milner & Lomotey, 2014).

The category of the “victim,” and general awareness of the need to address these questions in more detail, has also led to the development of a multi-discursive field of action in the schools. What we see in the present study is how at least three discourses are present in the talk about the relation between offenders and victims: the relational/pedagogical, the legal, and the medical discourse. The results indicate that the juridification of the school system is a slow and uneven process. It seems that the material conditions—urban segregation—lead to a strengthening of the legal discourse. However, overall the relational and pedagogical discourse seems to be hegemonic in the data, in the sense that the principal, teachers, and counselors prefer to talk about “inappropriate behavior” than to talk about criminality. Our argument is that the professional cultural dimension dominates the relational and pedagogical discourse. Interesting in relation to this is that the legal discourse, which has a greater impact on the policy level, is more or less absent in the school professionals’ narratives (Estrada et al., 2012). The analysis reveals how the interviewees sometimes feel a certain pressure to report offenders, they also feel ambivalent, and often they prefer to create a dialogue between the “offender” and “victim.” Research reveal that it is often difficult to differentiate the offender from the victim (Bradshaw & Johnson, 2011; Heber, 2014). Our results indicate that the professionals have a more holistic way of looking at the offender/victim constellation.

In the results we have also identified tendencies toward categorizing students by putting the blame on them, which is the case at School A. Here the professional culture pre-dominates the school authorities’ statements. Here we can see certain tendencies toward “blaming the victim.” That is, by categorizing students as deviant and using diagnoses such as ADHD, it becomes possible to locate the “problem” to the individual rather than to societal and contextual causes. Similar results have also been recognized in previous Swedish and international research (Hjörne & Säljö, 2004; Klingner & Harry, 2006). School officials often claim that bullied students have only themselves to blame and individualize this problem. Sometimes the medical discourse also connects to the legal discourse, which is expressed in terms of teachers’ call for more repressive ways of dealing with “troublemakers” in the school. Different contextual dimensions frame the responses and sometimes a particular discourse dominates. At the same time, however, we can see that the professional and material contexts often intersect in the responses (Ball et al., 2012).

Another finding in our data was that the material context clearly frames how school authorities talk about and handle youth victimization. This was especially noticeable at School C, which is located in one of Sweden’s poorest areas (Save the Children, 2014). The vulnerability the students are exposed to growing up in a socially disadvantaged urban neighborhood and their young age framed the informants’ responses. Research show that children and adolescents growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods have an increased risk of both becoming a delinquent and being exposed to violence (Bäckman, Estrada, Nilsson, & Shannon, 2014; Barajas-Gonzalez & Brooks-Gunn, 2014).

A preliminary conclusion based on the present findings is that even though it is possible to—on a political and societal level—discern a tendency toward a juridification of how schools act and react in relation to violent behavior, we can also see how the relational and pedagogical discourse results in a form of resistance to juridification, directing attention toward the need to communicate, create dialogues, and develop a more holistic and sometimes contextual approach to these issues. To conclude, the present article adds new knowledge about schools’ understanding and categorization of victimized students in school. Previous studies in Sweden and around the world have mainly focused on the offender rather than the victim, which makes this study an important contribution to the research field. The findings are also important with regard to creating a broader understanding of how to deal with these issues in schools. The present study is based on three case studies from three demographically different areas. Naturally, this creates limitations with regard to making general conclusions about how school officials in Sweden talk about and deal with victimized students, but at the same time, this have never been the present project’s aim. Still, by studying and analyzing how three central social discourses permeate and affect professionals’ ways of thinking, and probably also their ways of acting, we can say something about how these discourses are expressed on the micro-level. Because the present article is part of a current and ongoing project, further interviews and observations will be made. At the moment, the research team is working on three new cases, and data from this fieldwork will hopefully contribute additional knowledge to the research field. This study also raises questions regarding families’ and students’ expectations about school victimization, collaboration with the school, and what support the school will provide.