A Different Perspective on School Bullies

Back in April 2023, I wrote a blog about bullying (https://timboatswain.wixsite.com/website/post/no-to-bullying), where I argued that we always need to stand up to bullies. Just recently, I considered a different perspective on bullying triggered by the Government's National Behaviour Survey Report: 2024 to 2025 academic year, which examines behaviour in schools, and it was alarming to read that the survey found that roughly 1 in 5 to 1 in 3 pupils experience bullying. 

It is standard that bullying is spoken of as though it were a disease to be eradicated, a straightforward battle between innocent victims and monstrous aggressors. We pour our energy into supporting those who are harmed, and rightly so, but we seem to have reached an impasse where the behaviour persists despite our best efforts. The anthropologist in me suggests that when a problem refuses to go away, it is worth questioning whether we have truly understood it. Perhaps we need to set aside our justifiable outrage for a moment and consider a perspective that is too often ignored: that of the bullies themselves. This is not an easy thing to ask. It requires us to challenge our deepest assumptions and overcome our natural prejudice against those who cause harm. But if we are serious about stopping school bullying, we must make space for the voices of those who have perpetrated it, not to excuse them, but to gain a more nuanced and systemic view of a problem that is so often reduced to simple narratives of good and bad.

A recent article by Kevin Zapata Celestino, which is grounded in qualitative research from Mexico, offers a powerful case for why this matters. The author interviewed thirteen former secondary students, now adults, who had once been bullies, and the inclusion of their direct quotes is where the true power of the piece lies. These are not the voices of monsters, but of children who learned aggression in the places where they were supposed to feel safe. One participant noted that "the jerk who made life impossible was the one everyone wanted to hang out with," a stark insight that illustrates how bullying can be socially rewarded rather than punished. Another described growing up in a violent environment where aggression became normalised, even necessary for survival. These testimonies transform abstract concepts like social pressure and learned behaviour into something tangible and deeply human, forcing us to recognise that bullying is often a symptom of broader ecological dysfunction within families, communities, peer groups, and even the media.

The article’s key achievement is its nuanced portrayal of aggressors as children navigating harsh environments rather than as inherently bad seeds. It skillfully avoids excusing their behaviour by explaining its roots, offering the memorable description of them as "not a portrait of monsters, but of children navigating harsh environments." This balanced perspective acknowledges the very real harm caused while seeking to understand where the impulse to harm originates. The argument is built upon a clear structure that guides the reader from identifying our collective blind spot, through the research findings, and finally to the practical implications for schools. What makes the piece particularly valuable is that it does not stop at observation. It concludes with actionable recommendations, proposing restorative practices, social-emotional learning, and engaged parenting as alternatives to the punitive discipline that participants reported as largely ineffective. For one former bully, the turning point was not a suspension but a moment of emotional connection when his mother talked to him, and he saw her cry, realising he needed to change.

Of course, no single study can provide all the answers, and there are aspects of this research that invite further consideration. The insights are drawn from the retrospective accounts of just thirteen adults in a specific cultural context, and memories filtered through time and subsequent life experience can be subject to romanticisation or rationalisation. While many findings about peer pressure and family environment are likely universal, a brief acknowledgement that the expression of bullying and the effectiveness of interventions might vary across cultures would add useful nuance. There is also a potential for the core message to be misinterpreted. A casual reader could mistakenly conclude that understanding bullies means sympathising with them at the expense of those they harm. The article opens by rightly centring the victim's experience and closes with a significant phrase about opening "new pathways for healing, not just for victims, but for those who once harmed," but reinforcing this balance more explicitly throughout would prevent any possible misreading.

The research also touches upon, without fully exploring, a crucial point about students using aggression to avoid becoming victims themselves. This hints at the fluidity of these roles and invites deeper examination of the victim-bully cycle, examining how those who are victims of violence at home or in their community can become aggressors at school. Exploring this dynamic would enrich the analysis and further strengthen the argument that bullying is a learned response to an environment rather than a fixed personality type. Stylistically, the article relies a little too heavily on transitional phrases like "importantly" and "perhaps most revealingly," and varying this language would make the already sharp prose even more engaging.

Despite these considerations, this is a thought-provoking piece that translates complex academic research into a clear and persuasive narrative. Its primary contribution is in shifting the lens from the individual pathology of the bad kid to the systemic failures of the environments that shape them. By giving voice to the aggressors, it provides a crucial piece of the puzzle too often missing from public discussions on bullying. I am not at the coal face; I only observe, but from where I stand, it seems clear that if we truly want to break the cycle of violence in our schools, we must be willing to listen to those who have perpetuated it. Not to celebrate them, not to excuse them, but to understand what made them that way and how we might interrupt the process for the next child growing up in a harsh environment, learning that aggression is the only path to survival or belonging. That is the hopeful and practical path forward, based on connection and understanding rather than on punishment alone.