Helen Cowie

• PhD
• Professor Emeritus at University of Surrey

The books reviewed here explore the myriad ways in which the relationships that children and young people experience within the family, in schools and community, and with their peers have a profound impact on their development. The first book, L'apprendimento sociale ed emotivo. Teorie e buone pratiche per promuovere la salute mentale a scuola by V...

Nature study Education, Preschool Inquiry-based learning Reflective teaching Books -- Reviews Bullying -- Prevention Arts -- Therapeutic use

The theme of the Special Issue is climate change, so this book is particularly relevant to educators. Alison Woolf, author of Better Mental Health in Schools: Four Key Principles for Practice in Challenging Times, takes account of the global difficulties that face us all and shows evidence-based ways in which educators can help children and young p...

There are many difficulties facing families in today’s world, including economic pressures, fallout from the pandemic, and enforced migration from war-torn countries. Mental health problems are known to have a disproportionately negative impact on the lives of children and young people and their families who are already vulnerable through such cond...

The COVID‐19 pandemic has had an enormous impact across the world. In this discussion paper, we examine the effect that lockdown has had on the mental health and well‐being of children and young people. We write from a UK perspective in the light of the international evidence. Many of the discussion points raised resonate globally. We discuss how t...

Peer support is not one particular program or method that can be applied in any context. Rather, it is a grassroots approach that emerges from an analysis of the needs of a particular community and takes account of the voices of the children and young people involved. Peer support systems have developed throughout the world and take many forms, dep...

Research on cyberbullying amongst students has tended to be conducted separately within specific education institutional contexts, schools, further education (FE) and higher education (HE), neglecting a view that takes account of the entire educational lifespan. The present article addresses this gap in the literature, providing a novel take on exa...

Despite more than two decades of anti-bullying initiatives in schools, children and young people regularly mention relationships within the peer group as the major factor that causes them to feel unsafe at school. The situation is complicated by the fact that these interpersonal safety issues are actually generated by the peer group and often in co...

Το βιβλίο «Κατανοώντας την ανάπτυξη των παιδιών» παραμένει το κορυφαίο βιβλίο αναπτυξιακής ψυχολογίας στο Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο και έχει αναγνωριστεί ευρέως για τη διεθνή του εμβέλεια και την αυστηρή και ερευνητικά τεκμηριωμένη προσέγγιση που υιοθετεί στην 25ετή ιστορία του. Αυτό το δυναμικό σύγγραμμα δίνει έμφαση στις πρακτικές και τις εφαρμοσμένες υπο...

Across Europe, and in the context of a post-BREXIT situation, society is having to accommodate to large numbers of people from diverse cultures. There is a reported increase in xenophobic incidents, bullying and social exclusion, indicating that diversity runs the risk of intolerance and prejudice. This is played out in all manner of social situati...

Students within the university sector are ‘digital natives’. Technology is not ‘new’ or ‘alien’ to them, but rather it is an accepted and normalised part of everyday life (Simmons et al., 2016). With this level of expertise and competence, we could assume that university students are relatively happy with their online relationships. However, in rec...

In this article, the authors discuss how school nurses can use their knowledge and clinical experience to help young people who bully develop a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationships with others in order to promote optimum health outcomes for both the bully and victim.

In this study, we explore narratives in relation to ‘fatness’, drawing on focus group interviews with parents, early years practitioners, teachers and young people. The study is located in a larger study on bullying and resilience, with no specific focus on obesity or ‘fatness’. Analysis of the interview data highlighted a recurrent focus on ‘fatne...

Children who bully have learned to use their power and aggression to control others, a mode that is not conducive to healthy relationships either in the present or in their future lives. Furthermore, there is evidence that children who bully are also likely to have mental health problems that persist into adult life. There are also wide social and...

While it has long been recognized that bullying occurs at school and in the workplace, recent research confirms that bullying also takes place among university students, including undergraduates, post-graduates and doctoral research students. In the UK, the National Union of Students (NUS) alerted staff and students to the issue in a series of repo...

Bullying Amongst University Students is a pioneering collection of knowledge and evidence exploring the under-researched phenomenon of bullying in universities. Abusive behaviour amongst young people is a serious and pervasive problem that is exacerbated by the rapid advances in electronic communication, and in this book the authors highlight the p...

Participatory research methods offer a very promising approach for gaining in-depth understanding of young people's lives. However, when adopting such approaches, researchers need to be aware of methodological and theoretical issues. The aim of this article is to present a discussion of ways in which participatory methods may be used as a research...

Participatory research methods offer a very promising approach for gaining in-depth understanding of young people's lives. However, when adopting such approaches, researchers need to be aware of methodological and theoretical issues. The aim of this article is to present a discussion of ways in which participatory methods may be used as a research...

Sixty university students in three different participant roles—perpetrator, the target and the bystander—took part in a role-play incident of bullying. Participants were asked to describe (i) their perspective on the incident; (ii) their views of the target and the perpetrator and (iii) their solution to the problem. The findings suggest that the p...

60 university students in three different participant roles – the perpetrator, the target and the bystander –took part in a role-play incident of bullying. Participants were asked to describe i) their perspective on the incident; ii) their views of the target and the perpetrator and iii) their solution to the problem. The findings suggest that the...

Cyberbullying is a relatively recent form of relational aggression usually considered in the research literature to be bullying by means of technology through the medium of the Internet and mobile phones (Menesini et al. 2012, Smith et al. 2008). Cyberbullying takes a number of forms, such as sending insulting, rude or threatening messages, spreadi...

Abstract Aims and method The recent upsurge of cyberbullying is a frequent cause of emotional disturbance in children and young people. The situation is complicated by the fact that these interpersonal safety issues are actually generated by the peer group and in contexts that are difficult for adults to control. This review article examines the ef...

This chapter overviews the nature of peer support as it is currently practised in English, Japanese and South Korean schools. We outline the extent and varieties of peer support use in the three countries individually using the available research evidence. How peer support methods may be adapted to tackle the different forms of bullying which are p...

This chapter explores current knowledge on coping with cyberbullying. We define coping strategies as responses (behaviours, but also emotions/cognitions) that are successful (or not) against cyberbullying and against its impact on victims. In the current chapter, we differentiate between two domains of responses to cyberbullying: (a) how parents an...

Objectives Recent decades have seen a focus on intervention programs to reduce school bullying, in light of the severe negative consequences of such behavior. A recent meta-analysis by Ttofi and Farrington (Journal of Experimental Criminology 7: 27–56, 2011) provided encouraging findings in terms of some significant reductions in bullying and victi...

This study explored 10- and 11-year-old students’ (N = 64) moral emotional attributions in relation to other and self in peer-to-peer bullying scenarios in primary school. Data were gathered using one-to-one semi-structured interviews facilitated by the use of a series of pictorial vignettes depicting a hypothetical story of peer bullying. The resu...

Primary objective: This is the first qualitative study that elicited the perceptions of both psychological therapists and their clients in the use of Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation with computer software (CORE-Net), where instant visual feedback for session tracking was given on a computer screen in the therapy room at each therapy session...

A summary of current knowledge on successful responses to cyberbullying differentiating between three different response domains: reducing risks, combatting the problem, and buffering negative impact. A systematic literature search yielded thirty-six relevant studies, most of which report findings regarding general prevention strategies (e.g., anti...

A summary of current knowledge on successful responses to cyberbullying differentiating between three different response domains: reducing risks, combatting the problem, and buffering negative impact. A systematic literature search yielded thirty-six relevant studies, most of which report findings regarding general prevention strategies (e.g., anti...

The present literature review aims to summarize current knowledge on coping with cyberbullying. Coping strategies are defined as responses (behaviours, but also emotions/cognitions) that are successful (or unsuccessful) against cyberbullying. We differentiate between three different coping domains: reducing risks, combatting the problem, and buffer...

In this article, we discuss a range of ways in which children and young people themselves can give adults insights into bullying and how to resolve it. The adoption of peer support within a school can create opportunities for children and young people to be proactive in challenging bullying when they observe it.

This study examines the relationship between low peer accep-tance and emotional/behavioural maladjustment, taking into account the effects of daily stress, coping styles and sex. The sample comprised 392 schoolchildren (187 females and 205 males) aged 9 to 12, to whom a peer rating scale was administered. Self-report measures of perceived daily str...

IntroductionWhat is Bullying?Relationships in the Peer GroupWhy are some Children Bullied?Why do some Children become Bullies?What can Schools do?Key Practice PointsReferences

The aim of the present research was to understand how office workers cope with back, neck and upper limb musculoskeletal disorders at work (and their implications for work). A small (N= 120) questionnaire survey collected information about potential participants' background and history of musculoskeletal disorders. These data were used to inform a...

This paper explores the phenomenon of cyberbullying. The argument here is that, although there is a case for sanctions, schools also have a critical role to play in preventing and reducing cyberbullying through a process of awareness‐raising, the education of the emotions and active participation of children and young people themselves.

This study tested transactional models to explain the short-term longitudinal links between self-perceptions and involvement in bullying and victimization among 115 9- to 10-year-old children. Self-perceptions were measured with Harter's Self-Perception Profile for Children (six sub-scales) and bullying/victimization by means of peer nominations. D...

This paper identifies some critical issues about the inappropriate expression of emotion in a range of healthcare settings. The authors review the concept of emotional labour both from a theoretical perspective and as a conceptual device for examining the role of emotions in nursing and healthcare. The authors explore a range of perspectives on the...

In line with current view that children should be consulted about issues that concern them in their daily life and that their ideas must play a significant role in finding solutions, in the present study, children were asked to give their views on what would make school a better place to be. The research was carried out in four secondary schools in...

We present three case studies of discrimination to illustrate how racist bullying as discriminatory practices operates in the workplace. Workplace bullying in the British health care sector is reported along with evidence of discrimination towards overseas-trained nurses recruited to work in the United Kingdom (UK). The three interviews, which form...

Child and adolescent mental health disorders are present in around 10% of the population. Research indicates that many young people possess negative attitudes towards mental health difficulties among peers. To assess the impact of a mental health teaching programme on adolescent pupils' understanding. Two-group pre-test-post-test control group stud...

This article reports the results of a three-year study focusing on the experiences of a sample of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people in the United Kingdom who were victimized by their peers at school. Data collected from 190 LGBs suggested that experiences of victimization at school were both long-term and systematic, and were perpetrated by g...

The research was carried out in four secondary schools, two with a peer support system (PS) and two without (NPS) and involved a total of 931 pupils, (49.5% males, and 50.5% females). Participants were aged between 11 and 15 years of age, mean age 12.8 years. The aim was :to compare the perceptions of safety on the part of pupils in secondary schoo...

This article documents the important issues of school violence and bullying in the United Kingdom. The authors provide examples of effective interventions for preventing violence and describe some methods, grounded in a restorative and emotional intelligence framework, that have been successfully adopted in U.K. schools. The authors conclude that i...

The research was carried out in four secondary schools, two with a peer support system and two without, and involved a total of 931 pupils (49.5% males and 50.5% females). Participants were aged between 11 and 15 years of age, mean age 12.8 years. The aims were: to compare the perceptions of safety on the part of older and younger pupils in seconda...

This article opens with a review of current research on peer interventions and their capacity to impact on school climate and bystander behaviour, as well as to meet the aims of fostering altruism. The main focus of the article is a study of an email support group in an all-boys school in the United Kingdom. It was set up in response to an incident...

The exposure of children to violence at school is a major concern for educators everywhere and a frequent topic of discussion in the media. Written by experts in research, practice, and training in the field, this timely text proposes a whole-school approach to reduce the impact of violence on children's development. The authors take into account:...

Comparison of teachers' and pupils' definitions of bullying is important for considering the implications for reports of its incidence in schools, for the study of developmental trends in children's and adolescents' perceptions of the phenomenon and for evaluating the effectiveness of interventions designed to combat bullying. To investigate the ef...

En este trabajo describimos los programas de Ayuda entre Iguales, es decir, diferentes estrategias llevadas a cabo por los jóvenes para combatir el problema de la violencia en sus escuelas. Los métodos que detallamos están diseñados para ayudar a crear contextos escolares donde las relaciones personales son valoradas, y donde el respeto mutuo y la...

This paper presents the outcomes of a 4-hour activity day centred upon a short film entitled Bully Dance, a non-verbal animation featuring a unique soundtrack that focuses on identifying bullying behaviours and coping strategies, and understanding the role of the bystander. Participants were 34 year 6 children, aged 10/11 years old, from one primar...

In this article, the authors first discuss the nature of peer support and some of the ways in which it has evolved over time, particularly in the UK. Under the umbrella of peer support they include activities such as befriending, peer counselling, conflict resolution or mediation and intervening in bullying situations. Secondly, they describe resea...

A sceptical attitude towards religion remains dominant in many circles in mainstream psychology. For example, most theories of human development omit to mention spirituality at all. With some notable exceptions, many mainstream psychologists describe themselves as materialists with a belief that there is nothing beyond our bodies and our mental wor...

Victims of school bullying are known to be at risk in peer relationships and to sometimes use ineffective coping strategies, but little previous research has examined differences among escaped victims, continuing victims and new victims. A follow-up design compared friendships, behavioural characteristics, victimization experiences and coping strat...