Bullying is defined in the Education Act and PPM 144 as:
Aggressive and typically repeated behaviour by a student where the behaviour is intended by the student to have the effect of, or the student ought to know that the behaviour would be likely to have the effect of, causing harm, fear or distress to another individual, including physical, psychological, social or academic harm, harm to the individual’s reputation or harm to the individual’s property, or creating a negative environment at a school for another individual.1
PPM 144 provides clarification on what entails aggressive behaviour. Aggressive behaviour is defined as “intentional or unintentional, direct or indirect behaviour and can take many forms, such as, physical, verbal, and social”.2
PPM 144 provides further guidance on what types of behaviours and actions constitute aggressive behaviour:
- Physical aggressive behaviour includes hitting, pushing, slapping, and tripping.
- Verbal aggressive behaviour includes mocking, insults, threats, and sexist, racist, homophobic, or transphobic comments.
- Social or retaliation aggressive behaviour, is more subtle and includes behaviours such as gossiping, spreading rumours, excluding others from a group, humiliating others with public gestures or graffiti, shunning or ignoring. Social aggressive behaviour may occur through the use of technology by spreading rumours, images, or hurtful comments through the use of e-mail, cell phones, text messaging, Internet websites, social networking, or other technology.3
Bullying occurs in the context of a real or perceived power imbalance, based on such factors as: size, strength, age, intelligence, peer group power, economic status, social status, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, family circumstances, gender, gender identify, gender expression, race, disability or the receipt of special education.4 Bullying behaviour can include physical, verbal, electronic (cyber-bullying), written or other means.5