Societal and cultural considerations in understanding peer bullying in India

Bullying is a repeated abuse of power to harm others. All forms of bullying are social relationship problems which are deeply embedded in society. Within much of the current Western-based literature, bullying has often been considered from an individual student standpoint, of the role taken by the perpetrator, victim, bully-victim or bystander. However, we know from the research bullying is relational: it starts in childhood, peaks in the transition to secondary school, continues through university and apprenticeships and extends to the workplace. To fully understand bullying therefore, we argue that it is important to examine the society and culture in which bullying occurs. In this chapter, we turn our attention to India and discuss societal and cultural conditions in relation to bullying. We utilise various cultural theories to develop a framework of normative cultural expectations. At the macro-level of culture, Hofstede’s value dimensions provide understanding of risk and the factors mitigating bullying. We also deploy Holliday’s ‘small’ culture theory to gain insights into the norms at work at the micro-levels of power within the social relations of gender, caste, family and age. We conclude by discussing the power relations embedded in cultural practices and their implications for school bullying in India.