Revista de Investigaciones Universidad del Quindío,

34(S2), 211-222; 2022.

ISSN: 1794-631X e-ISSN: 2500-5782

Esta obra está bajo una licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0 Internacional.

COUNTERING BULLYING IN SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT

LUCHA CONTRA EL ACOSO ESCOLAR

Nataliia Saiko 1 ; Yuliya Klymenko 2 ; Viktoriia Shevchuk 3 ; Olga Batsman 4 ; Nadia Myakushko 5 .

1. National University «Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic», Ukraine. natsayko@gmail.com

2. Poltava V. G. Korolenko National Pedagogical University, Ukraine. julundija@gmail.com

3. Poltava V. G. Korolenko National Pedagogical University, Ukraine. kvitusik82@gmail.com

4. University «Ukraine», Ukraine. olgapisnya2203@gmail.com

5. University «Ukraine», Ukraine. myakushkoNadiya@i.ua

*Corresponding author: Nataliia Saiko, email: natsayko@gmail.com

АBSTRACT

In this study, an analysis of the problem of bullying in secondary schools has been carried out. To do so, comparison, generalization, observation, systemic analysis, theoretical cognition, and analogy methods are utilized. The necessity of pedagogical reacting to the stated problem has been proved. The authors present guidelines for countering the problem of bullying. The importance of humanization of relationships at school, beginning with leadership styles, goal-oriented formation of optimistic positions, and positive thinking of schoolchildren and teachers are emphasized. Particular attention is paid while working with the problem of bullying to the method of reliance on the strengths of an individual and the formation of its leadership qualities. The main components of socially significant knowledge: socio-psychological, socio-legal, and social-integrative, have been outlined. The formation of this knowledge will allow a person to avoid bullying or respond to it at the right moment. The need for a timely diagnosis of bullying has been accentuated.

Keywords: bullying; humanization; optimistic position; satisfaction; positive thinking.

RESUMEN

En este estudio se ha realizado un análisis de la problemática del bullying en los centros de secundaria. Para ello se utilizan métodos de comparación, generalización, observación, análisis sistémico, cognición teórica y analogía. Se ha demostrado la necesidad de reaccionar pedagógicamente al problema planteado. Los autores presentan pautas para contrarrestar el problema del bullying. Se enfatiza la importancia de la humanización de las relaciones en la escuela, a partir de los estilos de liderazgo, la formación orientada a objetivos de posiciones optimistas y el pensamiento positivo de escolares y docentes. Se presta especial atención al trabajar con el problema de la intimidación al método de confianza en las fortalezas de un individuo y la formación de sus cualidades de liderazgo. Se han esbozado los principales componentes del conocimiento socialmente significativo: sociopsicológico, sociojurídico y sociointegrador. La formación de este conocimiento permitirá a una persona evitar el acoso o responder a él en el momento adecuado. Se ha acentuado la necesidad de un diagnóstico oportuno del bullying.

Palabras clave: bullying; humanización; posición optimista; satisfacción; pensamiento positivo.

INTRODUCTION

Secondary school becomes for a child the main social institution in childhood and it is a powerful mechanism for personality formation in process of training, education, staying in a social group (class, peers), searching of friends, communicating with teachers, etc. But recently, a phenomenon of bullying in school setting has become widespread. Under the World Health Organization Ukraine assume № 4 spot in ranking in Europe after Russia, Albania and Belarus according to the level of aggression of adolescents. Data of analysis conducted by the All-Ukrainian Non Government Organization «Women’s Consortium of Ukraine» (WCU, 2018) show that approximately 67% of children in schools suffer from violence or were witnesses of it and this rate is highest among 12–14 year old adolescents.

A number of international and national organizations, such as UNICEF, Kiddo Charity Foundation, Studena NGO, Ukrainian Institute for Extremism Research, Women’s Consortium of Ukraine, Ukrainian Child Welfare Foundation and others, have joined the problem of prevention and overcoming the consequences of bullying and this fact confirms urgency and severity of the problem in Ukrainian society. The problem of bullying has started to solve at the state level, as the Law of Ukraine on Education (Law of Ukraine on Education, 2019) interprets the concept of «bullying» as the actions of participants in the educational process, which are psychological, physical, economic, sexual violence, including with the use of electronic means of communication, committed against a juvenile or a minor. The types of bullying have been specified and its manifestations have been outlined. This problem has also begun to solve in the legal aspect, considering bullying as a crime. Thus, the Law of Ukraine «On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Combating Bullying (Harassment)» of January 19, 2019 (Law of Ukraine «On Amendments», 2019) envisage a fine of UAH 850–1700 or 20–40 hours of community service for harassment at school; a fine in the form of 20% of salary and one month correctional labour or financial sanctions in the amount of 850–1700 UAH are provided for teachers who did not inform the National Police about bullying at school.

Teachers often distance themselves from the problem of bullying, as noted by (Savelyev, 2009) and there is a lack of awareness of the causes and forms of bullying in relationships between students. As a rule, teachers do not know extent of the problem and do not know how to deal with this phenomenon. Inability, ignorance and inability to implement effective methods and means of preventing such a socially dangerous phenomenon as bullying can lead to destruction of standards of a democratic and humanistic society for the sake of one’s own needs.

Such foreign researchers as (Olweus, 1993; Lane, 2001; Kon, 2006; Cornell, 2006; Rose et al., 2012; Gladden et al., 2013) and others made a significant contribution to the theory of overcoming bullying, studying its structure and causes. National scientists (Drozdov, 2007; Korol, 2009; Stelmakh, 2011; Barlit, 2012; Lushpay, 2013; Haydamashko, 2013) investigate psychological characteristics of bullying, its consequences and ways to overcome. At the same time, the issue of development and use of socio-pedagogical technologies for bullying prevention in secondary schools remains insufficiently studied in national science.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Therefore, an important task of a modern secondary school is to recognize the existence of a problem of bullying and create an appropriate environment in school for socio-pedagogical prevention and combating the negative consequences of this phenomenon. Development and implementation of effective system of psychological, socio-pedagogical influence, which would prevent and overcome bullying in children, is necessary condition of the present on the way of creating cultural and educational environment.

Research methods: comparison, generalization, observation, systemic analysis, theoretical cognition, the method of analogy. The research methodology is based on the principles of humanistic philosophy; understanding of an individual as an active subject of development and activity; on conceptual statements of psychological-pedagogical and socio-pedagogical science as to formation of personality in the unity of spiritual, mental and physical aspects; on statements of pedagogical science as to organization of school environment; on statements of positive psychology and its methods.

This is confirmed by the results of a survey in secondary schools of Poltava (Ukraine) among adolescents (total number 320 people) conducted by the authors of the article. The purpose of the survey was to determine how correctly children understand the concept of «bullying» and if they oppose this phenomenon.

Analysis of the survey results revealed that adolescents are practically unaware of bullying concept. Only 16.7% of children were familiar with concept of bullying. They all said they had read about it on the Internet. All respondents named the Constitution of Ukraine as a normative legal act that guarantees and protects rights of a child, and 46.7% of children named the Convention on the Rights of the Child. To the question: «Have you ever experienced systematic mockery, verbal insults from one or a group of students at school?» 53.3% of respondents answered «no», «yes» – 46.7%. To the question: «Have you been systematically subjected to physical violence, namely kicks, beatings, beatings by one or a group of students at school?» 63.3% of respondents answered «no», «yes» – 36.7%. To the question: «Has it ever happened that a certain student or group of students repeatedly damaged your things, took away your money or belongings?» 80.0% of respondents answered «no», «yes» – 20.0%. A number of students (43.3%) claim that there were cases when other students have boycotted them, ridiculed their appearance, activities, behavior, threatened, and spread rumours about them. Thirty percent of teens said they were victims of cyberbullying when rumours, abusive comments, and text messages were spread about them on the Internet and mobile phones. 70% of children reported that they witnessed such actions against other children. At the same time, 40% of adolescents say that they themselves committed these actions against other children, i.e. were bullies. Current situation in secondary schools shows that bullying is quite common, it is difficult to detect and most schoolchildren take certain actions that violate individual rights not as bullying, but as normal behavior that can be tolerated.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Prevention of bullying in school setting should have a certain structure, which includes:

1) formulation and research of the problem of bullying among students; activity planning, organizational and methodological support; influence on personality (preventive intervention) and impact on the problem environment;

2) influence on personality: increase of person’s resources, correction of negative personal qualities; development of qualities which increase adaptive capabilities of an individual, formation of an adequate attitude to a problem;

3) monitoring of problem, analysis of effectiveness of preventive actions.

The first thing we need to pay attention is humanization of school relations, which covers the following areas:

– humanization of relations in teaching staff, which consists in humanization of management style by school authority, formation and development of humanistic forms of relations between teachers, friendly public opinion, a comfortable psychological microclimate;

– humanization of educational process, which involves its construction taking into account the psychological and physical capabilities of students, their health, interests and needs; individualization and differentiation of educational process, its organization on the basis of cooperation, collaboration of teacher and child, orientation of educational process on the development of social skills of young adolescents, namely the formation of leadership qualities, confidence, ability to present own personality, ability to realize personal needs;

– humanization of educational process, which requires the formation of humanistic orientation of an individual, recognition of his rights and freedoms, meeting the needs of students in free choice of activities, communication, self-expression, cooperation of teachers and students in questions of organization of children’s lives; elimination of authoritarianism in educational process;

– humanization of relations between pupils, which consists in creating at school an atmosphere of respect for a personality, education of relationships in children’s team on the basis of sensitivity, empathy, mutual assistance, tolerance, respect for each other, development of communication culture between students, resolving conflicts on a humane basis.

Each school has its own specifics of psycho-emotional atmosphere, and it first of all depends on the school authority, on the attitude of the principal to his subordinates. Therefore, prevention of bullying should begin with a change in leadership style from authoritarian to democratic. Unfortunately, among a teaching staff there are also cases of bullying, so-called mobbing, which occurs in the form of rumours, constant negative assessment of teachers’ professional activities, pressure by various administrative penalties – unfair distribution schedule of hours at the beginning of a school year, isolation from class masters, regular attendance of lessons with further negative assessment, excessive control over the teacher’s activities, etc. Such a complex task must be solved gradually, using different forms and methods of work. First of all, it is necessary to weaken supervisory and strengthen advisory function of all structures that govern activity of school – local, regional education departments, methodical offices, etc. It is expedient to control not the content and forms of school work, but the basic principles of its activity and their compliance with the Law of Ukraine on Education; giving schools more freedom to be creative and opportunity to listen to the advice of governing bodies, and possibly to abandon certain elements of the imposed system.

It is necessary to conduct systematic work on the correction of leadership styles – lectures, trainings for school principals on effective management, which provides creation of optimal conditions for professional activity. Gradually, principle of humanization and democratization of environment will be realized in other types of relationships – between teachers and students and in student groups. Respect towards them, taking into account their opinions, points of view and help in attitude to universal moral values are especially important for children. Therefore, it is advisable to organize trainings for correction of communication styles of teachers. Communication should be psychologically comfortable and attractive, the one that is characterized by a special form of perception and cognition of another person, based on formation of a stable positive feeling about that individual, a positive halo of interlocutors. A teacher plays leading role in creating such communication and therefore he/she must constantly monitor his/her own psycho-emotional state, be able at the right moment to restore disturbed internal balance. It can be done by such methods as trainings, lectures, game therapy, etc. The main thing is to form in teachers an opinion that a student should not cause irritation, shouting and various types of aggression, and if there are such cases, it indicates incompetence of the teacher and his/her professional deformation.

Success orientation, self-confidence, perception of the category of happiness as a norm of life are especially important for overcoming and preventing bullying. Confidence building-up depends, first of all, on maturity of a system of socially significant knowledge and skills. Basing on the analysis of system of knowledge formed by school, the main directions of implementation of the Law on Education and practical problems of activity, we can come to conclusion that modern students need strengthening in knowledge system such components as socio-psychological, socio-legal and socio- integrative to form basis of successful social functioning.

Socio-psychological component of rehabilitation of young adolescents in secondary schools includes acquaintance with basic psychological concepts (abilities, skills, mental processes and methods of influencing them, privacy; creation of motivation to self knowledge, own potential, formation of an attitude to own personality as such , which constantly needs development and improvement, focus on the positive qualities of one’s own personality to prevent obsession on weaknesses, the formation of skills of effective interpersonal interaction, the ability to resist pressure and aggression, awareness of the ways of conflict resolution, advantages and disadvantages of different ways of solving conflicts; acquaintance with a wide range of feelings and emotions, development of ability to recognize them, analyze dependence of health and well-being on dominant feelings, formation of spontaneous regulation of emotions and behavior, development of useful skills to manage negative emotions and ability to withstand frustrating situations; acquaintance with peculiarities of use of aesthetic therapeutic methods of restoration of a psychoemotional state.

Socio-legal component provides acquaintance of children with the concepts of «law», «norm», «social norm», «pedagogical norm», «legal norm», with the rights of a modern child, features of their implementation, list and structure of basic documents in which the rights of a child and features of their protection are setted down; acquaintance of children with their own responsibilities from the viewpoint of usefulness for their personality, with responsibilities of teachers and parents in relation to a child; formation of skills to identify situations of violation of individual rights, to oppose them or, if necessary, to avoid them; formation of skills to prove and realize one’s rights.

Socio-integrative component includes information provision and formation of ability to seek help (orally or in written form) in a situation of discomfort or violation of rights; help in creation of conditions and personal readiness to express one’s own point of view; formation of positive behavioral adaptive skills (decision-making, ability to communicate effectively, manage ones own actions, mastering skills of psychological self-help); acquaintance with organizations, structures and list of experts who can help in various difficult situations; formation of need to develop cognitive interests and use the potential of society for this purpose.

It is necessary to use such method of socio-pedagogical work as reliance on strengths of a student’s personality and teacher’s focus on recording child’s progress. The value basis of this approach, by (Pavlovsky, 2015), is that any person, family or society has strengths and resources. Everyone has such aspects of life, personality qualities that are not damaged by problem or which are best developed and dominant. It is dominant aspects of a person’s life that allow to move forward and develop. The method of reliance on strengths of an individual also involves the perception of complex life problems as guiding to development of personality qualities, gaining life experience, which in future could ensure successful functioning of an individual in socium. When assessing strengths of an individual it is importan to take into account what plans for future this individual has, what he aspires to and what he wants. Dreams, goals, hopes are the driving forces of personal development and diagnostic matter in work to overcome bullying.

Methods based on strengths of an individual are counseling as decision-oriented; motivational interview; social support based on strengths; case management model based on strengths; the program «Kid’s Skills» (by Finish psychiatrist Ben Furman), program of work with adolescents and their immediate environment; family group conferences; WoWW (Working on What Works) program, the main purpose of which is to give inner strength to teachers of general or specialized schools to realize their strenghts and stengthts of their students. The teacher should involve a child in various forms of activities (school and extracurricular) that meet the interests of a child, which help to reveal him as a person, feel the need and serve ways for self-realization and record his success and achievements, constantly support by positive evaluation and praise. For this purpose, as an American scientist Sir Ken Robinson (Robinson, 2015) suggests, you need to find out what each child of school aspires to, what are his interests and needs. Regardless of what it will be – football, dancing, mathematics, communication, it is necessary to create conditions for realization of children interests. Secondly, to show that each person is highly valued and while working with each student it is necessary to proceed from his interests and needs. At the same time improvement of training process, transfer to more difficult programs should be on the last place.

It is necessary to form the right attitude to one’s own personality, one’s successes and failures, life in general in order to have an above-mentioned effect from practical activities. Therefore, positive thinking of an individual becomes relevant in overcoming and preventing bullying. Definitely, positive emotions are driving force of human success, while negative ones have an inhibitory effect on an individual. The positive emotions are feeling of happiness, love, freedom, knowledge, joy, personal dignity, etc. and the negative ones include despair, hopelessness, fear, grief, and so on. School environment should focus on creating positivity, optimism in students position. It is known that activity of all organs and systems of the human body is coordinated by nervous system. It has been experimentally proven that there are adverse biological and chemical disorders that lead to diseases and reduced immunity, under the influence of negative emotions in the body.

The question of influence of optimism or pessimism on success in educational activity of an individual was considered in detail in a study of (Seligman, 2013), the results of which are presented in his book «Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life». In his research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania M. Selingman proved that an optimistic style of explaining the world is a significant factor in academic success. The main features of optimists, the author identifies: stability, globality and controllability. An optimist believes in a happy course of events and find obstacles as an additional incentive to work. On the contrary in a pessimistic style of explaining the world failures are perceived as constant, global and uncontrolled phenomena. Pessimists perceive trouble as something that affects all areas of life and is long-lasting one, they tend to focus on obstacles and does not try to overcome them. The scientist emphasizes the necessity to train optimism, as well as any other activity. For this purpose, a method, the content of which was to change the way a person responds when he thinks about failure, defeat, loss and helplessness, has been proposed. Controlled change of thinking style was called a phenomenon of conscious optimism. It allows people to change their lives, promotes desire to overcome difficulties and motivates them to succeed, and ultimately makes them to enjoy life more. M. Seligman emphasizes the need not to leave everything as it is, but to change pessimistic perception of the world to an optimistic one: after all, a person is able to influence his own thinking, and by means of it on emotional sphere and behavior.

Unlike negative emotions, positive emotions provide an opportunity to realize promising positive ways out of any difficult situation. Researcher (Fredrickson et al, 2004) has proved that positive emotions help to find resources to solve problems and to get rid of negative experiences, and suggested that positive emotions may be associated with optimal mental health and subjective well-being.

Formation of an optimistic position of students involves neutralization of action of intimidation and fear pedagogy. Fear, according to a scientist (Shcherbatykh, 2003) is an emotion that arises in situations of threat to biological or social existence of an individual and is aimed source of real or imagined danger. Fear is a bedrock of many emotions and a cause of various behaviors. Intimidation of students, constant pressure on their personality leads to unwanted negative reactions – protest, aggression, isolation, depression, passivity, and so on.

Therefore, the school should focus on the formation of such life values of children as sense of self-confidence, lack of anxiety and doubt, lack of fear of failure or thinking about how to achieve the goal; concentration on acting confidently and clearly; sense of «modest authority» – self-confidence without arrogance; a state of relaxed readiness in the body and full concentration of consciousness; action without effort, without thinking about assessment from outside; the main slogan of life is not to harm yourself. A child must be able to afford to be successful and, as a result, happy. By the way, to be happy – a person must learn this art, it is not given from birth, does not come by itself during life. According to modern psychologist (Ben-Shahar, 2012) who lectures courses in positive psychology and leadership at Harvard University, modern school teaches children various complex mathematical, physical laws, and other possibly necessary knowledge, but a modern student has no idea how to use them for the benefit of himself and society. However, if parents are asked, «What hey would want for their own children» or «How they see their child», they would say, «Happy», but no one school teaches that.

There is concept of «Happy Planet Index», which reflects the well-being of people and the state of environment in different countries. The Happy Planet Index is based on common values concerning people’s desire to live long and fulfilling lives. Subjective life satisfaction, life expectancy and ecological footprint of a generation are taken into account to calculate the Happy Planet Index. Happiness ranking are compiled by independent experts, taking into account GDP per capita, social development, health and life expectancy, freedom of choice, life satisfaction, the level of corruption, and correction factor.

Category of «happiness» in philosophy is quite complex, however, if to accept modern scientist (Vasyanovich, 2011) point of view, it can be defined as a state of man, who is characterized by experiences of inner satisfaction with his own existence, fullness and meaningfulness of life, balance of attained to vitaly important goals and dreams.

There are now many recommendations in information space for implementation ofcategory of happiness into one’s own life and world-outlook, but it is important for each person to decide for himself and answer the question: «What is happiness and how to achieve it?». At the same time, the category of «happiness» should not be taken as the highest ambition, the supra-dream of life, because the content of concept of «happiness» should be constantly changing, what ensures movement of an individual forward and constant improvement of quality of life.

Formation of a philosophy of leadership in students is the next aspect that should be paid attention to in the process of overcoming bullying.

An Italian scientist (Meneghetti, 2004) understands the concept of «leader» as an individual-vector, a personality who controls operations and is capable to synthesize context of relationships; it is the operational center of numerous relationships and functions. A person with leadership qualities could control, coordinate, manage and change socium. This requires the formation of inner position of a leader in each child, which involves getting rid of fears, dependence on external assessments, manifestation of an individuality, confidence in knowledge and skills, and so on. Internal leadership also implies a certain attitude to one’s own mistakes and failures. In order not to get stuck in place, not to form psychological complexes, it is necessary to teach children to distinguish positive experiences and multiply their inner world from every difficult, problematic situation, from wrong decision. It is required to teach a child rightly define goals in life, realize what to strive for and what not, so that behavior of a person with leadership qualities meet moral norms and values of society.

The goal should be clearly stated, realistic, positive, serve to improve the social functioning of an individual and not contradict the success already achieved. The choice of goals in improving social functioning should be based on one’s own desires and aspirations and awareness of full responsibility. However, some students need support in goal-setting or correcting them. A survey in secondary schools shows that students who are under constant pedagogical influence and control have difficulties in defining and expressing personal goals. They mention goals that have a universal, nationwide character (For example: I want to change lives of all people for the better; I want Ukrainians to live happily, etc. or do not call them at all, because goals are absent). However, the world consists of individuals, and if a person has no desire to change his own life for better, he/she is not able to influence lives of others. To set goals, children need clearly understand what is wrong with their environment, what they want to change. The starting point should be students opinion that by changing ourselves, we change our own environment and attitude towards us. Conscious, active attitude to definition of life goals, their independent choice must be systematically transformed into concrete actions to achieve them, otherwise the person will feel helplessness, insecurity and position «I can not change anything and therefore will tolerate what is». It is possible to create a program of actions that contains specific practical steps to achieve goal or desire. It involves practical activities, possibly training or performing certain tasks that lead to the implementation of the planned. It is important to record the smallest achievements and set time limits for this program. The main purpose of adults in the implementation of the program to achieve the planned is empowerment and coaching.

It is also worth mentioned that careful and valuable attitude to their own health – both physical and mental - is necessary component that prevents the formation of position of a victim and a bully. This includes learning about a variety of techniques for health improvement and prevention methods at various levels (for example, developing and implementing a fitness program, a healthy diet, mastering martial arts, psychological methods of protection, etc.). Educational activities have a great impact on students state of health so it is necessary to develop ability to organize it rationally, which involves the development of such science as time management.

Diagnostic stage and right selection of methods are important on application of any technique. To oppose bullying effectively, it is worth to use such diagnostic methods which record the beginning of problem, but not the result, that is the presence of a bullying problem. Therefore, the main task of diagnostics should be to identify uncomfortable states in children, for example, how satisfied or dissatisfied a person is with his stay at school and what exactly does not suit him. The first signs, such as depressed mood, passivity of a child, lack of communication with peers or constant conflict situations, etc., should be noticed by teacher and psychological service of school and it is necessary to find out a cause of it. In such cases, sometimes it is enough just to ask a child: «What happened? Or Why are you not in the mood today, etc.?» and support him/her. We also emphasize the need to diagnose psycho-emotional atmosphere and determine the degree of satisfaction of everyone by relationships in school environment. Everyone’s emotional state makes up psychological climate of school community, i.e. general emotional spirit of team, which combines moods of people, their experiences and attitudes to their activities, to each other and to surrounding events.

During diagnostics, it is necessary to pay attention to the following aspects of team life as general atmosphere of a class (positive, negative, friendly or vice versa); the nature of relations in group (who is the leader and most active members of class, their value orientations); attitude to weak or bright students; willingness of students to help each other; orientation of a team on development of cognitive sphere, their abilities and to what extent such orientation meets pedagogical requirements. After diagnosing psycho-emotional atmosphere of classes, overall picture of a school is formed, the identified problems are summarized and those students who need support in social functioning are identified.

It is reasonable to use methods which give a general picture of life satisfaction, and only then those which are more narrowly focused on a particular quality, mental process or sphere of life. This makes it possible to receive the first signals of a violation of harmony between student and school environment and to respond in time. For example, Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI) is generally excepted questionnaire to determine level of happiness and it is based on statement that happiness is the only factor of human experience, but it consists of at least three parts: life satisfaction, positive emotions and absence of negative ones.

To diagnose the level of optimism in children, you can use the method of YLOT (Youth Life Orientation Test), proposed by (Ey et al, 2005).

As it is mentioned above, the main method of overcoming bullying in school environment is the method of relying on strengths of an individual, so to identify the strengths of an individual, the following questions should be answered: what life skills help a child to survive; what he/she does best in life; what kind of life he/she would like; who supports him/ her in difficult moments; whom he/ she helps. We have an opportunity to make a list of strengths of an individual after answers to these questions. Every student must clearly realize what he/she knows best and what to work on to achieve certain life goals. Life goals may not necessarily be lofty topics, such as world peace, etc., although it is very important now, but more trivial: I want to lose weight, build muscles, visit some country, and so on. The main thing is that they are available and a person is aware of them.

One of the key concepts of the method of socio-pedagogical work – reliance on strengths of an individual according to (Pavlovsky, 2015) is resilience. By resilience is meant ability of a person to withstand stress and life difficulties.

Western scholars (Masten & Powell, 2003) identify the following factors that affect resilience of an individual: presence of supportive close relationships; supportive social environment; ability to find meaning, significance in life; positive self-esteem; ability to withstand stress, problem solving, communication skills; sense of humor, self-irony; life circumstances. When working with a problem of bullying, you need to focus on diagnosis and development of these components of each individual resilience.

CONCLUSION

The main ways to overcome bullying in school environment can be identified as follows: humanization of school environment, gradual change of leadership styles from authoritarian to democratic; orientation of educational process on child’s successes and their constant recording; formation of an optimistic position and a positive attitude of students to their own personality and others; formation of a system of socio-psychological, socio-legal, socio-integrative knowledge of students to avoid, confront bullying situations; use in pedagogical process method of reliance on strengths of an individual; formation of leadership qualities of students and timely diagnosis of impending discomfort of students and psycho-emotional atmosphere of a class.

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