Dr. Shelley Hymel, speaker invited to the Alberta FV Roundtable pre-meeting, May 6th, 2004
Dr. Shelley Hymel - Professor in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology and Special Education at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hymel has published several articles on peer rejection, harassment and bullying, and school-based intervention strategies. She is currently co-writing a book on bullying, and co-leading a 3-year Canadian Initiative for the Prevention to Bullying funded by National Crime Prevention.
Consider:
During the fall of 2003, Headlines Theatre, under the direction of
David Diamond, worked with students from two secondary schools within
the Vancouver School District to explore a drama-based approach to
raising awareness regarding harassment, bullying and discrimination
difficulties in school....
In
one participating secondary school, we had the unique opportunity to
formally evaluate the impact of this theatre-based "intervention" on
students in grades 8-12 using the results of an extensive student
survey on bullying, harassment and discrimination that was completed
anonymously by all students as part of a school-based evaluation just
two weeks after the Headlines Theatre performances....
...I
was able to assist the school in analyzing the information collected
on these surveys, with particular interest in whether or not the
Headline's Theatre experience made any difference in how students
viewed the problem [of bullying and harassment]....
Our goal was to compare students who participated in the Anti-Bullying
Forum with those who did not....
Comparisons(1)
of the responses of students who had participated in the Anti-Bullying
Forum (as cast or audience members) with those who had not
participated revealed that involvement in the Anti-Bullying Forum
served to increase awareness about bullying, harassment, and
discrimination, especially among males. This was evident in the higher
reports of many different forms of harassment by students who had
participated in the theatre event relative to those who had not
participated at all....
Did greater awareness of harassment, bullying and discrimination lead
students to feel less safe at school? Although participation in the
Anti-Bullying Forum did not affect students' overall feelings of
safety at school(7),
male (but not female) participants expressed significantly greater
concern or fear that they might be "physically attacked by other
students" and "physically hurt by a group of other kids from school",
as compared with students who did not participate at all(8).
Source:
Letter
from Shelley Hymel,
Faculty of Education, UBC to David Diamond, Headlines Theatre, 4 April,
2003, RE: Impact of Headlines Anti-Bullying Forum on Secondary Students
If the intention of the program was to create greater fear in students
"that
they might be 'physically attacked by other students' and 'physically hurt
by a group of other kids from school', as compared with students who did
not participate at all," then the program was a great success.
However, nothing is being said in Dr. Hymel's evaluation of the
program as to what impact it had in real terms on trends (i.e. reduction
of incidents of bullying and harassment over time). But then, that
was not the purpose of the program. The purpose was to raise
awareness and fear, right? Nothing was said by Dr. Hymel in her
letter about what the incident rates of harassment and bullying were in
real terms before and after the program. That would have been an
objective assessment of whether the program had a beneficial impact in
real terms.
Going by what Dr. Hymel reported in her survey of the impact of the
program, in real terms the program served well to increase the number of
reported incidents.
That was primarily evident in increased student awareness of the problem,
as reflected in higher reports of such behavior by both self and others in
multiple forms, as well as greater awareness that such behaviors were
often "criminal offenses". (Ibid.)
It appears that how real incidents can and should be measured in
absolute and objective terms is not as important as raising subjective
awareness and perceptions.
Dr. Hymel should fit in well with the FV Roundtable, whose objective it is
to raise awareness and fear about
the relatively trivial
"problem" of family violence, thereby to maintain the flow of funding
for the women's shelter industry and related programs for women.
A search of the Internet for <"Shelley
Hymel" abuse women> will provide you with about 16 search returns containing links to articles, and quotes by
Shelley Hymel that show men as abusers of women or children.
A search of the Internet for <"Shelley
Hymel" abuse
"men"> will provide you with about 15 search
returns containing links to articles and quotes by Shelley Hymel that
provide information on men as abusers of women and children and on what needs
to be done to end men being such bad people.
That cannot under the best of circumstances be considered a balanced
approach to social research pertaining to family violence, but it is without a
doubt an approach that is profitable for Shelley Hymel.
Full list of invited speakers,
including background information
Index to pages for Alberta FV
round-table discussions
See also:
 The White Rose
Thoughts are Free __________________
Posted 2004 04 18
Updates:
2006 03 04 (added link to Feminism for Male College
Students)
2007 12 23 (reformated)
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