Children's Experience of Loneliness at School and Its Relation to Bullying and the Quality of Teacher Interventions.

Forty-two children aged between 8 and 10 years were interviewed about their experience of loneliness at primary school. The children were further asked to describe their experiences of being bullied, as well as to comment on their perception of the consequences of particular teacher interventions. It was found that a majority of children (80%) had periods of being lonely at school and that these experiences were associated with boredom, inactivity, a tendency to withdraw into fantasy, and a passive attitude towards social interactions. Moreover, children who invested in very few friendships were more vulnerable to becoming isolated. Similarly, a majority of children (68%) claimed to have been bullied, with lonely children being more likely to be victimized by peers. Furthermore, children reported that teacher interventions were on the whole not effective in bringing an end to their victimization experiences. Thus, the findings indicated that both bullying and particular kinds of teacher interventions were contributing factors to children's prolonged sense of loneliness at school. A developmental model of the interrelationship of these three variables is proposed and discussed. Key Words: Loneliness, Bullying, School, Phenomenology, and Life-World ********** The focus of the present research is the experience of loneliness, an area of human relating which, although universal, has not been given sufficient attention by contemporary psychological research. Although it is possible to discuss loneliness in its existential sense, as a condition which is interwoven into our everyday human activities (Jaspers, 1970; Moustakas, 1961), the approach that will be adopted here is to view it as a response to an interpersonal situation. The rationale for adopting this approach is rooted in the work of Sullivan (1953), who argued that loneliness in childhood could best be understood as the frustration of intimacy needs. Moreover, this approach is in keeping with the suggestion that a phenomenological approach to human development would seek to clarify children's life-worlds by means of descriptions of their intersubjective experiences (Berguno, 2003). Thus, in the present study, loneliness is construed as a human response to having had and lost a certain type of relationship. It is a situation in which the need for contact and tenderness are frustrated (Fromm-Reichmann, 1959). It can be such a frightening and painful experience that an individual may feel driven to reestablish communication with others without concern for the interpersonal consequences. Nevertheless, the experience of loneliness can be extraordinarily persistent, since it is not solely a desire for company, and therefore cannot be satisfied by simply being around others. Loneliness only yields to a very specific form of relationship; it can be interrupted by social activity but not alleviated by it (Bowlby, 1969; Sullivan, 1953). Social activity may, in fact, deepen the loneliness by highlighting the absence of meaningful interaction. Once a specific relationship has been established or repaired, loneliness vanishes, although the lonely individual may not in fact be in a position to establish the wished for relationship through his or her own efforts. The experience of loneliness is often accompanied by boredom and aimlessness. Everyday tasks and routines may lose their meaning and the lonely individual may blame himor herself for his or her "weakness." Moreover, the lonely individual may find that others respond to his or her loneliness with irritation and a lack of empathy, a situation which may then lead to further isolation. The psychoanalytic literature considers that the roots of loneliness can be found in infancy, whenever the earliest need for contact is frustrated (Klein, 1990). The developmental literature has highlighted that children have a deep need to involve others in their personal concerns, as well as the need to be invited into relationships by others. …