Anti-Bullying Policies in Canadian Sport: An Absent Presence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18666/JPRA-2018-V36-I2-8439Keywords:
bullying, sport, policy, content analysisAbstract
In Canada, it is estimated that one-third of bullying occurs outside of educational settings, including sport and recreation spaces (Shannon, 2013). Beyond important academic literature on abuse in athlete-coach relationships, however, there is little research on peer-to-peer bullying in sport. This is a noticeable absence considering assertions that there is a high potential for bullying to occur (Kerr, Jewett, MacPherson, & Stirling, 2016; Shannon, 2013). Moreover, bullying has been connected to children and youth drop-out rates (Fraser, 2015).
Our interest in this project was to determine how Canadian national sport organizations (NSOs) address peer-to-peer bullying through policy. Although antibullying strategies that rely solely on policy are ineffective (Short, 2013), clearly communicated and implemented policies remain important (Mountjoy et al., 2016; Olweus & Limber, 2010; Walton, 2004). Thus, we focused our analysis on policy documents available to the public on NSO websites.
A total of 118 documents were retrieved, consisting of various codes of conduct and harassment policies. Of these 118 policy documents, only three had been produced that addressed peer-to-peer bullying specifically. In the remaining 115 documents, bullying was mentioned just 19 times and only defined in five documents. The absence of specific policy and policy statement addressing peer-to-peer bullying is important to highlight. Well-written and implemented policies are needed in order to help create safer spaces in sport for children and youth. More specifically, it is imperative for sport and recreation organizations to have clearly defined policies on peer-to-peer bullying, which are openly communicated to members of the organization. It is also important for organizations to make it clear how members should report incidents of bullying.
Finally, policies that adequately define bullying and that address its root causes such as sexism, racism, ableism, and LGBTQphobia are considered best practice as they are determined to be more complete. Policies that highlight the root or ideological causes of bullying may have more long-term impact on reducing bullying behaviours and incidents, as children and youth are encouraged to embrace difference and demonstrate empathy, respect, and compassion (Short, 2013). These policies should co-exist with educational programs on bullying, such as those offered by Respect in Sport and the Canadian Red Cross.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Sagamore Publishing LLC (hereinafter the “Copyright Owner”)
Journal Publishing Copyright Agreement for Authors
PLEASE REVIEW OUR POLICIES AND THE PUBLISHING AGREEMENT, AND INDICATE YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS BY CHECKING THE ‘AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS COPYRIGHT NOTICE’ CHECKBOX BELOW.
I understand that by submitting an article to Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, I am granting the copyright to the article submitted for consideration for publication in Journal of Park and Recreation Administration to the Copyright Owner. If after consideration of the Editor of the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, the article is not accepted for publication, all copyright covered under this agreement will be automatically returned to the Author(s).
THE PUBLISHING AGREEMENT
Assignment of Copyright
I hereby assign to the Copyright Owner the copyright in the manuscript I am submitting in this online procedure and any tables, illustrations or other material submitted for publication as part of the manuscript in all forms and media (whether now known or later developed), throughout the world, in all languages, for the full term of copyright, effective when the article is accepted for publication.
Reversion of Rights
Articles may sometimes be accepted for publication but later be rejected in the publication process, even in some cases after public posting in “Articles in Press” form, in which case all rights will revert to the Author.
Retention of Rights for Scholarly Purposes
I understand that I retain or am hereby granted the Retained Rights. The Retained Rights include the right to use the Preprint, Accepted Manuscript, and the Published Journal Article for Personal Use and Internal Institutional Use.
All journal material is under a 12 month embargo. Authors who would like to have their articles available as open access should contact gbates@sagamorepub.com for further information.
In the case of the Accepted Manuscript and the Published Journal Article, the Retained Rights exclude Commercial Use, other than use by the author in a subsequent compilation of the author’s works or to extend the Article to book length form or re-use by the author of portions or excerpts in other works.
Published Journal Article: the author may share a link to the formal publication through the relevant DOI.
Author Representations
- The Article I have submitted to the journal for review is original, has been written by the stated author(s) and has not been published elsewhere.
- The Article was not submitted for review to another journal while under review by this journal and will not be submitted to any other journal.
- The Article contains no libelous or other unlawful statements and does not contain any materials that violate any personal or proprietary rights of any other person or entity.
- I have obtained written permission from copyright owners for any excerpts from copyrighted works that are included and have credited the sources in the Article.
- If the Article was prepared jointly with other authors, I have informed the co-author(s) of the terms of this Journal Publishing Agreement and that I am signing on their behalf as their agent, and I am authorized to do so.