You’ve got the disease: how disgust in child culture shapes school bullying

This paper brings an ethnographic experience to bear on the existing research field of school bullying, rounding out our understanding by focusing on an essential aspect: children’s culture. Based on 14 months of fieldwork and a close analysis of the case of Anat, a 9-year-old victim of bullying, the paper identifies a unique formation of school bullying with no leading bully. Drawing from theoretical approaches which focus on pupils’ everyday life, the paper asserts that bullying without a leading bully is rooted in children’s culture which effectively enforces bullying as a binding norm by constructing its object as disgusting. The paper explores how disgust shapes school bullying into a collective omnipresent rejection. It also discusses intervention programmes and suggests that within such a social position, one practice to consider would be transferring to a new environment where bullied pupils will not be forced to cope with collectively enforced prejudices.