Deconstructing the Policing of the Normal: An Examination of the Work Done by Undercover Anti-Bullying Teams

Bronwyn Davies and her colleagues have argued for a Foucauldian analysis of bullying relations in schools as an alternative to the common assumption of pathological moral character in the bully. In a Foucauldian analysis, bullying works to maintain discursive categories of normality through marking those who differ as other. Bullying discourages dissensus and polices social norms more than it deviates from them. This paper takes up this analysis and examines the undercover anti-bullying team process for whether it produces greater openness to difference and challenges the discursive logic of bullying.