Margaret Hodgins

The persistently high prevalence of gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in higher education institutions is a well established phenomenon, as is the inadequacy of institutional responses and the silencing of those who aim or attempt to report it. Drawing on Ahmed’s concept of ‘non-performativity’, ‘institutional speech acts that do not bring into effect what they name’, this paper argues that the non-performativity of anti-bullying and harassment policy is an exercise of power, consistent with Agócs concept of institutionalised resistance. Reporting misconduct is intentionally transformational, but seen as a threat to powerful organisational actors, who exercise institutional power to enact procedures in such a way that victim-survivors are unvoiced and tricked into ‘reluctant acquiescence’ with adverse consequences on their personal and occupational health. We employ documentary analysis to critique policies and procedures for GBVH in Irish universities, and specifically how institutional power is exercised through policy documents. The analysis is based on ten pseudonymised universities, rendering a sample size of 23 documents, pertaining to GBVH for staff. We find that the tone and language employed in policies, and the way in which the informal and formal approaches in anti-bullying and harassment policies frame the problem, serve the interests of the institution. Confidentiality clauses, the framing of the problem as an individualistic, incident-based problem, to be resolved case-by-case, and quasi-legal processes facilitate non-performativity, preserving institutional power and the status quo. From a public health perspective such inertia undermines efforts to prevent harm and promote workplace wellbeing. Meaningful reform will require that HEIs employ alternative tools capable of unsettling these entrenched institutional arrangements and to adopt alternative, proactive tools that prioritise accountability, transparency, prevention and health gain. We suggest new tools in the form of victim-centred, trauma-informed, remediation- and restorative-based approaches.

Sectoral and institutional context[s] are critical to understanding how workplace toxicity manifests and how it might best be addressed. The education sector, specifically higher education, is the focus of this study, drawing on qualitative data collected from Irish Higher Education Institutions [HEIs]. Underpinned by a multi-faceted conceptualisation of bullying, the study explores how it is experienced by university staff and how institutional or contextual factors impinge on that experience. The study employed a qualitative interpretive methodology involving one-to-one semi-structured interviews with self-selecting participants. Persons who currently work or have recently worked in higher education institutions were recruited into the study. A generic thematic approach resulted in five intersecting themes, converging on one overarching organising construct, i.e., bullying in higher education as a traumatic process. The data displayed relationality, institutionalisation and unethicality, which are underlying features of a multi-faceted conceptualisation of bullying. It was concluded that the processes and procedures in place to address bullying and provide redress do not appear to be sufficiently nuanced to accommodate the complex behaviours and power plays involved in bullying in Higher Education, assuming a rationality stripped of power dynamics, which risks aggravating the damage already inflicted by bullying. The findings suggest that the institutional response, or lack thereof, can sometimes be more traumatising than the bullying itself. Individual cases often reflect a wider organisational culture that tolerates bullying and victimisation. Institutional responses will need to tackle the entire HEI ecosystem, requiring and a more nuanced understanding of the power dynamics and organisational context.

Workplace bullying is broadly defined as a detrimental form of negative micro-political interaction(s) incorporating a range of aggressive interpersonal behaviours. While targeted toxic behaviour based upon legally protected grounds such as ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is conceptualised as harassment, this paper positions harassment as a constituent subset of workplace bullying—distinct, but inextricably linked to the broader landscape of workplace predation and incivility. Meta-analyses of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies demonstrate a robust relationship between being bullied and compromised health, and some sectors, e.g., education, display higher than average levels of exposure, suggesting that contexts matter. The higher education sector is the focus of this scoping review. High rates of bullying have been reported in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), where many of the organisational factors that drive bullying are present. One systematic literature review has been carried out on bullying in HEIs, reviewing papers prior to 2013. Since the sector has seen considerable contextual change since that time, another review is timely. This systematic scoping review aims to identify the volume, range, nature, and characteristics of studies of workplace bullying in HEIs between 2003 and 2023, with a specific focus on how the context of HEIs contributes to the enactment and/or the response to workplace bullying. To this end, 3179 records were identified, with 140 papers charted to identify methods, institution, population, and country. Forty-seven papers were subjected to full-text review for the exploration of contextual factors. Priorities for future research lie in addressing the pernicious effects of neoliberal governance models as well as the complex and intersecting power relations that are unique to higher education.