Myskin S.V., Kravtsov L.G.
CULTURAL-HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE MEDIATION TECHNOLOGY FOR THE PREVENTION OF BULLYING SITUATIONS AMONG ADOLESCENTS
Abstract. The article reveals the methodological, theoretical and practical provisions of the author’s approach to the development of a mediation technology to prevent bullying among children and adolescents in secondary school. It is assumed that the described approach will be one of the most important areas of preventive work with students of educational organizations. The authors give their own interpretation of the concept of bullying prevention. Prevention is understood as the systematic psychological and pedagogical work of teachers to form a mediative (alter-bullying) culture in the children’s environment, regardless of whether there are cases of bullying or not. The authors single out L.S. Vygotsky’s cultural and historical theory as the main methodological basis. In addition, the key provisions of K. Levin’s field theory are used in the development of a mediation technology for the formation of alter-bullying values. Theoretical calculations are based on the assumption of the existence of a continuum of “natural behavior – cultural behavior”. In life situations with the potential for bullying, subjects tend to behave naturally. This, in fact, increases the risks of exacerbation of destructive social interaction between children, their implementation of aggressive verbal and non-verbal forms of behavior. The key psychological mechanism for preventing bullying in these situations is the overcoming of natural forms of cultural behavior. The main psychological technique is a non-zero-sum game. Based on the developed theoretical provisions, the authors present an example of a model situation containing the potential for bullying, as well as a description of the methodological structure of two solutions to the model situation: natural and cultural. In the final part of the article, the results of the pilot testing of mediation technology on future teachers – students of a pedagogical university are summarized.
Keywords: mediation, bullying, psychological violence, cultural and historical theory, natural and cultural forms of behavior, bullying prevention.