The behavior described in case study 5 could be considered a form of aggression, it appears that Kayla and Ellie are being influenced by the year 7 girls to be mean to Sarah and ruin their friendship with her. It is believed the type of aggression being described in the above case study is called ‘relational aggression’ which is as stated in Woodfolk & Margetts (2013) as a form of hostile aggression that involves verbal attacks and other actions meant to cause harm to social relationships, this type of aggression can be more damaging then overt – physical aggression to both the victim and the aggressor. From an early age, students need to be taught how to handle social relationships without using any type of aggression Woodfolk & Margetts (2013). It is a lot more common for girls to be relationally aggressive than boys, one of the reasons for this is establishing a social status and a reputation. They tend to bully, manipulate and control other peers when they engage in relational aggression. Some examples of relational aggression in the form of bullying are, not including people in groups, making others dislike one person and creating lies about their peers continuously (Verywell, 2017). A number of reasons why students …show more content…
Another set of studies have shown that teachers find it difficult to have positive student-teacher relationships in a classroom with aggressive students, teachers state that it is difficult for them to use behavior management strategies that may be effective and could control the classroom, leading the teachers to have no choice but to use negative discipline and consequences, which can increase a student’s aggressive behavior instead of getting rid of it in most cases (Thomas and Bierman,