Everyday thousand of teens wake up terrified of attending school. About one in seven schools, a child is either a bully or a victim of bullying. Bullying is simply defined as a type of aggressive behavior that involves intent to cause harm and a power imbalance (Olweus, 1999).
Bullying can range anywhere from psychological, physical (involving kicking and punching), verbal or cyber abuse. Bullying among children can be considered as a form of abuse’ (0-).
It has been put forward that bullying is a division of aggressive behavior and has been further characterized as repetitive and ‘an inability on behalf of the victim to defend him or herself’ (Farrington, 1993, cited it Sapouna, 2008).
We learn from Sapouna (2008) that bullying can take the form of ‘verbal (name calling), physical (hitting, kicking) or relational (deliberate exclusion from a group, spreading of malicious rumors).
After extensive research in Scandinavia, Olweus(1993, cited in Kumpulainen et al.,1998) proposed that bullying can be carried out by one or more adolescents and usually occurs on repeated occasions, and to some extent, it occurs in all schools.
Recently bullying amongst young people has gain notoriety in the press due to the extreme results it has had on certain young individuals. An example of this is Sian Yates, a 13 year old girl who committed suicide after repeated bullying (Daily Mail, 2007).
Bullying and Teasing
... from school every day because of fear of bullying Bully-related suicide can be connected to any type of bullying, including physical bullying, emotional bullying, cyber bullying, ... or psychologist, or request a referral to the appropriate school professional. Bullying and suicide link together. Not many people see that. A ...
Despite the press attention given to these cases, the extreme consequence of suicide does not occur in the majority of cases. Victims can suffer from a range of harmful effects such as humiliation, anxiety, depression, difficulty with interpersonal relationships, and emotional instability. This lead to the finding of Kumpulainen et al., (1998) that ‘bullying is a common phenomenon among children who are psychologically disturbed.’ The writer went on to say that there are ‘higher rates of psychological distress among both bullies and victims’ than those not involve. However, the literature is consistent in noting that the ‘bullied victims are the most troubled of the bully, victim, bully –victim triad’ (Juvonen et al., 2003; Ma, 2001; Pellegrini, 2002; Pellegrini et al., 1999;Salmivalli & Nieminen, 2002, cited in Cunningham, 2007).
Should these lead agencies to focus more on protecting the victim? Some schools have decided that the way forward is to have zero tolerance policies. This may include all students who bully. However, if certain researcher’s numbers are correct it could mean excluding from school, forty percent of the school aged population. Given the widespread nature of the problem can zero tolerance really mean, “Zero tolerance”? We learn from the NHS ‘website teens for health’ (2008) that ‘anyone can be singled out by bullies.’ The NSPCC found that 31 per cent of children had been bullied at some point (Teens for health, 2008).
This being the case, can anyone be bullied? Black and Jackson (2007) have put forward that there lies and ‘an imbalance of power’ between the parties involved in bullying. ‘The bully is stronger through social status, physical prowess, age, cognitive abilities or skill.’ Is this imbalance of power the same across the genders?
There is an extensive body of literature that suggests that boys are more likely than girls to be bullies as well as victims (Nansel et al.2001; Boulton & Smith, 1994; Boulton & Underwood, 1992, cited in Marsh, Parada, Craven, &Finger, 2004).
This doesn’t mean girls cannot be bullies. Stephenson and Smith (1989, cited in Kumpulainen et al., 1998) found that girls as well as boys fitted into the ‘five main groups of people involved in bullying’. These are: ‘dominating bullies, anxious bullies, bully-victims, classical victims, and provocative victims.’ These traits were also found by Sourander,Helstelä, Helenius and Piha (2000) to have clinical implications. Sourander et al., (2000) noted that ‘Bullying is especially associated with aggressive and antisocial behavior while victimization is associated with internalizing problems.’
The Term Paper on Bullying: Victim and Researchers
I. Introduction Bullying is one of the major problems that our students are facing. In CIC’s Guidance Office and even in the Office of the Student’s Affairs (OSA) many of the students have reported different cases of bullying. Some students do not go in the said offices but instead they would prefer to relay such incidents to their teachers. Some go directly to the Principal’s Office along with ...
Whitney and Smith, (1989, cited in Kumpulainen et al., 1998) found ‘bullies to be more prone to have criminal convictions later in life, and more likely to be involved in serious, recidivist crime’. Are criminal convections later in life a fair punishment for their actions? Or should something be done to help the bully? This leads to the question as what is the nature of these young people that make them prone to being a victim or a bully. In the search for a personality construct, many researchers have come to the agreement that ‘bullies are deficient in social information processing or may be intellectually disadvantaged’ (Besag, 1989, cited in Marsh et al., 2004).
The work of Crick and Dodge (1994, cited in Marsh et al., 2004) explained that bullies responses to social situations are being met with a filtration process.
This ‘cognitive filter’ is based on an aggressive individual interpreting neutral or ambiguous cues as hostile and therefore, making them more likely to engage in aggressive behaviors’ (Marsh et al., 2004).
This was also seen to be the case in Bosworth, Espelage, and Simon (1999, cited in Marsh et al., 2004) when ‘a sample of adolescent high school students showed that misconduct, anger, and beliefs supportive of violence were significantly related to bullying behaviors’. Although bullying is an aggressive act, this does not imply that bullies and aggressive or conduct-disordered individuals are a homogenous group. Sutton et al (1999, cited in Marsh, 2004) put forward that bullies were part of a complex environment where they are require to ‘negotiate and attribute mental states to themselves and others to explain or predict their behavior.’ This idea contravenes the notion that ‘bullies are cognitively inept or simple in their interactions with peers’ (Sutton et al 1999, cited in Marsh, 2004).
The Essay on The Bully Bullying Or Aggressive Behavior
The Bully Violence in schools is an ongoing problem. Students verbally and mentally abuse each other on a daily basis. Verbal abuse is the most precedent. These students are usually titled as bully's or having aggressive behavior. Girls have a tendency to indirectly bully, and boys have a tendency to physically bully other students. Bullying is a misbehavior that has to be resolved by looking at ...
References
“Bullying”. Violence Prevention. 1 Dec. 2012
http://www.violencepreventionworks.org/public/olweus_history.page
Dawkins, J. L. (1996).
Bullying, physical disability and the pediatric patient. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 38 603-612.
Espelage, D. L., Holt M. K., & Henkel, R. R. (2003).
Examination of peer group contextuals effects on aggressive behavior during early adolescence. Child development, 74, 205-220.
Pelligrini, A. D. (2002) Bullying and victimization in schools: A Dominance relations perspective . Educational Psychologist, 37, 151-163.
