Bullying has been an ongoing problem that is detrimental to the bully and especially victim. Multiple negative effects arise from participating in bullying activity. Although there is no direct solution to this problem, there are ways to reduce bullying in schools and understand bullying more in depth. Certain variables increase or decrease the chance of being attacked by a bully.
Demographic differences are very crucial to understand bullying. It may determine who has a higher chance of being targeted and who has a lower chance. Another important variable to study is the type of bullying taking place. I am focusing on cyber bullying versus traditional bullying. Since technology has increased over the years there is evidence to support that cyber bullying is becoming the go to place to partake in bullying activities. One point that has little to no research on is individual versus class and moral disengagement. Moral disengagement has four mechanisms that are beneficial to measuring this point. Lastly peer support and effects of bullying will be discussed. Peer support has the opportunity to decrease bullying and create a strict no bully atmosphere while effects deals with the emotional and physical effects that can arise from bullying behavior.
Demographic Differences
Demographics are quantitative statistics that measures a participants self. The demographic characteristics that are being measured are gender, age, parents’ marital status and family income. Most studies hypotheses that girls will have higher levels of emotional bullying but the findings and data suggest otherwise. Franks, Rawana and Brownlee (2013) find that more boys are victims and bullies of emotional bullying than girls, but Turkmen et al...
... middle of paper ...
...20% (Moore et al., 2011) and 29% (Menesini et al., 2011) of participants reported being a victim of cyber bullying more than three times a week. From these two studies we can conclude that cyber bullying happens more frequently to the same victim than traditional bullying.
Individual vs. Class
Most studies focus on the individual that is being targeted rather than the class a whole. Pozzoli, Gina and Vieno (2012) proposed their hypothesis to test whether individual moral disengagement or class moral disengagement is relation with bullying. Moral disengagement is when an individual believes that normal standards do not apply to them (Pozzoli, Gina & Vieno (2012). They measured bullying behavior with four mechanisms of moral disengagement that included cognitive restructuring, blaming the victim, minimizing their agentive role and disregarding the consequences.
When the word bullying is brought up, one always pictures in his or her mind a big angry boy, who picks on other small helpless children. What some don’t realize is that bullying comes hand in hand with popularity, likeability, and peer acceptance. Children are heavily influenced by other kids his or her age, as the old saying goes, “But mom Jimmy gets to stay up past 10, why can’t I?” According to Miranda Witvliet, to understand children’s peer group affiliation, you need to be able to examine children naturally occurring groups resemble each other on bullying, likeability, and perceived popularity. To be accepted by a popular group of kids, others would follow in his or her footsteps and will bully others, even if the child knew it were wrong. Schools around the country have constructed anti-bullying campaigns and have programs setup to teach students, teachers, and family members what to do to prevent bullying. In an article by Jennifer Dignan, she explains how Stomp Out Bullying and The National Center for Bullying Prevention are two organizations working to put an end to the epidemic. To help prevent bullying people need to understand how the victims and the bullies are affected by other peers.
The definition of bullying uses broad statements to define the actual meaning. Because of this, people may view the definition differently than others. Bullying can range from physical violence to verbal abuse to even cyberbullying. Most people do not realize how common cyberbullying actually is. Over half of teens and adolescents have been bullied online and almost the same number have engaged in the bullying (“Cyber Bullying Statistics”). Cyberbullying is becoming more and more prominent throughout this time period because of the technology continuing to expand around the world. Each year this statistic increasingly grows due to the technology
Bullying has become a major problem facing the United States today. The American Psychological Association reports that roughly 40% to 80% of children are involved in bullying on some level during their time in school. (APA, 2014) The magnitude of the problem can be observed in the statistics. In the United States, a total of 4,080,879 children between the ages of five and 18 have been the victims of bullying compared to 3,892,199 who have reported that they have engaged in bullying someone else. Additionally, 851,755 said that they have been both the victim and the bully. That's a whopping 8,824,833 people in the United States that have been involved in bullying behavior on one level or another. (High, B., 2000 Census)
Bullying has been a part of schooling for as long as children have been congregating. To some it seems like a natural, though uncomfortable, part of life and school experience, while to others it can mean terrifying experiences which spoiled and characterized otherwise happy years in school. Dan Olweus, a pioneer in bully behavior research documented that 2.7 million children are affected as victims, and that 2.1 children act as bullies (Fried, 1997, as cited in Aluedse, 2006). With bullying cited as the reason for violent, gun-related crime in the past few years, school districts as well as national governments have put anti-bullying policies in place. Bullying is a complicated phenomenon, involving more than one child demanding lunch money from a smaller child. It is a worldwide epidemic hitting schools everywhere. Virtually everyone has seen or experienced bullying. With technological advances, bullying is even hitting the internet. Parents, teachers, students and governments agencies alike are attempting to put a stop to bullying practices.
Technology has given individuals the opportunity to change the game of bullying. Cyber-bullying is one of the most common forms of bullying as of today. The Internet has no boundaries so the public has access to endless and countless number of things. Cyber-bully is the electronic posting of mean-spirited messages about a person (as a student) often done anonymously according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. While traditionally bullying and cyber-bullying are very comparable in forms of technique that also have many differences. Cyber-bullying gives the bully the benefit of hiding their identity behind a screen. This makes it easier to tear people down because they do not have to come in contact with anyone. It’s the easiest form of bullying. These can happen in text messages, chat rooms, email, websites, excluding people from certain online activities, digital photos, and social media. Cyber bullies have unlimited supplies of ways to hurt someone. It is difficult to conduct a study on cyber-bullying because the majority of people will not confess or admit to it. Instead, in the article “Cyber-bullying among adolescents: Measures in search of a construct.” Researchers sit and listen through the grapevine on what is going on inside of schools. They found out that cyber-bullying is more dealt with within adolescents than traditional interaction bullying. (Mehari, K. R., Farrell, A. D., & Le, A. H.) Cyber-bullying can cause more
Because cyberbullying is a relatively new phenomenon, there is some degree of variance in its definition. In its early inception, cyberbullying was thought to be limited to the internet. However, the rapid creation of new technology tolls has expanded the boundaries to include cell phones, instant messaging, chat rooms, and email (Campfield, 2006). Campfield (2006) conducted a study of middle school students to determine the incidence rates of cyberbullying. She found that nearly 70% of students were involved in cyberbullying in some capacity, as a bully or victim. In a similar study, Li (2007) found that 39% of students have been involved in cyberbullying, while 52% were aware of a peer being harassed through electronic m...
In a CNN study by Chuck Hadad he states “That bullying is pervasive even though the schools have anti-bullying programs from kindergarten through 12th grade, assemblies throughout the year, and a peer-to-peer program where older students talk to younger students about the dangers of bullying” (Hadad). Robert Faris, a sociologist found that bullies and victims are generally the same person. Whe...
From this article, the subjects were school-aged adolescents who were in the class 6-10th grade. I believe this article is well versed; however, it had some flaws or limitations. First, all of the data that was collected were student self-report, which I believe would not produce an accurate or substantial result. I believe having information from various sources is highly recommended in order to get good results and further help studies. Secondly, there was no inclusion of white male and female Americans in the sample that was surveyed. Also the article failed to address or show the association between cyber bullying and the traditional form of bullying. I believe that if this information were provided, it would provide a more suitable avenue to better understand adolescent bullying as a whole and also help future studies.
Demographically, it has been reported that boys are more likely than girls to be perpetrators of cyber bullying whereas girls are more likely than boys to be involved in both aspects of cyber bullying – the perpetrator and the victim (Mishna, Khourg-Kassabri, Gadalla, & Daciuk, 2012; Sengupta & Chaudhuri, 2011; Slonje & Smith, 2008...
Bullying is an issue that has been around for decades and is something that can affect everyone, no matter what his or her age is. Even though bullying has changed over the years from being physical abuse and harassment that happens on the playgrounds of schoolyards to tormenting over the Internet. The same groups are still affected namely adolescents. Statistically about 30 percent of all teenagers in the United States are bullied in one-way or another (“Teenage Bullying”).
Bullying has always been present within the United States. Although the issue has been around for a long time, it continues to grow and become more of problem. It is said that about 160,000 children within the United States are refusing to go to school because of bullying. Another statistic is that within American schools alone, there are an estimated 2.1 billion bullies and 2.7 billion victims (Dan Olewus, MBNBD). The numbers presented here are outrageous and although there are organizations to stop bullying, obviously there needs to be a new set of solutions. Any type of bullying presents problems to children, “Suicide, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, trouble with the law, poor performance in school and work, and lack of involvement in socially accepted activities are some of the difficulties resulting from bullying (Austin, Reynolds, Barnes, Shirley). Of course, there is more than just a single type of bullying. Feeding ground for bullies can range anywhere from text-message or cyberbullying to physical bullying in schools. Also, bullies can begin to strike at a young age and could also be; teenage, middle-age, or even the elderly. Even though there are these many versions of problematic bullies, the largest bullying problems take place within the school setting: a place that is supposed to be safe for children rather than harmful. Although it seems impossible to completely get rid of bullying, these are a few suggested solutions; making the school informed on bullying issues, schools implementing rules on bullying, and having students positively use electronics to stop bullying.
Victims of bullying will eventually show the effects of bullying by being passive or secluding themselves from other individuals. The background or culture of a victim will most likely determine how they progress or react in a bullying experience. A victim may retaliate to the bully's attacks depending on the level of aggressiveness used. Parenting affects the decisions made by both victims and bullies in the peer interactions. Intervention approaches to this social vice will include changing the victims’ opinions about themselves through encouragement and teaching them how to effectively respond to attackers...
In recent times bullying has become a national issue, notwithstanding the fact that it has been in existence for many years. Traditionally, bullying has been seen as horseplay, but with the increase of harassment in schools and suicides; parents and schools are now forced to take action to prevent bullying in schools. Bullying is an unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance which has the potential to be repeated over time. Strategies to prevent bullying in schools are grouped into identifying the causes of bullying, creating policies and rules, building a safe environment and educating students and staff.
A great number of children and young adults are the main target of bullying via the internet. In most instances the youngsters cannot understand that they are being bullied as this shows that that the once safe internet environment is over time becoming a great sources of anxiety and confusion (Berson, Berson & Ferron, 2002). Cyber bullying tend to have negative effects of the one being bullied in that the victim attains a confused feeling and are hurt since they have been targeted and insulted for no justifiable reasons. With time the victims develop feelings of loneliness and fear and may opt to stay at home where they feel secure and may even avoid to schools or in other social gatherings. This is likely to affects
Bullying has become a serious problem in public schools systems. Being a victim of bullying is a daily struggle for some students. The issue continues to grow, but the question is how to stop bullying from occurring. Many ways have been attempted to stop bullying, but some are more effective than others. Having the students get involved seems to have the most positive effect on the bullying issue in public school systems.