Bullying: A Major Social Problem in the United States

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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) Before we can effectively identify and understand trends in bullying, we must first understand what bullying is. The most common definition of bullying is intentionally and habitually causing physical or emotional harm or pain to others. There is one major flaw with this definition. Pain is subjective, therefore the pain, or its magnitude cannot directly be seen, nor can it be felt by anyone other than the person experiencing it. Therefore, simply defining bullying as "causing pain" leaves to individual interpretation what does or does not constitute bullying. Perhaps a better definition would be any act, physical, verbal, or otherwise that a person perceives to be a threat to his or her physical, emotional or psychological well-being. This definition does not go without flaw either. It is admittedly a rather broad definition and could likely result in the term "bullying" being used rather loosely, however, in order to accurately define what does and does not constitute bullying, we must judge eac... ... middle of paper ... ... http://www.bullypolice.org School Bullying. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bullying Bolton, Jose. & Graeve, Stan. (2005). No Room for Bullies: From the Classroom to Cyberspace. Boys Town, Nebraska: Boys Town Press. Office of Statistics and Programming, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC using WISQARS™. (2010). 10 Leading Causes of Death by Age Group, United States-2010. CDC.gov. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/leadingcauses.html Bullying Statistics, Stop Bullying, Harassment, and Anti-Bully in School/Work. (2013) Bullying and Suicide. Retrieved from http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-and-suicide.htm Bully Police USA: A Watch-dog Organization, Advocating for Bullied Children & Reporting on State Anti-Bullying Laws (2012). Retrieved from http://www.bullypolice.org

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