Introduction
Educators, civil rights advocates, law enforcement and development organizations for youth would agree that bullying can be avoided. Bullying can lead to serious impairment of both the health and achievement of vulnerable victims. Research indicated that nine out of ten elementary school children have been subjected to physical or psychological bullying by their peers, while six in ten have been bullies themselves (Reiter & Lefler, 2007 as cited in Cooper, 2011).
Bullying can be considered a feature of school violence, which is a major concern in education today. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Fact Sheet 2010 revealed that school violence is an extension of youth violence, which implies dangerous conduct that may start when children are real young and continue until they become adults. These behaviors include bullying, slapping, punching, and the use of dangerous weapons (CDC, 2010 as cited in Peyton-Brown, 2010). A study by the National Association of School Psychologists reported that 160,000 students in the United States absent from school daily to avoid being bullied (Facts about bullying, 2010 as cited in Cooper, 2011). Even more alarmingly, students classified as special education students are often the victims of such malicious acts.
Bullying can be defined as specifically a situation that is characterized by an imbalance of power between the victim and the bully (Reiter & Lefler, 2007 as cited in Cooper, 2011). Bullying includes intentional acts of physical aggression or social or psychological abuse by individuals or groups against another individual or group. These acts should not be taken passively (Logsdon, 2007 as cited in Cooper, 2011).
Although bullying can take many forms, there can be both observable and secretive forms. Some observable behaviors include the bully using intimidation and threats through name calling, insults, negative comments about gender and race, and excessive teasing. Additionally, physical assaults may occur. These may include tripping, hitting, pinching and other acts of physical abuse as well as destruction of property, demanding money or other possessions. There are also other secretive behavior, which include rejecting, excluding, isolating, spreading rumors and causing other public humiliation (Cooper, 2011).
Theories on bullying
Bronfenbrenner (1979 as cited in Lane, 2015) indicated that within the approach to bullying, the ecological systems theory in a school environment is viewed as a set of nested structures, which include home, school and neighborhood settings. Each set of structures has an effect on a child’s development of bullying behavior. Within the ecological model, the social contexts are not limited to immediate social settings. Family, school and community also played an important role in the development of bullying behavior, which included the individuals as well (Allen, 2010 as cited in Lane, 2015).
The ecological systems theory provides a framework for explaining how the different systems influence children to behave as bullies (Flores, 2005 as cited Lane, 2015). However, the ecological model did not ignore the importance of the context in which children interact with each other. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory includes four layers of systems relevant to the school environment, micro system, ecosystem, mesoystem and macrosystem. These models may have influenced, established, maintained, and have had a great impact on children’s behaviors, including developing pro-social behavior while inhibiting antisocial behaviors.
The development of bullying behavior starts in elementary school, with the highest frequency of bullying behavior occurring in middle school (Bulach et al., 2003 as cited in Lewis-Jordan, 2012). As the primary institution and a major socialization force in children’s lives, schools play a leadership role in addressing bullying problems (Craig & Pepler, 2007). Research shows bullying is often covert and difficult to detect, which poses a challenge for teachers in attempting to help victims and stop bullying (Cole, Cornell, & Sheras, 2006).
In the United States, bullying has been studied as a subset of aggression, and the majority of the studies have focused on physical aggression (Bosworth Espelage & Simon, 1999 as cited in Lewis-Jordan, 2012). With each repeated bullying incident, the power relations become consolidated. The child who is bullying increases in power and the child who is being victimized loses power (Craig & Pepler, 2007). However, children who fight back when bullied also tend to watch when others are bullied (Brown et al., 2005 as cited in Lewis-Jordan, 2012).
The individual traits that were relevant to explaining bullying include age, bullyingvictimization from past experiences, and attitude toward aggression (Swearer et al., 2008 as cited in Lane, 2015). The interactions were characterized by types of ecological settings as well as individual traits. Bronfenbrenner (1979 as cited in Lane, 2015) argue that children are perceived as developmental entities that play an important role in interacting with their surroundings.
Research on bullying has been limited by a focus on characteristics of individual bullies and victims and a reliance on questionnaire methodologies (Craig et al., 2000 as cited in Lewis-Jordan, 2012). Children involved in bullying are at risk for a variety of mental health problems, the most common problem being depression (Dake et al., 2003). As schools become more and more culturally diverse, teachers may have an increasingly difficult task of identifying the causes of violence because individuals will be coming together in different cultural, social, and economic contexts (Eisenbraun, 2007). However, studies have clearly documented that the actions of peers, teachers, and other adults at school, physical characteristics of the school grounds, family factors, cultural characteristics, and even community factors are implicated in the development and maintenance of bullying (Espelage & Swearer, 2003).
Conclusion
While bullying can take place anywhere, a substantial amount of this behavior takes place at school. Many children who are bullied report that problems occur on the playground and view the playground as a lonely, unhappy, and unsafe environment (Bullock, 2002). However, bullying occurs in location where there is minimal teacher supervision. Areas such as the gym locker rooms, restrooms, lunchrooms, hallways and other areas where students congregate are ideal places for bullying acts to take place.
Several factors appear to influence a person’s decision about whether an incident is bullying. However, research shows that bullying usually occurs in the presence of peers, who can adopt a variety of roles, such as remaining neutral during a bullying incident, assisting and encouraging the bully, or aiding or consoling the victim (Smith et al., 2004 as cited in Lane, 2015). Many teachers affirm bullying behavior within the school by denying the problem exists (Colorso, 2003 as cited in Lewis-Jordan, 2012).
According to Espelage & Swearer (2003), aggression and bullying has been labeled as socially deviant by scholars from many disciplines. Many research studies found that attitude toward aggression was one of the most important psychosocial factors that significantly predicted high levels of bullying.
References
Bullock, J. (2002). Bullying among children. Childhood Education, 78(3), 130-133. doi: 10.1080/00094056.2002.10522721
Cole, J., Cornell, D., & Sheras, P. (2006). Identification of school bullies by survey methods. Professional School Counseling, 9(4), 305-313.
Cooper, S. (2011). The impact of bullying on school performance in six selected schools in South Carolina (Doctoral thesis, South Carolina State University). Retrieved from http://ezproxy.sothebysinstitute.com:2195/pqdtft/docview/912170348/fulltextPDF/D552AB2A952B4FEAPQ/1?accountid=13958
Craig, W., & Pepler, D. (2007). Understanding bullying: From research to practice. Canadian Psychology, 48(2), 86-93.
Dake, J., Price, J., & Telljohann, S. (2003). The nature and extent of bullying at school. Journal of School Health, 73(5), 173-190.
Eisenbraun, K. (2007). Violence in schools: Prevalence, prediction, and prevention. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12, 459-469.
Espelage, D., & Swearer, S. (2003). Research on school bullying and victimization: What have we learned and where do we go from here? School Psychology Review, 32(3), 365-381.
Lane, V. (2015). The relationship between the experiences of bullying and the perception of the harm of bullying in middle schools (Doctoral thesis, Capella University). Retrieved from http://ezproxy.sothebysinstitute.com:2195/pqdtft/docview/1735405453/fulltextPDF/EC0C6F71F7554B45PQ/1?accountid=13958
Lewis-Jordan, J. (2012). A study to examine the perception of middle school teachers on bullying (Doctoral thesis, Capella University). Retrieved from http://ezproxy.sothebysinstitute.com:2195/pqdtft/docview/1036599441/fulltextPDF/BF8E2B93A6774504PQ/6?accountid=13958
Peyton-Brown, C. (2010). Bullying and gender: The social/emotional, psychological, and physical effects on middle school students in South Mississippi (Doctoral thesis, The University of Southern Mississippi). Retrieved from http://ezproxy.sothebysinstitute.com:2195/pqdtft/docview/757723559/fulltextPDF/BF8E2B93A6774504PQ/3?accountid=13958
