Bullying is a form of violence that occurs between a group of people or a single individual and another group of people or individual either in physical or mental form. The intention might not be clear, but there could be possibly many intentions in this process. Bullying, today, can take place either in person-to-person form through electronic media devices. We can find boys in a majority of the cases of bullying. They are either involved in physical bullying or emotional bullying or even cyber bullying, which could harm others. On the other hand, in some of the cases, even girls were found to be involved in bullying, but they were involved in such activities through spreading of rumors purposefully, with the intention of either excluding another girl or boy or to take revenge for some reason (Gladden et al., 2014).
There could be several types of bullying such as physical bullying, verbal bullying, emotional bullying, and cyber bullying. Today, cyberbullying has increased a lot. A child or student is harassed, threatened, tormented, embarrassed, or humiliated by another child or student through Internet in cyberbullying, through digital technologies or even through mobile phones. This type of violence often goes undetected, since it lacks parental supervision (Marks, 2009). Using digital form of technologies, a child or student is targeted through emails, messaging, blogs, websites, or through another abusive forms. It is, therefore, important for the parents to understand the seriousness of these issues, and once they are aware of such problems, they in collaboration with the school authorities can take necessary precautionary and protective actions.
As per one of the research reports in 2011, nearly 33 percent of the high school students in United States were found in cyber bullying activities. And, nearly 20 percent of the students were the victims of such school violent incidents. Further, in such cases, it was also found that, out of these 20 percent students who were the victims of school violence, nearly 6 percent denied going to school, since they were feeling unsafe. About 7 percent of the students, who were belonging to 9th to 12th grades, reported of either being threatened or being injured in such incidents (Hertz, 2013).
Cyberbullying and resulting violence seems to be a common occurrence in most of the schools and colleges around the world. There could be many factors for the increasing rates of cyberbullying. These factors include socio-economic status and environment, sexual orientation, gender, religion, and not getting support of the parents at home.
The school and college management authorities, the parents, and the cyber agencies of government need to identify signs of cyber bullying. These signs could include students easily getting frustrated or displaying lower self-esteem. Some of the bright students could accidently start performing badly in their studies. We can even find students remaining isolated from their groups. Hence, it is important to prevent such cyberbullying activities. This objective can be achieved through building self-esteem of the victims and helping them to come out of such traumatic incidents. The culprits should be demonstrated examples of building healthy relationships. There is a need to promote inclusive classrooms. The school and college management authorities need intervening student interactions, so as to prevent any cyberbullying incident. The local enforcement agencies need to establish a moral code of conduct (Renold 179-194).
References
Gladden, R.M., Vivolo-Kantor, A.M., Hamburger, M.E., and Lumpkin, C.D. (2014). Bullying surveillance among youths: Uniform definitions for public health and recommended data elements – Version 1.0. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
Hertz, M.F. (2013). The relationship between youth involvement in bullying and suicide. Journal of Adolescent Health, 53(1), S1-S54.
Marks, R. (2009). Schools and health education - What works, what is needed and why? Health Education, 109(1), 4-8.
Renold, E. (2003). 'If you don't kiss me, you're dumped': Boys, boyfriends and heterosexualized masculinities in the primary school. Educational Review, 55(2), 179-194.
