The research of Anna C. Baldry and David P. Farrington (1999) is addressed to the Italian children who have been bullied in school or bully their peers. In their article “Types of Bullying among Italian School Children” the authors determine the percentage of children who are being bullied or bully the others. Also Baldry and Farrington provide the information about the most prevalence types of bullying and the most common places of bullying. The research took place in one of the typical schools of the Rome and involved the students of the 11-14 years old. 238 pupils were asked to fill the questionnaires about bullying at school in the last three months. The results of the study demonstrate that over the half of the students have ever been bullied by others, and “girls were somewhat more likely than boys to be bullied sometimes or more often” (Baldry & Farrington,1999). The authors of the article also conclude that, in general, usually the boys bully other children, but there is also small percentage of the students that have been bullied by girls. Although the prevalence of bullying the children in the Italian schools is quite high, none of the pupils are bullied by younger students – all of the victims suffer from the mockery by older children or coevals. The authors state that there are two main types of bullying – direct and indirect bullying. The first type is commonly verbal and physical bullying, while the second one includes the rejection of the child by other students and other psychological insult. The vast majority of victims have been bullied in the classroom and over 40% in the playground and corridors.
Baldry and Farrington use the data to support their research results; this data is quite brief and do not include any useless information. Although the data supports the authors’ conclusion and shows the results of the study in numbers, it may be difficult for reader to assimilate the whole information for the first time. It may be more convenient if the data is presented by the table or graphic, because using of it is very important for the presentation of the research results. The authors’ strong reliance on self-report data demonstrates the accuracy of their research. It is also shows that Baldry and Farrington carried a well-organized research and structured their conclusions, so the reader can receive the information due to this report.
According to the authors, the “bully” is when “Students bully weaker peers at school by deliberately and repeatedly hurting and upsetting them in several ways It is not bullying when two students of about the same strength quarrel or have a fight” (Baldry & Farrington, 1999). The definition is rather adequate, because bullying really include hurting the weaker child by the stronger peer by “playing nasty games, threatening or hitting them or calling them names” (Baldry & Farrington,1999). And when two peers have a fight – it is not bullying, because bullying mostly means hurting the weaker child, who cannot fight back. The authors state the most of students “were directly victimized or were indirectly victimized” (Baldry & Farrington,1999), this information refers to those, who have ever been bullied (it is stated at the bottom of the Table 1).
I think that authors are right when concluding that bullying is quite serious problem. From the Table 1 we can see that more than half of pupils are bullied, and almost all of the boys are hurt by direct bullying. It means that almost 94% of boys are beaten by their peers. In the same time, 74% of girls are hurt by indirect bullying, which can cause serious mental disorders at this age. In the Discussion section the authors present the results of other research to show the concurrencies between studies as well as the contrasts (e. g. “previous studies showed that boys were mainly bullied by other boys and girls by other girls, in our sample both boys and girls were bullied by one or several boys” (Baldry & Farrington,1999)). But most of the comparisons with other results show the coherence between different researches. So, the comparison is presented quite well.
References
Baldry, A. C., Farrington, D. P. (1999, June 22). Types of bullying among Italian school children. Journal of Adolescence, 3, 423-26.
