Bullying: An Age-old Problem That Needs New

Solutions

Bullying has been around for as long as anyone can remember. Indeed, bullying is a
common theme in stories about childhood and adolescence, from 19th century authors
like Charles Dickens in his classic novels, Oliver Twist (1) and The Life and Adventures of
Nicholas Nickleby (2), to Eleanor Estes 1944 book The Hundred Dresses (3), and more
recently Nick Hornby’s 2002 novel, About a Boy (4). It is only in recent years, however, that
bullying has begun to receive serious research attention within the scientific community,
with the first systematic studies on bullying emerging in the 1970s by Norwegian
researcher, Dan Olweus (e.g., (5)). Today, bullying is recognized as a worldwide issue for
children and youth around the globe (e.g., see (6, 7)), and research on the topic increasing
exponentially.

Media attention to the tragic deaths of youth who were victims of bullying has raised
public awareness in countries around the world (e.g. (8)), and our rapidly growing capacity
for global communication has given rise to an unprecedented international exchange of
information, as well as cross-national studies of the issue (e.g. (9)). Given such worldwide
collaboration and attention, our understanding of the complexity and significance of the
problem of school bullying has increased dramatically over the past two decades.
Although questions still outnumber answers, we are beginning to unravel the many facets
of bullying and victimization that our children are facing. With this knowledge, we are also
beginning to find effective ways to reduce bullying. However, we still have much work to
do to translate research knowledge into effective practice.

In this special edition of Education.com, we have invited established research scholars

Much of the research on bullying has followed a three-part definition of bullying initially
developed by Dan Olweus (10, 11): “A person is being bullied when he or she is exposed,
repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons.”

There are three critical components in this definition.

 First, bullying is an intentional act. The child who bullies wants to harm the victim; it is no
accident.
 Second, bullying is characterized by repeated occurrences. Bullying is not generally
considered a random act nor a single incident. Rather, a child is repeatedly picked on by
another child or is the target of harassment from a whole group of children. It is the
repeated nature of bullying that causes anxiety and apprehension in victims, such that the
anticipation of bullying becomes as problematic as the bullying itself.
 Third, and particularly important, bullying is characterized by a power differential. A fight
between two kids of equal power is not bullying; bullying is an unfair fight where the child
who bullies has some advantage or power over the child who is victimized.

Bullying is about power – the abuse of power (12). Bullying is not the same as “playing
around”. It is not the one-on-one fisticuffs that is often justified by reactions such as “boys
will be boys”. It is not a fair fight and cannot be treated as such.

These power differences distinguish bullying from other forms of aggression and create
unique challenges for parents, educators, and researchers who want to help reduce
bullying behaviors. These power differences also make telling kids to “stand up to bullies”
ill advised, as such efforts are far more likely to fail than succeed. The long term outcomes
associated with such abuse of power are particularly disconcerting (see (13)). For example,
researchers in Canada  (14) have shown that children who bully may be learning to use
power and aggression as an effective way to deal with others and these tactics can be
carried on in later relationships, leading to dating aggression, and possibly workplace
harassment and family abuse.

In understanding bullying, it is also important to recognize that power can take many
different forms. We typically think of physical power – the big kid picking on the little kid,
the older student harassing the younger student. Power can also come in numbers, as in
when a group of students pick on another child. In fact, the earliest studies of bullying
focused on “mobbing”, a form of collective aggression (15). Less readily recognized,
however, are social forms of power. One individual can have an advantage over another in
terms of greater academic or athletic prowess, or greater social status or popularity within
the larger peer group. The power differential that characterizes bullying makes it very
tricky for students to defend themselves against some perpetrators, especially those who
wield social power. What if the bullies in the school are popular students and everyone
wants to be in their group? What if a student who bullies other kids in a small town is the
son of the town sheriff? What if a student who is sending nasty text messages is the
daughter of the school board president? Standing up to bullies can be very risky for
children and youth.
Beware of traditional stereotypes of bullies as social outcasts who resort to violence
because they have no other options. Research from Europe shows that many bullies
actually have high levels of social skills and social intelligence (e.g., 16, 17, 18, 19).

Students certainly recognize this. In fact, in one high school, we found (20) that over 60%
of the students surveyed  agreed that “bullies are popular,” and that “some of the coolest
kids in school are bullies.” As adults, it is not always clear that we recognize the behavior
of high status, popular students as bullying, especially given that bullying is sometimes
difficult to distinguish from playful aggression or teasing.  In some cases, we may be
giving some students the “benefit of the doubt’ and in doing so unintentionally condone
their behavior. Moreover, it may be difficult to convince students that bullying is
unacceptable when it is a strategy used effectively by high status individuals to maintain
power within the peer group (see (12)).

The strategies that students use to bully others can also vary. Physical bullying includes
direct physical aggression or attacks on another individual (hitting, kicking, beating up,
pushing, spitting, etc.). It can also take the form of property damage or theft. In western
countries at least, physical bullying is perhaps the traditional stereotype of bullying, but it
is certainly not the only form bullying takes. Bullying can also be verbal in nature. Verbal
bullying includes teasing, mocking, name calling, and other forms of verbal humiliation
and intimidation, as well as threats, coercion and extortion. It can also include racist, sexist
and/or homophobic taunts. Social or relational bullying involves the use of relationships to
harass others through gossip, public humiliation and/or embarrassment, rumor-spreading,
alienation and exclusion from the group, and/or setting another up to take the blame for
something. More recently, researchers have distinguished cyber or electronic bullying in
which individuals use the Internet, email or text messaging to threaten, hurt, single out,
embarrass, spread rumors or reveal secrets about others. Interestingly, although adults
tend to be especially concerned about physical and electronic bullying, student reports
indicate that it is social and relational bullying that are experienced far more often.

How Common is Bullying?

When young people, aged 11, 13 and 15 were asked to report on their experiences with
bullying and victimization within the preceding two months, prevalence rates ranged from
1% to 50% across 25 countries in Europe and North America (9). Overall, about 35% of
students reported bullying others at least once over the previous two months while about
34% of respondents reported being victimized at least once (21). For 11%, peer
victimization occurred 2 or 3 times or more in the preceding two months. The figures vary
considerably across countries, ranging from 9 to 73% for bullying others and from 2 to
36% for victimization.

How Stable is Bullying?

Some researchers have found that bullying and victimization are fairly stable
characteristics in that the same children tend to bully or be bullied over several years in
school (22, 23, 24, 25). However, other research indicates that the majority of children
admit to being bullies and victims at least occasionally, and most do not continue in these
roles. For example, in a 3-year study of middle school students (26), only 13% of the
children remained in their roles of bully, victim or bully-victim across the middle school
years; 87% changed their roles during that period. Similarly, over an 8-year period, from
elementary to secondary school, other researchers (27) have found that only 16.5% of the
children who were bullies at age 8 were still bullies at age 16, and only 9% of children who
were victimized continued to be victims. Thus, change is certainly possible, and it is the
responsibility of adults to help children learn to use power in appropriate ways. Of
particular concern, however, are those youth whose experiences as a bully or victim persist,
given the many long-term consequences associated with stable patterns of bullying and
victimization (see (13)).

How Complicated Could It Be?

As several articles in this special edition indicate, researchers and educators have come to
understand that bullying is not just a problem that is inherent in a troubled child, nor is it
just a problem between two people (bully and victim), something that has been called “the
dyadic bias”(28). Rather, bullying reflects a problem in interpersonal relationships that also
must be considered as a group phenomenon. Indeed, students can be involved in bullying
in many different ways: as bullies, as victims and as witnesses. When elementary students
were videotaped at school, it was found that peers were present as witnesses to bullying
85% of the time (29), though they seldom intervened on behalf of the victim. Children
tend to adopt very different roles in bullying (11, 30). In addition to bully and victim, some
children serve as assistants or reinforcers for the bully, others remain outsiders who just
walk away or passively watch, and a small but important group of students will act to
defend the child being victimized. As demonstrated in the articles included here, it is the
complex nature of bullying that has captured the attention of researchers. It is also the
complexity of bullying that makes efforts to reduce and eliminate bullying particularly
challenging.

Educators need to develop prevention and intervention strategies that address the needs of all
children involved (bullies, victims and witnesses) and to coordinate efforts across elementary,
middle, and high schools and the community. We know that zero tolerance policies are not
effective in stopping aggression in schools (31), and expulsion also appears to be ineffective (32).
Although there are many examples of schools that have been successful in drastically reducing
levels of school bullying, many such efforts fail (see (33, 34) for reviews). The task ahead is to take
what we now know about the complexity of bullying and translate it into effective practice, in
homes, schools and communities. This special issue of education.com represents an exciting effort
to link established researchers in the area of bullying and peer victimization with educators who
are in the trenches working directly with students in schools and with parents who are trying to
help their children grow up to be competent and caring adults. We hope that this special issue is
useful to teachers, administrators, parents, and students who are dealing directly with bullying so
that together we can make all children safe from peer harassment and victimization.

NAME : MOCH. EKY ABIGANTARA S.