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Battling Bullying
Over the last 20 years, high-profile episodes of bullying have stirred up broad public alarm. This attention may appear to be merely trendy, but it's important. Bullyingcommonly defined as systematic exclusion, aggression, or harassment that one child or a group of children inflicts on less powerful childrenis pervasive in our schools. About 30 percent of students are bullied on school grounds alone (National Center for Education Statistics, 2011). Janet suffered a mild form of bullying; bullying is often more intense, physical, and vicious. Rather than generating empathy, a child's vulnerability can fuel another's spite, contempt, and even fury. Consider the toll on students. Bullied children are more prone to anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem, depression, social withdrawal, physical health complaints, aggression, alcohol and drug use, school difficulties, and suicide (Espelage & Swearer, 2003). Some children remain haunted by the humiliation long into adulthood. Bullies suffer many of the same problems, although they seem more likely than their victims to manage such challenges by lashing out. Some children are bullied one day and turn around to bully the next, and many children bully and are bullied at different points in their childhood. Many schools across the United States are now focused on reducing bullying. These efforts have tended to take two forms: Traditionally, schools have focused on punishing perpetrators; more recently, attention has shifted toward emboldening students who are bystanders to become "upstanders"that is, to stand up for those being bullied. But these approaches only go so far.
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upstanders does little to change the social norms that fuel that cruelty. Upstanders are, by definition, exceptional. They go against the tide; they buck social norms. No widespread system of prevention can depend on the capacity of individual children for heroism and self-sacrifice. Further, bystanders who misread a bullying situation or wrongly assess their power to prevent it can put themselves in the line of fire, becoming targets themselves.
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Fostering Activism
Students in schools around the United States have also organized social action groups to take on bullying and meanness, such as the group that created "the walls of shame." On Pink Shirt Day in Canada, students and adults take a stand against bullying by wearing pink, a mobilization sparked by two high school students who elected to wear pink to support bullied students in their school. Groups of students in West Virginia have developed a school "friend zone," a place where any isolated or threatened student is assured of friendly company (Collier, Swearer, Doces, & Jones, 2012). In 2009, in response to ongoing violence, dozens of Asian immigrant students in Philadelphia boycotted their high school and developed a civil rights campaign that pressed the district to take responsibility for creating a safe education climate. A group of Boston students created a video that powerfully conveys how cyberbullying becomes increasingly vicious. Students might take up a variety of other activities, and adults in a school can play a key role in getting these types of actions off the ground. These activities might include interviewing fellow students and staff membersteachers, bus drivers, school secretaries, cafeteria staff, librarians and other school adultsabout how to make the school a more safe and caring place. Students might consider adopting projects to improve school culture developed by students in other schools, both in and outside the United States. They could organize peers to sign a list of commitments that uphold norms of respect and care, such as, "If you see bullying, don't just ignore it. Talk to the victim and offer support. Don't encourage or reinforce the bully" (Collier et al., 2012). They could take up more systematic efforts to change the culture of younger students by
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engaging them in joint social action projects. And they should ask crucial questions and advocate for schools in which they feel safe, respected, and able to learn (see "10 Questions Students Should Ask," p. 29). Such active student engagement is likely to draw a far greater number of participants if the school offers incentives. Schools might provide seed money to students who want to create a video or offer prizes to groups of students who take up projects that improve the school culture. School staff members and students should conduct periodic assessments to determine the efficacy of these interventions and change course, if necessary. If schools are committed to routinely mobilizing students, these initiatives, especially together, can reach a kind of tipping point. We're not suggesting that schools can entirely eradicate cruelty. But it is possible to shift social norms so that students who bullynot just students who are bulliedare seen as vulnerable and troubled; so that students value other students for caring acts; and so that students take pride in their ability to make connections and friendships across the various divides.
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events, and nonacademic programming? 9. Does the school have a peer mediation or peer counseling program? 10. Does the school have a policy that clearly states that discrimination and harassment are not tolerated for any reason? Does it cover race, class, gender, and sexual orientation? How and where is this policy presented to students and staff? Source: Bullying Prevention Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Available at www.thebullyproject.com. Adapted with permission.
References
Astor, R., Meyer, H., & Pitner, R. (2001). Elementary and middle school students' perceptions of violence-prone school subcontexts. Elementary School Journal, 101(5), 511528. Bouffard, S., & Jones, S. M. (2011). The whole child, the whole setting: Toward integrated measures of quality. In M. Zaslow, I. Martinez-Beck, K. Tout, & T. Halle (Eds.), Quality measurement in early childhood settings (pp. 281295). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. Cairns, R. B., Leung, M. V., Buchanan, L., & Cairns, B. D. (1995). Friendship and social networks in childhood and adolescence: Fluidity, reliability, and interrelations. Child Development, 66(5), 13301345. Collier, A., Swearer, S., Doces, M., & Jones, L. (2012). Changing the culture: Ideas for student action. In D. Boyd & J. Palfrey (Eds.), The kinder and braver world project: Research series. Culver City, CA: Born This Way Foundation and Cambridge, MA: Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University. Craig, W., & Pepler, D. (1997). Observation of bullying and victimization: An observational study. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 13(2), 4159. Dishion, T. J., & Piehler, T. F. (2009). Deviant by design: Peer contagion in development, interventions, and schools. In K. H. Rubin, W. M. Bukowski, & B. Laursen (Eds.), Handbook of peer interactions, relationships, and groups. New York: Guilford Press. Espelage, D. L., & 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), 365383. Farrington, D. P., & Ttofi, M. M. (2009). School-based programs to reduce bullying and victimization. Campbell Systematic Review, 6. Henry, D. B. (2008). Changing classroom social settings through attention to norms. In M. Shinn & H. Yoshikawa (Eds.), Toward positive youth development: Transforming schools and community programs (pp. 4057). London: Oxford University Press. Jones, S. M., & Molano, A. E. (2010). The influence of schools on adolescent behavior and risk-taking. Paper commissioned by the Committee on the Science of Adolescence; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Institute of Medicine; and the National Research Council. Kasen, S., Johnson, J. G., Chen, H., Crawford, T. N., & Cohen, P. (2011). School climate and change in personality disorder symptom trajectories related to bullying: A prospective study. In D. L. Espelage & S. M. Swearer (Eds.), Bullying in North American schools (2nd ed., pp. 161181). New York: Routledge. Lapsey, D. K. (2008). Moral self-identity as the aim of education. In L. Nucci & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Handbook of moral and character education (pp. 3054). New York: Routledge. LaRusso, M. D., Brown, J. L., Jones, S. M., & Aber, J. L. (2009). Schools as whole units: The complexities of studying the multiple contexts within schools. In L. M. Dinella (Ed.), Conducting psychology research in school-based settings: A practical guide for researchers conducting high quality science within school environments. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. National Center for Education Statistics. (2011). Indicators of school crime and safety: Indicator 11. Washington, DC: Author. Powers, F. C., & Higgins-D'Alessandro, A. (2008). The just community approach to moral education and the moral atmosphere of the school. In L. Nucci & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Handbook of moral and character education (pp. 230231). New York: Routledge. Roeser, R. W., Eccles, J. S., & Sameroff, A. J. (2000). School as a context of early adolescents' academic and socialemotional development: A summary of research findings. Elementary School Journal, 100(5), 443471. Schultz, L. H., Barr, D. J., & Selman, R. L. (2001). The value of a developmental approach to evaluating character
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development programmes: An outcome study of "Facing History and Ourselves." Journal of Moral Education, 30(1), 327. Wentzel, K. R., Barry, C. M., & Caldwell, K. A. (2004). Friendship in middle school: Influences on motivation and school adjustment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96(2), 195203.
Endnote
1
See the Bullying Prevention and School Climate Assessment created by the Bullying Prevention Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For more information, contact Trisha Ross at trisha_ross@gse.harvard.edu.
Richard Weissbourd is founder of the Lee Academy Pilot School in Boston, Massachusetts, and a lecturer at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School of Government. He is the author of The Parents We Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009). Stephanie Jones is associate professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Copyright 2012 by ASCD
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