Running head: BUYING / SCHOOL VIOLENCE

Bullying / School Violence

Jesus A. Garcia

Prof. Andy V. Pham, Ph.D.

Florida International University

EDF-6211

June 13, 2015

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Introduction

Bullying in schools has been the on rise over the last few years. This has contributed to a

varied environment in schools and in most cases; it has led to a harsh environment in schools

where it is prevalent. In this essay, various types of bullying, causes, and effects of bullying acts

on the bullied, parents, school administration and bystanders are discussed. The essay also tries

to look into various ways of eliminating bullying in school by looking at the role played by

teachers, parents and other stake holders in stopping bullying and school violence.

Overview

When people often of the same group or doing the same thing are left together in their

own without their superiors watch, some usually humiliate others as the entire group or

bystanders watch one or two individuals aggressively attack a certain cross-section of the group

or just a few individuals (Navarro et al., 2011). When this happens, the one being bullied is

negatively affected or humiliated as the bully wins bystanders confidence (Navarro et al., 2011).

Definition

According to Fitzpatrick et al. (2010), bullying is a repeated form of aggressive behavior

that is aimed at directly or indirectly hurting someone. When bullying acts do occur to a person,

he or she may be physically hurt since in other cases force is used by the bully to meet his or her

expectations. In addition the victim is left quite humiliated and belittled before his friends.

Bullying is not as same as conflict since in most bullying cases there are usually differences in

social, language, race, culture and power while in conflicts it doesn’t necessary mean that such

differences do occur according to (Salmivalli et al., 2005).Bullying actions have been witnessed

in other groups of people, for instance working class and people in social gatherings but it has
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been established that bullying is often more intense in young people especially in high schools

and more so much intense in male students than female students.

Types of Bullying

In some states laws have been put in place to define and outlaw bullying. Bullying has

been classified into four based on the nature of bullying such classes include, verbal, emotional,

cyber and physical bullying (Navarro et al., 2011). Verbal bullying is often rampant in girls. In

this type of bullying, the aggressor uses verbal techniques to show dominance in a group of girls;

by verbally uttering words to the bullied with intention of humiliating them. When this happens,

the victim gets segregated by most of the students and many times laughed by the bystanders.

This form of bullying is hurting just like physical bullying. According to Woolfolk (2013),

verbal bullying affects one’s self esteem, feels neglected by majority of the people which may

result into depression and finally be suicidal. It may also try to remind the bullied of a condition

at their homes which could have made them have such outstanding features used by the bully to

show their dominance and power amongst her peers. This may force the victim to have a feeling

of leaving school because every other day the aggressor is still with her and whenever she sees

her she remembers the verbal acts of bullying. If remedial measures are not taken to the victim,

she may result into drug and substance abuse in order to try to fight the realities she is

experiencing (Johnson, 2004).

Students experiencing this form of bullying can be noticed by looking at the changes on

their behaviors since no physical harm done to them. It is hard to know them but a teacher and

parent who make a follow up on the child’s behavioral change can know them through behavior.

Such victims should be advised to ignore those causing such problems and concentrate on the

students who friendly receive them because if the victim changes and becomes violent, such acts
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may result into physical fight hence causing more troubles to the victim (Susan et al., 2008).

Students experiencing verbal bullying should not shy up but take courage and report to the

school administration which should take up remedial measures before bullying becomes a

culture.

Emotional bullying is willingly doing acts with aim of hurting somebody. This may be

done by deliberately talking ill about others with a different group of people or even excluding

somebody from participating in an activity been undertaken by their peers. This form of bullying

has the same effects as the verbal bulling and may also be dealt with the same way as verbal

bullying in conjunction with the parents involvement.

Physical bullying is the most common type and well known bullying were the aggressor

uses force to cause physical harm to his or her victims as they try to win confidence of the

bystanders. According to (Hertz, 2013) about 16000 of children do not attend school daily for

fear of been bullied by others or due to prior experience of been bullied in school. Of these acts

of bullying in high schools about 56% of these cases are related to physical bullying (Hertz,

2013). This is really a high figure but it can be attributed to the fact that this form of bullying

results into marks which are left on the victim due to the force used to bully the victims. These

marks make it easy to identify this form of bullying. The statistics amongst youth been bullied

rise every day so bullying is not anything to stop anytime soon unless serious measures are put in

place to address such acts. According to (Jodie et al, 2005) the victims of this form of bullying

should do any of the following, they can report immediately to the schools authority so that

remedial measure is taken against the perpetuators of such crimes. Secondly they should not

revenge as this could worsen the situation and finally the victim should build on strong
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friendship with other students in order to avoid depression and stress which could come as a

result of been lonely.

Cyber bullying is one type of bullying which usually take place. A recent data released in

2010 has revealed a rise in all forms of bullying tactics but of great concern of the statistics is the

rising number of cyber bullying cases (Hertz et al., 2013). Cyber bullying involves the use of

electronic gadget such as mobile phones, computers and social networks to hurt somebody by

either sending to them texts that degrade them or even posting on their timeline and wall charts.

This has been gaining moment amongst high school going children due to the rise in use of

social networks (Hertz et al., 2013).

What are the etiology and causes of bullying behavior and school violence (e.g.,

genetic, environmental, learned-behavior? etc.). What are the risk and protective factors?

What are the psychological effects of bullying and school violence for victims, bystanders,

and perpetrators, families, school staff? Also discuss racial/cultural issues as it pertains to

violence particularly involving discrimination and prejudice

Parents of school going children can do anything possible to protect their kids from

actions of perpetuators of bulling; no parent would want her child bullied. The following could

be seen as the possible causes of bullying in schools.

Wasted family institutions are one of the major causes. Family is a very key institution in

the upkeep of children because what a child does is mostly what he or she sees her parents do or

even keep on doing in day to day activities (Meldrum & Hay, 2010). A child who has seen

aggression behavior from his or her parents is likely to get aggressive than one who has never

experienced such acts of aggression from their parents. A child who has been brought up by

parents of religious view will broadcast the same to the others because of the family roots. As
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parents do such acts of aggression they should understand that there are consequences to that

effect and should understand that behavior of bullying expressed by their kinds are as a result of

learnt behavior from them. According to Navarro et al. (2010) every behavior change is

associated by with a certain cause, so behavior change in children of such parents is as a result of

learnt behavior from them.

Need for dominance may also be another cause for bullying (Hertz, 2013). Most of the

students who bully others are usually of a different social class with more power than their

victims. In most cases bullying occurs in presence of a group which stands aside and watches the

victims suffer, by so doing the bully is satisfied since they win confidence over the group by

degrading their victims (Salmivalli et al., 2005). In many cases of physical bullying the

bystanders do not help the victim because they fear they will be the next victims of the bully

since this are people who are careless and very aggressive with even low esteem and would want

to compensate that by such aggression behaviors (Navarro et al., 2011)

A bully may also do his actions is such of a reward. A bully though not given rewards

such as money he or she is rewarded indirectly for instance, when he defeats the victims he is

celebrated and branded good titles by the bystanders and this motivates them to became even

more aggressive in the school fraternity hence causing more harm to others. In school set up

sometimes the bully once he or she defeats their victims they take away their belonging

including their pocket money leaving the victim with double stress.

Carelessness and don’t care attitude can also be another cause for bullying. Bullying is

not a good practice and even the people who bully the others will not enjoy if the roles were to

reverse and became victims of bullying. This usually shows bullying is as a result of don’t care

attitude and acts of carelessness because such people don’t have feeling of the other students.
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Most of the bullies in school come from families with history of aggression behavior; aggression

behavior is coupled with carelessness because many times the bully is derived by selfish interest

without even caring for their victims. Mostly these victims could be having problems from their

backgrounds and hence those bullies may take advantage of such weakness to intimidate them

instead of sympathizing with them and accommodating them the way they are.

Emotional issues may also contribute to bullying. Bullies are people who do not have

sense of what others feel, they are usually emotional and many times they act on their emotions.

This is so often in physical bullying where one can go to the extent of even physically hurting

others.

Race and culture may also contribute to bullying. For instance, some cultural practices in

the African continent perpetuate issues of bullying (Fitzpatrick et al., 2010). This is as a result of

the environment in which such a child is brought up in; some cultural practices renders people

warriors and became more aggressive such virtues are transmitted to school and eventually due

to cultural background students became bullies. Some races feel superior to others and when they

are in same learning institutions, they tend to bully others because of the belief that they are

better than the other races.

The school administration and the parents have a prime responsibility of monitoring their

children behavior in school. This will help to understand them during times of verbal and

emotional bullying acts when they struck (Miller, 2012). This is necessary since in these two

forms of bullying the victims do not have any physical injuries and thus it may be hard to know

such victims. Once the cases of bullying have been identified a remedial measure should be

taken to assist the victims and actions be taken against the perpetuators.
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The victims of verbal and emotional bullying should ignore their enemies and

concentrated with the few friends they are having in school. Acts of the victims trying to fight

back may worsen the situation since this may turn into fight causing more harm to the victims

hence by ignoring them will cut the story shot; in many cases if the victim does not concentrate

with the bully’s behavior they feel shy and with time they leave such acts.

Those students who have suffered, verbal, emotional and cyber bullying should seek

services of a counselor who will try to guide them to have a positive leaving because in most

cases this form of bullying is as result of a difference the child may be having or even a well

known family history of the victim.

In many cases the victims of bullying will suffer self low esteem and they feel stressed

especially when there is a problem in the family that could have in one way or the other

contributed to the situation the victim goes through when bullied. Such a child may be depressed,

lose friends, and will be labeled many titles by the bully or the bystanders. This worsens the

situation and though bullying alone does not cause one to commit suicide if another factor plays

in such a child may easily commit suicide.

If bullying is not controlled in schools a bullying culture develops and this makes it hard

to address bullying; prevention is better than cure. Due to developed culture of bullying the

bystanders divide themselves into two groups; that is a group that sympathizes with the victim

while the other group is behind the bully’s acts in which they give him or her good titles as

rewards. In many cases the victims will suffer in the hands of the bully as sympathizers watch

helplessly since an attempt to intervene may mean they also became victims of the same. The

school administration at some point will be frustrated when the situation gets out of hands
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because these acts tarnish the good name of the institution and could also lead to poor

performance.

What are ways teachers and/or parents can prevent school violence and bullying

and, what are specific research-based and school-based interventions to eliminate/reduce

it?

Parents and teachers have prime responsibility of bringing up their children. They are the

immediate people to the child and incase of any behavior change they can easily detect and take

up remedial measures (Woolfolk, 2013). It is hard to detect verbal and emotional bullying but

with close monitoring of the child it becomes easy to detect. In this form of bullying no marks

are left but one must learn behavior change of a child. When teachers and parents understand of

the condition a child is going through they should give such a victim guidance service and if the

condition worsen refer them to a psychologist. In all forms of bullying, teachers should strictly

discourage them at all cost (Michelle et al., 2009). Students or the victims should be educated to

ignore the bullies and concentrate on the immediate friends in order to avoid been stressed.

School administration and parents should also subject their children to social activities

that encourage sisterhood and brotherhood; this will help the student to understand how to leave

with one another appreciating each other as though they are people born of the same mother. By

so doing young children will learn that such differences that do occur between them which cause

them to cause emotional harm to their fellow students are part and parcel of life and they should

live together if they cannot do anything to change on the life of other students.

Parents should be good role models to their children. Some of the behaviors that children

have are leant from the parents, so parents must ensure that what their children learn is the right

thing.
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Conclusion

In conclusion, bullying is one of the things which make the school environment not

conducive to many students. It is a vice which has many causes as discussed in the paper. It also

has great consequences to both the recipient and contributor of the same. The war of defeating

this vice cannot be won without involving all the different stakeholders in schools and most
importantly winning their good will.
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References

Fitzpatrick, K. M., Dulin, A. & Piko, B. (2010). Bullying and Depressive Symptomatology

among Low-Income, African-American Youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(6),

634-45.

Hertz, F. M. (Ed). ( 2013). The relationship between youth involvement in bullying and suicide.

Journal of adolescent Health, 53(1).

Meldrum, R. Hay, C. ( 2010). Bullying Victimization and Adolescent Self-Harm: Testing

Hypotheses from General Strain Theory. Journal of Youth and Adolescent, 39(5):446-59.

Michelle, B., Dorothy, E. L., Brian, K. (2009). LGB and Questioning Students in Schools: The

Moderating Effects of Homophobic Bullying and School Climate on Negative Outcomes.

Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 38(7), 989-1000.

Miller, D. L. (2012). Tough Talk as an Antidote to Bullying. English Journal, High school

edition 101(6), 30-36.

Navarro, R. E. & Yubero, S. ( 2011). Bullying-victimization problems and aggressive tendencies

in Spanish secondary school students: the role of gender stereotypical traits. Journal of

Social Psychology Education. 14(4), 457-473.

Navarro, R., Elisa, L. Santiago, Y. (2011). Social psychology of Education: Bullying-

victimization problems and aggressive tendencies in Spanish secondary schools students:

the role of gender stereotypical traits. An international journal 14(4), 457-473.

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References

Salmivalli, C., Kaukianianen, A. & Voeten, M. (2005). Anti-bullying intervention:

Implementation and outcome. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 465-487.

Susan, M. S., T. Tuner, R, K. & Givens, J. E. (2008). "You're So Gay!” Do Different Forms of

Bullying Matter for Adolescent Males? School Psychology Review, 37(2), 160-173.

Woolfolk, A. (2013). Educational psychology. (12th ed.). Boston: Pearson.