Bullying in Schools

“A person is being bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other statements.” (Olweus, 1993, p.9) Olweus is a Norwegian researcher who conducted his research in 1973. Olweus and his associates have found three principles when they have to label someone’s behaviour as bullying “(1) it is an aggressive behaviour of intentional ‘harm doing’ (2) which is carried out repeatedly and over time (3) in an interpersonal relationship characterised  (Olweys and Limber, 1999, p.31) These principles are very important while looking at children to find out if they have an aggressive behaviour which will then lead to bullying or do they just have angry problems but will not lead to bullying other children. If these children that will lead onto bullying other children are identified earlier in their childhood this then means they can go to different counselling sessions or will find solutions that will overcome their need to bully other children or even to overcome their aggressive behaviour.

 by an imbalance of power.”

Arseneault et al. (2006) classified behaviours as bullying when children were excluded from groups and games, called names such as those children who do not have a father, were slapped daily across the face for a month, stabbed with a pencil, and struck with something. Bullying someone is sometimes linked with being bullied which means as Arsenealt et al stated if these children experienced any of these things then could then lead on in later life with then them bullying other children. Perren et al (2009) suggested that bullies have specific traits some of these being that they are hyperactive, impulsive, encountering peer rejections, academic struggle and having traumatic and strict home environments. “Children who bully can come from any social class or cultural background. For some there may be poor discipline at home, and/or excessive physical punishment or abuse by a parent/carer or older sibling. There may be very little warmth in family relationships. Understanding the difficulties of bullies does not mean that their behaviour can be condoned. Other children who bully may take part because their friends do so.” (Croydon Council, 2019) This is a problem as most of these reasons that children become bullies is not because of their own doing it is because of their homes and family members. Therefore, you should try to combat these children’s home environments from an early age to try reducing the number of young children bullying other children to help. Also, the children’s teachers need to be aware of each child’s backgrounds which means that if they know they come from a more problematic home this then means there is a stronger possibility of these children then leading onto bullying.

 Hanish et al (2004) states that from a very early age, young children (12 months) may be aggressive towards their peers. Researchers show that peer aggression is more frequent among preschool (ages three to five) and kindergarten children than any other age group. This information is unusual as you would believe children at this young age would not have any tendencies to harm or bully any other child but Hanish shows us that this belief is wrong by looking as research showing us that this is the most prominent age group for aggression. Therefore, children being bullied or shown aggression against from this young age there will be a strong risk to these children’s mental development.

Edward Moore wrote in the book ‘The Foundling’ that to do with bullying that injury and insult are linked. He wrote, ‘This is adding insult to injury.’ With this he means that bullying in not only injury through physical violence but bullying is also insults which can be disrespectful and hurtful to someone else. Both of these could strongly effect children’s physically and mental development as if there was physical violence this could affect their physically development is the physical violence was very bad. Then if the child experiences verbal bullying this could cause a risk within the children’s mental development. A study was taken in the United States between young people and it showed us that the high form was verbal bullying with it being 53.6%. (Wang, Iannotti & Nansel, 2009)

As bullying is a worldwide problem within schools there have been a lot of new legislations and policies that have come into play to try and overcome these problems. One legislation that came into Northern Ireland is The Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 2003. This order “requires all grant-aided schools to include within their discipline policy, an anti-bullying policy which includes measures to prevent all forms of bullying among pupils. The effectiveness of these measures is monitored through the regular cycle of school inspections of pastoral care arrangements.” (Department of Education, 2003) This legislation was brought into Northern Ireland to help everyone that is involved with the children from school to home.

In the United Kingdom, the Government (2019) have stated that “by law in all state schools must have a behaviour policy in place that includes measures to prevent all forms of bullying among pupils. This policy is decided by the school. All teachers, pupils and parents must be told what it is.”  There have been many policies that have been developed to be used in schools more. One of these policies is included in the Department of Education’s publication ‘Pastoral Care in Schools – Promoting Positive Behaviour.’ (Department of Education, 2001) Another policy is Section 89 of the Education and Inspections Act (2006) which states “that maintained schools must have measures to encourage good behaviour and prevent all forms of bullying amongst pupils. Some schools choose to include this information in an anti-bullying policy, whilst others include it in their behaviour policy.”  (Anti-bullying Alliance, 2017) some of the actions that are related to the behaviour policy under the Section 89 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 are “(a) promoting, among pupils, self-discipline and proper regard for authority, (b) encouraging good behaviour and respect for others on the part of pupils and, in particular, preventing all forms of bullying among pupils, (c) securing that the standard of behaviour of pupils is acceptable, (d) securing that pupils complete any tasks reasonably assigned to them in connection with their education, and (e) otherwise regulating the conduct of pupils.”

Another legislation is the Children Act 1989 in the Anti-Bullying Alliance (2017), this act states that some children that are being bullied may also cause a child protection issue. If a child is being bullied it should be the adult’s responsibility to report it as a child protection issue under this act when there is “reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm. These concerns must be reported to the member of staff in school responsible for child protection and then reported to the local authority’s children’s social services.” This is to do with either if there are problems with other children in school or even if there are problems within the home environment.

Some bullying incidents are illegal but some of them are not illegal. Therefor the ones that are illegal are crimes and should be reported to the police to help overcome these crimes. Some of these bullying incidents that are illegal includes “violence or assault; theft; harassment and intimidation over a period of time including calling someone names or threatening them, making abusive phone calls, and sending abusive emails or text messages (one incident is not normally enough to get a conviction); and anything involving hate crimes.) (Anti-bullying Alliance, 2017) People that tend to bully start off when they are younger doing bullying incidents that are not illegal but if these early bullying symptoms are not put a stop to at an early age these could then cause these people to start completing these illegal bullying incidents.

Discriminatory language is a big part in bullying nowadays if it is to do with race, disability, religion etc. Therefor under the Public-Sector Equality Duty of the Equality Act 2010 “schools and childcare providers must take steps to prevent and respond to discriminatory language.” (Anti-bullying Alliance, 2017) Discriminatory language links sometimes with cyberbullying as some people might not have the confidence to bully someone face to face but once they start bullying someone online they have the confidence to say whatever they want and most of the time they say discriminating comments. A study was taken in Italy with 1,092 adults taking part in it. It was completed to find out the structure of cyberbullying and to analyse the severity and the discrimination parameters of each act. They found out that there were several items that emerged that were discrimination acts. (Menesini, E., Nocentini, A., & Calussi, P., 2011) Cyberbullying acts sometimes under different laws can be called as criminal offences, some of these laws are ‘Malicious Communication Act 1988’ and the ‘Protection from Harassment Act 1997’. (Anti-bullying Alliance, 2017)

Lastly the Department for Education (2017) have realised guidelines for all schools in the United Kingdom to follow to help prevent and tackle bullying. As you can see by all these legislations and policies bullying is a massive area that all schools are trying to tackle from an early age.

A study was taken to investigate victims’ strategies to stop bullying, as well as their perceptions of each strategy’s effectiveness. “In all, 50% of participating school students (n = 2,615) reported at least one form of victimisation. The most common strategies used against bullying were fighting back (63%), ignoring the bullying (52%), telling an adult at home (44%), and reporting the abuse to a peer (42%). The most successful strategies reported were counter-aggression (75%), making a safety plan (74%), and telling a peer (71%) or an adult at home (71%).” (Black, S., Weinles, D., & Washington, E., 2010) Although these are strategies, they are victims’ strategies therefore they are sometimes not the best way to act if they are getting bullied. If someone is getting bullied they should follow the strategies put in by the school, community or government.

They American Government (2017) has said that there are many strategies to help prevent bullying. One of these are ‘help kids understand bullying’ therefore this means you have to inform children from a young age what bullying is and what to do if they are getting bullied and tell them that bullying is unacceptable. Children will need to know what to do if they are getting bullied which is tell an adult therefore the adults must ‘keep the lines of communication open’ to help the children feel comfortable to come and speak to the adult if they are getting bullied. Lastly adults should ‘encourage kids to do what they love’ meaning that if a child is getting bullied over a certain thing for example interests and hobbies the adults must encourage the child to keep partaking in these activities and boost their confidence in doing these.

In conclusion as I found out by many studies there are many reasons why children should stop bullying as it a risk factor to their development. Also, schools, families and communities need to tackle bullying if they see a child doing it from an early age to try stop its development as they grow up and become adults.

References

·      Bullying. (2013). [image] Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2294023/Facebook-worst-social-network-bullying-New-survey-shows-youngsters-targeted-online-else.html [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].

      StopBullying.Gov (2017) ‘How to prevent bullying.’ Available at: https://www.stopbullying.gov/prevention/index.html (Accessed at: 30th March 2019)

·      Anti-Bullying Alliance (2017) ‘Anti-Bullying Policies.’ Available at: https://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/all-about-bullying/anti-bullying-policies (Accessed: 30th March 2019)

·      Arseneault, L., Walsh, E., Trzesniewski, K., Newcombe, R., Caspi, A., & Moffitt, T. (2006) ‘Bullying victimization uniquely contributes to adjustment problems in young children: A nationally representative cohort study.’ Pediatrics, 118(1), 130–138.

·      Black, S., Weinles, D., & Washington, E. (2010) ‘Victim Strategies to Stop Bullying.’ Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 8(2), 138-147.

     Childline. (2019). [image] Available at: https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/bullying-abuse-safety/types-bullying/ [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].      

     Croydon Council. (2019) Why do children Bully? Available at: https://www.croydon.gov.uk/education/parentalsupport/bullying (Accessed: 30th March 2019)

·      Department of Education (2001) ‘Pastoral Care in Schools: romoting Positive Behaviour.’  Available at: https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/de/pastoral%20care%20in%20schools.pdf (Accessed: 30^th March 2019)

·      Department of Education (2003) ‘Dealing with Bullying legislation and guidance for schools.” Available at:  https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/articles/dealing-bullying (Accessed: 30ther March 2019)

·      Department of Education (2017) ‘Preventing and Tackling Bullying’ Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/preventing-and-tackling-bullying (Accessed: 30th March 2019)

·      Government (2019) ‘Bullying at school.’ Available at: https://www.gov.uk/bullying-at-school (Accessed: 30th March 2019)

·      Hanish, L. D., Kochenderfer-Ladd, B., Fabes, R. A., Martin, C. L., & Denning, D. (2004). ‘Bullying among young children: The influence of peers and teachers.’ In D. L. Espelage & S. M. Swearer (Eds.), ‘Bullying in American schools: A social-ecological perspective on prevention and intervention’, pp. 141–159. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

·      Menesini, E., Nocentini, A., & Calussi, P. (2011) ‘The measurement of cyberbullying: Dimensional structure and relative item severity and discrimination.’ Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 14(5), 267-74.

·      Moore, E. In M. Farrell (2002) ‘Key issues for primary schools.’ London; New York: Routledge

·      Olweus, D. (1993) ‘Bullying at school: What we know and what we can do.’ Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

·      Olweus, D., & Limber, S. (1999) ‘Bullying prevention program.’ In D. Elliott (Ed.), ‘Blueprints for violence prevention’ pp. 29–35. Boulder: Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado.

·      Perren, S., Stadelmann, S., & Von Klitzing, K. (2009) ‘Child and family characteristics as risk factors for peer victimization in kindergarten.’ Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Bildungswissenschaften, 31(1), 13–32.

·      Saracho, O. N. (2017) ‘Bullying Prevention Strategies in Early Childhood Education.’ Early Childhood Education Journal, 45 (4), pp.453–460.

·      Wang, J., Iannotti, R.J & Nansel, T.R. (2009) ‘School bullying among adolescents in the United States: Physical, verbal, relational, and cyber.’ The Journal of Adolescent Health, 45 (2009), pp.368-375.