How Bullying Affects Student Life, Essay Example

Abstract

During the course of this paper, we will examine the definition and nature of bullying, the various arenas in which it typically occurs, and the sociological and psychological effects which often manifest as a result of experiencing student life. We will also establish that “the phenomenon of bullying is the product of an extremely complex picture of external and internal events”, which inevitably poses challenges to both the perpetrator(s) and victim of bullying (Waddell, 2007, p. 189; Boulton, Trueman, and Flemington, 2002).

Key Words: Bullying, Cyber-bullying, Schools, Cognition, Psychology, Sociology, Peers, Culture, Gangs

Schoolyard Productions of the Lord of the Flies: How Bullying Affects Student Life

What is it like to be on both ends of bullying? It is lonely. Granted, it is a miserable experience for the child being bullied, but it is not commonly known that the bullies themselves often feel a pressure to uphold the dominant-aggressive Alpha male stereotype- even at the expense of their own personal feelings. Boulton, Trueman, and Flemington (2002) wrote that the perpetrators and victims of bullying are likely to experience adverse effects (354). Furthermore, bullying which occurs during pre-adolescent and adolescent development alter scripts regarding age, gender, class, race, and even of the human condition itself. As Waddell (2007) wrote: “We are talking about how to understand the evils of the human heart, of all our hearts, and about what kinds of factor render one individual vulnerable to the co-opting of his/her impulses whether towards being a perpetrator or a victim, and another able to contain and withstand” (p. 190).

Nature of the Problem

The definition of the term bullying is multi-faceted and highly subjective. Although stereotypically the term is used to describe physical altercations, some research accepts the subtle nuances of aggressive targeting as a continuum of sorts (Bradshaw et al., 2007; Boulton et al., 2002). During the course of this paper, we will employ the definition provided by Bradshaw, Sawyer, and O’Brennan, which defined the parameters of bullying as “intentional and repeated acts that occur through physical, verbal, and relational forms in situations where a power difference is present” (2007, 362). Still, it should also be noted that this definition minimalizes the predisposition toward aggression which some students exhibit before they are involved in these hostile situations. Waddell (2007) questions the psychodynamics of responses to “any traffic in pain” and discovered that people respond in individualistic ways according to the situation (pp. 193-196). In her view, pain is necessary to develop empathy with others and curb the emotional sadism which often manifests as a result of habitual instant gratification (Waddell, 2007, p. 195). Gini (2006) explains this further:

“If bullies are cold, manipulative experts in social contexts, their behavior may be related to emotions surrounding moral transgression. These emotions are important because… they are closely connected with empathy and they can be considered mediators of conscience. Other authors suggested that moral development plays a major role in behavioral regulation” (p. 529).

Waddell (2007) went on to present a case study of the moral development of a sado-masochistic child named Joshua. His moral development was drastically altered by his familial environment.

The two main distinctions within this definition are that of direct or indirect bullying. Direct bullying assumes that the perpetrator and the victim of the bullying are both physically present at the time of the hostile actions; indirect bullying is conducted beyond the sight or hearing of the victim and often produces a conspiratorial attack upon said victim. These conspiratorial, indirect attacks originate with secretive, face-to-face, collusive communication (Hamarus & Kaikkonnen, 2008, p. 340). The most common type of bullying is verbal, such as in name-calling, spreading rumors, or baiting, and it occurs at every age (Bradshaw et al., 2007;Boulton et al., 2002). Upon reaching secondary school, female students are equally likely to continue with this type of bullying, whereas male students who had previously bullied others are more likely to escalate to violent forms of bullying (Boulton et al., 2002). Male students were more likely to be both the perpetrators and victims of bullying (Harlow & Roberts, 2010). One infamous example is that of one of Columbine’s adolescent shooters, Eric Harris (Keith & Martin, 2005).

Gathorne-Hardy wrote (1977) wrote that “If you leave a lot of boys to their own devices, in a brutal age, themselves brutalized by rude surroundings and rendered aggressive by violent discipline and often harsh childhoods, you will get bullying. You get it sufficiently without all these” (p. 60, as cited by Waddell, 2007). Gini (2006) poses the possibility that group (or gang) bullying presents a trial situation in which students can act out their various roles of leadership or following (p. 202).

Regardless, bullying is correlated with stinted social and moral development in most cases. Skills typically obtained during these developments, such as social problem-solving and emotional and assertive regulation (Gini, 2006, p. 536). There are two distinctly different models of research regarding the social intelligence levels typical of a bully. One claims that the perpetrators of bullying are socially deficient and lashing out, and the other claims that they are extremely socially intelligent and exploitative (Gini, 2006, p. 535). Nonetheless, there is an overlap of perpetrators’ and victims’ adverse responses to their involvement in bullying (Harlow & Roberts, 2010). This adverse response diminishes the impact of protective factors. Protective factors are positive aspects which counteract risk behaviors.

According to the findings of Harlow and Roberts (2010), race, physical maturity, and height were not factors in the selection of victims. There is no doubt that these three factors are frequently sources of social stigma- but are not singled out in the particular example of bullying. Waddell ( Instead, it appears that bullying targets students who already display a physical disability of some kind, such as weight or speech problems. These socially marginalized students are less likely to defend themselves or report the bullying (Harlow & Roberts, 2010, p. 16). In other words, the victims of bullying already possess a status of social exclusion (Hamarus & Kaikkonnen, 2008, p. 341).  Grouping or ganging up against these marginalized students, according to Waddell, is an outlet for maintaining dominance. Particularly in adolescence, the students cannot maintain this absolute control over themselves and reach for a sense of identity and safety through the control of undesirable qualities in others (2007, p. 202). Thus, Waddell (2007) emphasizes the highly personal nature of perpetration and victimization involved in bullying.

In today’s rapidly globalized world, the most difficult bullying to stop occurs online. With the advent of social networking sites and 4G, this cyber-bullying is rapidly getting worse. Keith and Martin (2005) explain the wide variety of problems of bullying:

“In the 1990s, many incidents revolved around student-on-student violence, usually involving guns. Schools implemented many programs to keep guns and gangs out of schools. In the 21^st Century, school violence is taking on a new and more insidious form. New technologies have made it easier for bullies to gain access to their victims. This form of bullying has become known as cyber-bullying”(p. 224).

Hand-in-hand with the ease of information is the possibility of harm. Cyber-bullying creates a public audience for verbal abuse and violent threats. Added to which, the internet has such a multitude of websites that up-to-date monitoring is virtually impossible. These sites are also ruled by rights of privacy and undergo little regulation. Consequentially, information about building bombs, violent crimes, and even floorplans can be found online. Thus, cyber-bullying is not limited to the classroom and can present catastrophic effects as well. One of the teenage male perpetrators of the Columbine school shootings was Eric Harris, who had researched his acts of violence- and even made open, public, online threats- before that fateful day (Keith & Martin, 2005, p. 224).

Assessment

The majority of the research we present utilizes either online surveys or the Peer Relations Questionnaire (PRQ). Bond, Wolfe, Tollit, Butler, and Patton (2007) compare and contrast the popular PRQ with measurements provided by the Gatehouse Bullying Scale (GBS). The GBS specifically mentions direct and indirect bullying, which they term as overt or covert. Due to the perceptual gaps of defining bullying, the study did not directly ask a respondent if they had been bullied. In addition to these small-but-important details, the GBS incorporated the typology and key items identified by the proven PRQ (Bond et al., 2007, p. 76). One of the key differences between the two is that the PRQ explicitly defines the act of bullying, stating that it is “deliberately and repeatedly hurting or frightening someone weaker than themselves for no good reason. This may be done in different ways: by hurtful teasing, threatening actions or gestures, name calling, or hitting or kicking” (Bond et al., 2007, p. 77).

In regards to qualitative assessments, Doctor Dan Olweus is a psychologist whose particular academic interest in bullying has made him the single most respected and most frequently-cited expert on the subject (Boulton et al., 2002; Bradshaw et al., 2007; Hunt, 2007; Harlow & Roberts, 2010; Hamarus & Kaikkonnen, 2008). Olweus’ research, conducted in 1993, revolutionized the public, educational, and psychological perceptions regarding the importance of bullying and has been upheld by evidence in many countries across the world (Harlow & Roberts, 2010, p. 16). In fact, the standard operating definition used by most research concerning bullying was developed by Olweus (Hamarus & Kaikkonen, 2008, p. 334).

Bradshaw et al. (2007) conducted a survey via the internet, which questioned the student participants about their personal experiences with bullying. These questions accounted for measures of aggression, school climate, and attitudes about retaliation. Because of the conflicting nature of the current perceptions regarding the very definition of bullying, the study utilized a four-point Likert scale, which provided the options of strongly disagree, disagree, agree, and strongly agree (Bradshaw et al., 2007). The ‘gray area’ of morality in which bullying occurs often takes the form of moral disengagement, which is necessary to the self-justification that most perpetrators employ to avoid feelings of guilt about their violent actions (Gini, 2006). For the majority of victims, bullying is acceptable as a method of retaliation against the perpetrator(s) who targeted them or the school system which did nothing (Hamarus & Kaikkonen, 2008).

Mitigation

With the recent research illuminating the potential impact of bullying in any stage of education, teachers and other educational staff are becoming more aware and more hands-on in the prevention of this verbal and physical abuse (Bradshaw et al., 2007). Much of the problem itself is perceptual. In one study which compared and contrasted student and faculty responses (via anonymous online survey), teachers estimated that ten percent of the students in their school had been bullied at least once in the last month. In reality, 49 percent of students had been bullied—and 30.8 percent had been bullied repeatedly during that time (Bradshaw et al., 2007, p. 368). Hamarus and Kaikkonnen (2008) acceptance exceptionally liberal parameters for bullying, including- but not limited to- teasing, play, silencing, oppressive rituals, and misleading. Many of these are often classified as potential forerunners to the act of bullying, thus preventing these early indicators could aid in the mitigation of bullying (pp. 335-340). However, communication with the peer group is the social lifeline of teen culture (Keith & Harris, 2005).

This body of research is useful to the mitigation of academic risk factors. Various bullying, prevention, and intervention options have been suggested for implementation. The 1993 Olweus Bullying Prevention Program was one of the first of its kind to emphasize the need for a collaborative effort and for creating a positive shift in the underlying social stigmas which contribute to the feeling of powerlessness (Bradshaw et al., 2007, p. 362). Luiselli, Putnam, Handler, and Feinberg (2005) revealed that the most effective factors in the solution of disciplinary problems are social skills training, system-wide behavioral intervention, and modifications to the curriculum (184).

Conclusion

Bullying is real and is everywhere. For a personal case study, let us discuss a young woman named Elizabeth. She coped with emotional, verbal, and physical bullying at school and with a hostile home environment daily for five years during her childhood. Today she is a young adult- still struggling with insecurities and a keen discomfort with unfamiliar social settings. Although her life did not completely fall apart, it changed—permanently. If the research is accurate, then the bullies at her school may not have been so lucky, and to this day she wonders what became of them. Elizabeth dreads ever wishing them ill, but even moreso she dreads the thought that they may be living as if none of it had ever happened.

Since disengagement is necessary to the bullies’ continued domination over the victim, it is likely that they may not believe that they did anything wrong. Many of these incidents are later written off as childhood mischief, but sociological and psychological testing suggests otherwise. Hamarus and Kaikkonen (2008) called the power-and-status-seeking bullying a means of creating a pupil culture- much in the way that we would envision a schoolyard Lord of the Flies. They write that “bullying is a way of creating and renewing culturally accepted and appreciated values and ideas” (p. 341). It sounds eerily similar to the hazing of higher education, which has been banned. Since laws and regulations are a product of the wider scope of social and cultural interaction, it stands to reason that bullying creates its own culture and moral guidelines.

We’ve touched on the environment of bullying. For obvious reasons, the security of the student is central to their ability to focus, learn, and embrace the diverse benefits which the school system has to offer. The peer (or pupil) cultures may value different qualities, which makes the problem of school bullying one which has a vast impact on the academic attainments or, in the case of Columbine, on the very lives of the students (Hamarus & Kaikkonen, 2008; Keith & Martin, 2005). Bullying “could be said to encompass everything from a stressed mother yanking her child away from a shop toy, ‘If you touch that again I’ll slap you’, to a domestic row, to relationships at work, to structures of class, racism and sexism, to religious, ethnic and tribal warfare – indeed to any kind of oppression in which, by means of power, violence, cruelty or perversity, one side persecutes another, whether as a group or individually” (Waddell, 2007, p. 190). We are all victims and perpetrators of one common human downfall- that of being flawed.

Despite the fact that the majority of effects seem to be related to the learning environment of the students, Luiselli et al. (2005) present a potential for time-and-cost-efficient investment. The social skills training, intervention, and curriculum changes are smaller initiatives that can include a vast number and variety of concerned citizens: peers, parents, teachers, administrators, and others through positive behavioral support. There are a multitude of self-help sites for such concerned citizens, which present ways to capitalize on student engagement for the purposes of establishing a moral lesson. “Academic engagement, then, is an observable and measurable behaviour that can be influenced by direct instructional approaches (for example, class-wide tutoring, and precision teaching) and positively focused interventions that reduce disruption, distraction, and negative behaviours in the classroom” (Luiselli et al., 2005, p. 185). This aspect cannot stand alone. If the Lord of the Flies boys’ engagement in survival efforts were not enough to prevent their barbarism and violence, then it is crucial to the success of these adjustments that all areas are taken seriously.

References

Bond, L., Wolfe, S., Tollit, M., Butler, H., & Patton, G. (2007). A Comparison of the Gatehouse Bullying Scale and the Peer Relations Questionnaire for Students in Secondary School. Journal of School Health, 77(2), 75-79. doi:10.1111/j.1746-1561.2007.00170.x.

Boulton, M., Trueman, M., & Flemington, I. (2002). Associations between Secondary School Pupils’ Definitions of Bullying, Attitudes towards Bullying, and Tendencies to Engage in Bullying: age and sex differences. Educational Studies (03055698), 28(4), 353-370. doi:10.1080/0305569022000042390.

Bradshaw, C., Sawyer, A., & O’Brennan, L. (2007). Bullying and Peer Victimization at School: Perceptual Differences Between Students and School Staff. School Psychology Review, 36(3), 361-382. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Gini, G. (2006). Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: what’s wrong?. Aggressive Behavior, 32(6), 528-539. doi:10.1002/ab.20153.

Hamarus, P., & Kaikkonen, P. (2008). School bullying as a creator of pupil peer pressure. Educational Research, 50(4), 333-345. doi:10.1080/00131880802499779.

Harlow, K., & Roberts, R. (2010). An Exploration of the Relationship between Social and Psychological Factors and Being Bullied. Children & Schools, 32(1), 15-26. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Keith, S., & Martin, M. (2005). Cyber-Bullying: Creating a Culture of Respect in a Cyber world. Reclaiming Children & Youth, 13(4), 224-228. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Luiselli, J., Putnam, R., Handler, M., & Feinberg, A. (2005). Whole-school positive behaviour support: effects on student discipline problems and academic performance. Educational Psychology, 25(2/3), 183-198. doi:10.1080/0144341042000301265.

Waddell, M. (2007). Grouping or ganging: the psychodynamics of bullying. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 23(2), 189-204. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.