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School Bullies: Unmasking The Causes, Effects, and Solutions

Categories: Bullying Youth Violence

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Words: 706 |

Published: Sep 7, 2023

Words: 706 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

The causes of school bullying, the effects of school bullying, addressing school bullying: potential solutions, the role of cyberbullying, conclusion: a collective responsibility.

Family Environment: Some bullies come from dysfunctional or abusive households, where they may witness aggressive behavior or experience neglect, leading to a lack of empathy and poor coping mechanisms.
Peer Influence: Bullying can be perpetuated by peer groups or friends who encourage or reinforce aggressive behavior, creating a culture of harassment within school settings.
Low Self-Esteem: Some bullies engage in aggressive behavior as a means of boosting their self-esteem or compensating for feelings of insecurity or inadequacy.
Power Imbalance: Bullying often occurs in situations where there is a perceived power imbalance, such as differences in physical strength, popularity, or social status.
Media and Technology: Exposure to violent media, cyberbullying through online platforms, and social media can contribute to the normalization of aggressive behavior among young people.
Psychological Impact: Victims of bullying often experience anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and an increased risk of developing mental health issues that can persist into adulthood.
Academic Consequences: Bullying can disrupt a student's ability to concentrate, leading to a decline in academic performance and a reduced enthusiasm for learning.
Physical Health: Bullying can lead to physical health problems, such as headaches, stomachaches, and sleep disturbances, due to the stress and anxiety it induces.
Social Isolation: Victims of bullying may withdraw from social activities, resulting in feelings of isolation and a diminished sense of belonging.
Long-Term Effects: The effects of bullying can persist into adulthood, impacting relationships, career prospects, and overall quality of life.
Educational Programs: Schools can implement anti-bullying programs that promote empathy, conflict resolution skills, and respect for diversity, fostering a culture of inclusivity.
Teacher Training: Educators should receive training on recognizing and addressing bullying behavior, creating safe and supportive classroom environments.
Parental Involvement: Parents can play a crucial role by monitoring their children's online activities, fostering open communication, and actively addressing any signs of bullying.
Peer Support: Encouraging students to act as allies and report instances of bullying can help create a supportive network within schools.
Legal Frameworks: Policymakers can enact and enforce anti-bullying legislation, ensuring that schools take appropriate measures to prevent and respond to bullying incidents.
Mental Health Support: Schools should offer access to counseling services for both victims and perpetrators of bullying to address underlying emotional and psychological issues.
Digital Literacy Education: Schools should educate students about responsible online behavior, digital etiquette, and the consequences of cyberbullying.
Reporting Mechanisms: Establish clear channels for reporting cyberbullying incidents and ensure swift and appropriate responses.
Parental Involvement: Parents should actively engage with their children's online activities, promote responsible internet use, and be vigilant about signs of cyberbullying.
Platform Responsibility: Social media platforms should enforce anti-cyberbullying policies, respond to user reports, and take steps to prevent online harassment.

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The Broad Impact of School Bullying, and What Must Be Done

Major interventions are required to make schools safe learning environments..

Posted May 2, 2021 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

How to Handle Bullying
Find a therapist to support kids or teens
At least one in five kids is bullied, and a significant percentage are bullies. Both are negatively affected, as are bystanders.
Bullying is an epidemic that is not showing signs of improvement.
Evidence-based bullying prevention programs can be effective, but school adoption is inconsistent.

According to the U.S. federal government website StopBullying.gov :

There is no federal law that specifically applies to bullying . In some cases, when bullying is based on race or ethnicity , color, national origin, sex, disability, or religion, bullying overlaps with harassment and schools are legally obligated to address it.

The National Bullying Prevention Center reports data suggesting that one in five children have been bullied. There are many risk factors for being targeted, including being seen as weak, being different from peers including being LGBT or having learning differences or visible disabilities, being depressed or anxious, and having few friends. It's hard to measure how many engage in bullying, but estimates range from one in twenty, to much higher .

The American Association of University Women reports that in grades 7-12, 48 percent of students (56 percent of girls and 40 percent of boys) are sexually harassed. In college, rates of sexual harassment rise to 66 percent. Eleven percent are raped or sexually assaulted.

Silence facilitates traumatization

Only 20 percent of attacked young women report sexual assault . And 89 percent of undergraduate schools report zero sexual harassment. This means that children, adolescents, young adults and their friends are at high risk for being victimized. It means that many kids know what is happening, and don't do anything.

This may be from fear of retaliation and socialization into a trauma-permissive culture, and it may be from lack of proper education and training. Institutional betrayal , when organizations fail to uphold their promises and responsibilities, adds to the problem.

In some states such as New York, laws like “ the Dignity for All Students Act ” (DASA) apply only to public schools. Private, religious, and denominational schools are not included, leaving 20 percent of students in NYC and 10 percent throughout the state unprotected. Research shows that over the last decade, bullying in U.S. high schools has held steady around 20 percent, and 15 percent for cyberbullying.

The impact of bullying

While there is much research on how bullying affects mental health, social function, and academics, the results are scattered across dozens of papers. A recent paper in the Journal of School Violence (Halliday et al., 2021) presents a needed systematic literature review on bullying’s impact in children aged 10-18.

1. Psychological: Being a victim of bullying was associated with increased depression , anxiety , and psychosis . Victims of bullying reported more suicidal thinking and engaged in greater self-harming behaviors. They were more likely to experience social anxiety , body-image issues, and negative conduct. Simultaneous cyberbullying and conventional bullying were associated with more severe depression.

2. Social: Bullying victims reported greater problems in relationships with family, friends and in day-to-day social interactions. They reported they enjoyed time with family and friends less, felt they were being treated unfairly more easily, and liked less where they lived. Victimized children were less popular and likeable, and experienced more social rejection. They tended to be friends with other victims, potentially heightening problems while also providing social support.

3. Academic achievement: Victimized kids on average had lower grades. Over time, they did worse especially in math. They tended to be more proficient readers, perhaps as a result of turning to books for comfort in isolation (something people with a history of being bullied commonly report in therapy ).

4. School attitudes: Bullied children and adolescents were less engaged in education, had poorer attendance, felt less belonging, and felt more negatively about school.

5. What happens with age? Researchers studied adult psychiatric outcomes of bullying, looking at both victims and bullies, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry (Copeland et al., 2013). After controlling for other childhood hardships, researchers found that young adults experience increased rates of agoraphobia (fear of leaving the house), generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and increased depression risk. Men had higher suicide risk.

The impact of bullying does not stop in early adulthood. Research in the Journals of Gerontology (Hu, 2021) found that people over the age of 60 who were bullied as children had more severe depression and had lower life satisfaction.

6. Bullying and the brain: Work reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry (Muetzel et al., 2019) found that victims of bullying had thickening of the fusiform gyrus, an area of the cerebral cortex involved with facial recognition, and sensing emotions from facial expressions. 1 For those with posttraumatic stress disorder, brain changes may be extensive.

7. Bystanders are affected: Research also shows that bystanders have higher rates of anxiety and depression (Midgett et al., 2019). The problem is magnified for bystanders who are also victims. It is likely that taking appropriate action is protective.

Given that victims of bullying are at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder ( PTSD ; Idsoe et al., 2012), it’s important to understand that many of the reported psychiatric findings may be better explained by PTSD than as a handful of overlapping but separate diagnoses. Trauma often goes unrecognized.

What can be done?

The psychosocial and academic costs of unmitigated bullying are astronomical, to say nothing of the considerable economic cost. Change is needed, but resistance to change, as with racism, gender bias, and other forms of discrimination , is built into how we see things.

Legislation: There is no federal antibullying legislation, and state laws may be weak and inconsistently applied. Given that bullying rates are no longer falling, it’s important for lawmakers and advocates to seek immediate changes.

Bullying prevention: Schools can adopt antibullying programs, though they are not universally effective and sometimes may backfire. Overall, however, research in JAMA Pediatrics (Fraguas et al., 2021) shows that antibullying programs reduce bullying, improve mental health outcomes, and stay effective over time. 2

Trauma-informed education creates an environment in which all participants are aware of the impact of childhood trauma and the need for specific modifications given how trauma is common among children and how it affects development.

According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN):

"The primary mission of schools is to support students in educational achievement. To reach this goal, children must feel safe, supported, and ready to learn. Children exposed to violence and trauma may not feel safe or ready to learn. Not only are individual children affected by traumatic experiences, but other students, the adults on campus, and the school community can be impacted by interacting or working with a child who has experienced trauma. Thus, as schools maintain their critical focus on education and achievement, they must also acknowledge that mental health and wellness are innately connected to students’ success in the classroom and to a thriving school environment."

Parenting makes a difference. Certain parenting styles may set kids up for emotional abuse in relationships , while others may be protective. A 2019 study reported in Frontiers in Public Health (Plexousakis et al.) found that children with anxious, overprotective mothers were more likely to be victims.

Those with cold or detached mothers were more likely to become bullies. Overprotective fathering was associated with worse PTSD symptoms, likely by getting in the way of socialization. The children of overprotective fathers were also more likely to be aggressive.

Quality parental bonding, however, appeared to help protect children from PTSD symptoms. A healthy home environment is essential both for helping victims of bullying and preventing bullying in at-risk children.

Parents who recognize the need to learn more positive approaches can help buffer again the all-too-common cycle of passing trauma from generation to generation, building resilience and nurturing secure attachment to enjoy better family experiences and equip children to thrive.

State-by-state legislation

Bullying prevention programs (the KiVA program is also notable)

Measuring Bullying Victimization, Perpetration and Bystander Experiences , Centers for Disease Control

Trauma-informed teaching

US Government Stop Bullying

1. Such differences could both result from being bullied (e.g. needing to scan faces for threat) and could also make being bullied more likely (e.g. misreading social cues leading to increased risk of being targeted).

2. Such programs focus on reducing negative messaging in order to keep stakeholders engaged, monitor and respond quickly to bullying, involve students in bullying prevention and detection in positive ways (e.g. being an “upstander” instead of a bystander), monitor more closely for bullying when the risk is higher (e.g. after anti-bullying trainings), respond fairly with the understanding that bullies often have problems of their own and need help, involved parents and teachers in anti-bullying education, and devote specific resources for anti-bullying.

Sarah Halliday, Tess Gregory, Amanda Taylor, Christianna Digenis & Deborah Turnbull (2021): The Impact of Bullying Victimization in Early Adolescence on Subsequent Psychosocial and Academic Outcomes across the Adolescent Period: A Systematic Review, Journal of School Violence, DOI: 10.1080/15388220.2021.1913598

Copeland WE, Wolke D, Angold A, Costello EJ. Adult Psychiatric Outcomes of Bullying and Being Bullied by Peers in Childhood and Adolescence. JAMA Psychiatry. 2013;70(4):419–426. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.504

Bo Hu, PhD, Is Bullying Victimization in Childhood Associated With Mental Health in Old Age, The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Volume 76, Issue 1, January 2021, Pages 161–172, https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbz115

Muetzel RL, Mulder RH, Lamballais S, Cortes Hidalgo AP, Jansen P, Güroğlu B, Vernooiji MW, Hillegers M, White T, El Marroun H and Tiemeier H (2019) Frequent Bullying Involvement and Brain Morphology in Children. Front. Psychiatry 10:696. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00696

Midgett, A., Doumas, D.M. Witnessing Bullying at School: The Association Between Being a Bystander and Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms. School Mental Health 11, 454–463 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-019-09312-6

Idsoe, T., Dyregrov, A. & Idsoe, E.C. Bullying and PTSD Symptoms. J Abnorm Child Psychol 40, 901–911 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-012-9620-0

Fraguas D, Díaz-Caneja CM, Ayora M, Durán-Cutilla M, Abregú-Crespo R, Ezquiaga-Bravo I, Martín-Babarro J, Arango C. Assessment of School Anti-Bullying Interventions: A Meta-analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials. JAMA Pediatr. 2021 Jan 1;175(1):44-55. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.3541. PMID: 33136156; PMCID: PMC7607493.

Plexousakis SS, Kourkoutas E, Giovazolias T, Chatira K and Nikolopoulos D (2019) School Bullying and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms: The Role of Parental Bonding. Front. Public Health 7:75. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2019.00075

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What Are the Best Ways to Prevent Bullying in Schools?

All 50 U.S. states require schools to have a bullying prevention policy.

But a policy, alone, is not enough. Despite the requirement, there’s been a slight uptick in all forms of bullying during the last three years. Bullying can look like experienced basketball players systematically intimidating novice players off the court, kids repeatedly stigmatizing immigrant classmates for their cultural differences, or a middle-school girl suddenly being insulted and excluded by her group of friends.

Bullying occurs everywhere, even in the highest-performing schools, and it is hurtful to everyone involved, from the targets of bullying to the witnesses—and even to bullies themselves. October is National Bullying Prevention Month, so it’s a good time to ask ourselves: What are the best practices for preventing bullying in schools? That’s a question I explored with my colleague Marc Brackett from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, in a recent paper that reviewed dozens of studies of real-world bullying prevention efforts.

As we discovered, not all approaches to bullying prevention are equally effective. Most bullying prevention programs focus on raising awareness of the problem and administering consequences. But programs that rely on punishment and zero tolerance have not been shown to be effective in the U.S.; and they often disproportionately target students of color. Programs like peer mediation that place responsibility on the children to work out conflicts can increase bullying. (Adult victims of abuse are never asked to “work it out” with their tormentor, and children have an additional legal right to protections due to their developmental status.) Bystander intervention, even among adults, only works for some people—extroverts, empaths, and people with higher social status and moral engagement. Many approaches that educators adopt have not been evaluated through research; instead, educators tend to select programs based on what their colleagues use.

We found two research-tested approaches that show the most promise for reducing bullying (along with other forms of aggression and conflict). They are a positive school climate, and social and emotional learning.

Building a positive school climate

School climate can be difficult to define, though possible to measure . It is the “felt sense” of being in a school, which can arise from a greeting, the way a problem is resolved, or how people work together; it is a school’s “heart and soul,” its “quality and character.” Schools with a positive climate foster healthy development, while a negative school climate is associated with higher rates of student bullying, aggression, victimization, and feeling unsafe.

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The elements of a positive climate may vary, but may often include norms about feelings and relationships, power and how it is expressed, and media consumption. Social norm engineering is a conscious process that builds a positive culture among student peers and school adults that becomes self-reinforcing. Like a healthy immune system, a positive school climate promotes optimal health and reduces the chances of dysfunction or disease.

Leadership is key to a positive climate. Is bullying minimized as a “normal rite of childhood,” or is it recognized as the harmful peer abuse that it is? Do leaders understand that uninterrupted, severe bullying can confer lifelong negative consequences on targets of bullies, bullies, and witnesses? Are school leaders committed to promoting all children’s positive psychological health, or do they over-rely on punishing misbehavior? Can they discern between typical developmental processes that need guidance versus bullying that needs assertive intervention? Are educators empathic to their students, and do they value children’s feelings?

Next, are teachers prepared to deal with bullying? Students consistently report that teachers miss most incidents of bullying and fail to help students when asked. A majority of teachers report that they feel unprepared to deal with classroom bullying. Some teachers bully students themselves , or show a lack of empathy toward children who are bullied. Teachers report that they receive little guidance in “classroom management,” and sometimes default to the disciplinary strategies they learned in their own families growing up.

However, reforming school climate should involve all stakeholders—students and parents, as well as the administrators and teachers—so a school’s specific issues can be addressed, and the flavor of local cultures retained. School climate assessments can be completed periodically to track the impact of improvements.

Advancing social and emotional learning

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is well known, and involves teaching skills of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision making, and relationships management. (Full disclosure: Brackett and I are affiliated with the SEL program RULER .)

Evidence-based SEL approaches have been shown to deliver cost-effective, solid results. Numerous meta-analyses , research reviews , and individual studies of hundreds of thousands of K-12 students show that SEL improves emotional well-being, self-regulation, classroom relationships, and kind and helpful behavior among students. It reduces a range of problems like anxiety, emotional distress, and depression; reduces disruptive behaviors like conflicts, aggression, bullying, anger, and hostile attribution bias ; and it improves academic achievement, creativity, and leadership.

A study of 36 first-grade teachers showed that when teachers were more emotionally supportive of students, children were less aggressive and had greater behavioral self-control, compared to the use of behavior management, which did not improve student self-control. One meta-analysis showed that developing emotional competence was protective against becoming a victim of bullying; social competence and academic performance were protective against becoming a bully; and positive peer interactions were protective against becoming a bully-victim (one who has been bullied and bullies others). A series of longitudinal studies showed positive effects into midlife (e.g., fewer divorces, less unemployment) and even cross-generational effects of early SEL. Compared to a matched control group, the children of the adults who participated in the Perry Preschool Project had less criminal involvement and higher educational and employment achievement. A cost-benefit analysis of six SEL programs found them to be good investments, with $11 saved for every $1 spent.

Teachers also benefit from SEL. Those with emotional and social skills training have higher job satisfaction and less burnout, show more positive emotions toward their students, manage their classrooms better, and use more strategies that cultivate creativity, choice, and autonomy in their students. Teachers report that they want more SEL support to cultivate their own emotional and social skills, and to better understand their students’ feelings. But few teacher training programs focus on growing the teachers’ emotion regulation skills.

Bullying at different age levels

SEL approaches should be developmentally wise , since what is salient and possible for children changes at different ages.

For example, preschoolers are expelled from school at the highest rates of all, but the neurological hardware for their self-control is only just developing. Only then are the connections between the emotion circuitry and the more thinking regions of the prefrontal cortex beginning to be myelinated (insulated for faster connectivity), something that will take until the mid 20s to complete. An SEL program like PATHS or RULER that teaches young children language for feelings, and strategies for thinking before acting, can develop better self-regulation.

Online resources on bullying

Learn more about SEL programs .

Read your state’s legislation and policies on bullying .

Read your state’s legislation and policies on cyberbullying .

Schools can refer to this summary of legal issues on bullying .

Many states have laws that outlaw sexting, and most states outlaw revenge porn. Find out your state laws .

Discover tip sheets for preventing and responding to cyberbullying in middle and high school educators, parents, and teens.

Discover more tip sheets for parents and teens .

Sometimes, adults confuse normal developmental processes with bullying. For example, children begin to reorganize their friendships midway through elementary school, something that can naturally create hurt feelings and interpersonal conflict. It should not be misconstrued as bullying, though, which involves intentional, repeated aggression within an imbalance of power. Normal development also includes experimenting with power, and these normal dynamics should be guided safely toward developing a healthy sense of agency, rather than a hurtful exertion of power over someone else.

Finally, the onset of puberty marks the beginning of heightened sensitivity to social relationships, an especially important time to cultivate skills for kinder, gentler relationships. Unfortunately, this is the period when bullying spikes the highest. And while some strategies work well for younger children (for example, advising them to “tell a trusted adult”), this option may fail with teens, and the breakpoint seems to be around the eighth grade. Older teens require approaches that are less didactic and leverage their need for autonomy, while affirming their values and search for meaning. Physiologically, the brain changes during puberty confer a second chance for recalibrating their stress regulation system. That opportunity should be constructively seized.

Approaches should also take into account individual differences between children. Even SEL programs can stumble here, over-relying on just one or two emotion regulation strategies, like breathing or mindfulness. But children vary in their temperaments, sensitivities, strengths, and vulnerabilities. The best SEL approaches guide students toward discovering strategies that work best for them—strategies that are emotion- and context-specific, personalized, and culturally responsive. This approach requires unconventional flexibility on the part of the educators.

And, finally, approaches work best if they are not standalone pedagogies or from kits that end up in the classroom closet at the end of the year. In order to be effective, skills should become fully embedded across the curricula and the entire day, in all settings, and implemented by all adults—in other words, infiltrating the ecosystem. Only approaches used and taught as intended are successful.

Schools can’t do this alone

Families matter, too. Bullying in schools sometimes arises from harsh parenting practices or sibling bullying at home.

Even parents’ workplaces matter. Adults experience bullying in their workplaces at about the same rate as children in schools, and it’s even found among teachers and in senior living communities . In other words, bullying is not just a childhood problem; it is a pervasive human problem. And children are not buffered from the wider social world—bullying of children who belong to groups targeted in the national political discourse has spiked on playgrounds nationwide.

Ultimately, we need a substantial shift in our mindsets about the importance of children and their feelings. Children are more likely to thrive when we nurture their humanity, and offer them language and strategies and values to help them identify, express, and, thus, regulate their feelings. When parents, teachers, and administrators gain new awareness into the complex roots of bullying and adopt new strategies for addressing it, schools can lead the way. The kids are counting on us.

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About the Author

Diana Divecha

Diana Divecha, Ph.D. , is a developmental psychologist, an assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center and Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and on the advisory board of the Greater Good Science Center. Her blog is developmentalscience.com .

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Theoretical Perspectives and Two Explanatory Models of School Bullying

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Published: 17 October 2022

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This article examines alternative and supplementary ways in which theorists and researchers have sought to account for bullying behavior among students in schools. Contemporary explanations acknowledge the variety, complexity, and interactivity of both person and environmental factors in determining acts of bullying in schools. Two explanatory models or frameworks are described: (i) an adaptation of the theory of planned behavior proposed by Ajzen (Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50:179–211, 1991 ); and (ii) the comprehensive model of bullying (CMB) by Rigby (Multiperspectivity in school bullying, page 64. Routlege, 2021b ). The strengths and limitations of these models are discussed, together with applications in addressing school bullying.

Understanding Teachers’ Likelihood of Intervention in Bullying Situations: Testing the Theory of Planned Behavior

The Intent Behind Bullying: an Application and Expansion of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

A Systematic Review on Primary School Teachers’ Characteristics and Behaviors in Identifying, Preventing, and Reducing Bullying

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

The rise of concern since the early 1990s over bullying in schools has led to a proliferation of theoretical explanations for why it is so prevalent among schoolchildren. Estimates derived from 71 countries reported by UNESCO ( 2019 ) suggest that around 32% of schoolchildren between the ages of 9 and 15 years were bullied for one or more days during the previous month. Analyses of trend data by UNESCO have shown that despite increasing attention to the problem, over half (55%) of these countries have reported no significant reductions. Although some carefully evaluated interventions to reduce bullying in schools have been modestly successful (Ttofi & Farrington, 2011 ), a large majority have had little or no effect. At the same time, numerous studies have shown that bullying behavior has the effect of seriously reducing the wellbeing and mental health and learning of victimized students (Armitage, 2021 ). In the light of these findings, more effective means of intervening to reduce bullying are needed, and these need to be grounded in an understanding of why bullying takes place in schools. This article seeks to examine a range of theoretical explanations for bullying behavior and describes two models that exhibit both strengths and limitations in describing why bullying occurs in schools and how it may be countered.

Explanations must begin an acceptable definition of bullying. It is conceived as a subset of aggression. Although some views on what precisely constitutes bullying behavior remain controversial, the formulation of the definition proposed by Olweus ( 1993 , p.9) has been broadly accepted by most researchers: that is, “a student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed repeatedly and over time to negative actions on the part of one or more other students.” Crucial elements generally include (i) bullying is intentional and deliberate; (ii) it occurs in a situation in which there is an imbalance of power; and (iii) it is repeated over time. What may constitute “negative actions” has expanded more recently to include not only direct actions such as striking people and face-to-face verbal abuse, but also indirect negative actions such as exclusion, rumor spreading, and cyber bullying. In general terms, bullying has been viewed as a systematic abuse of power (Smith & Sharp, 1994 ) and by Tattum and Tattum ( 1992 , p.147) as “a conscious, willful desire to hurt another person and put him/her under stress.” This latter view is inadequate as a definition of bullying, which is recognized as a behavior. However, it draws attention to the motivational core of bullying, which may be seen as a state of mind, specifically a “desire.” Whether bullying can best be understood as a consequence of individual volition, as distinct from broader considerations such as group dynamics and the caring-ness or otherwise of the social milieu, has been questioned in a recent set of recommendations by a UNESCO committee on school violence (Cornu et al., 2022 ).

This article provides a brief survey of theoretical perspectives that have been thought to be relevant to understanding and explaining bullying in schools, together with supportive empirical findings. Two models purporting to explain bullying are described, linking, where possible, with theoretical formulations and reported findings. The models are then critically discussed as to their adequacy and potential value in assisting schools in addressing the problem of bullying.

Theoretical Explanations

Theoretical explanations of bullying may be categorized under three general headings: (1) the nature of the beast, an idiom that conveys the inherent or essential quality or character of something, which cannot be changed and must be accepted (see Anderson, 2022 ); (2) the nature of the environment, that is, the aggregate of external agents or conditions—physical, biological, social, and cultural—that influence the functions of an organism (APA, 2022 ); and (3) interaction between (1) and (2). Although different emphases may be placed on the “nature of the beast” and/or the nature of the environment in explaining bullying in schools, it is generally understood that a full explanation of bullying requires an examination of how each contributes and how the two interact with one another. According to a heuristic formula proposed by Lewin ( 1936 ), B = f ( P , E ), where B is the behavior (in this case “bullying”) and P stands for person—that is, the “beast” in question—and E is the environment.

Evolutionary psychology has produced a basic explanation of bullying that emphasizes what is “given” in the nature of living beings. Bullying is seen as an evolved adaptive strategy, practiced by both non-humans and humans, that offers benefits to its practitioners through the achievement of somatic, sexual, and dominance goals (Volk et al., 2012 ). Evolutionary theories of bullying acknowledge the significant role that the environment may play in the development of bullying behavior. However, as pointed out by Volk et al., despite substantial variations in environmental conditions, bullying among students is prevalent in all countries.

Related to the evolutionary view of bullying is the so-called dominance theory (Evans & Smokowski, 2016 ), according to which individuals and groups are motivated to bully others in order to gain and secure social capital, that is, to the benefits gained from social relationships (Putnam, 2000 ). Dominance per se may be for some individuals a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.

Consistent with the claims of evolutionary psychologists, there is evidence that the tendency of children to bully others is influenced by genetic factors. For instance, it has been reported that identical twins are significantly more likely to be similar in their tendency to bully others than are fraternal twins, even when the identical twins are reared apart (Ball et al., 2008 ). More recently, genetic material derived from analyses of samples of blood and saliva has been used to predict bullying behavior of children, as rated by fellow students (Musci et al., 2018 ). This is not to deny the influence of environmental factors but rather to support the view that genetics play an influential role in explaining bullying behavior.

Some explanations of bullying behavior emphasize the role of personality conceived as a set of relatively enduring psychological characteristics that affect the way people behave. For instance, Farrell and Volk ( 2017 ) see bullying as the product of an anti-social personality described by them as a predatory, exploitive personality trait. Research findings based on personality assessments indicate that children who bully tend to be relatively extraverted, psychotic, sadistic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, disagreeable, and deficient in emotional empathy (Vangeel et al., 2017 ). These qualities are, to some degree, genetically determined (Veldkamp et al., 2019 ). A further claim is that bullying behavior can be explained by psychoanalytical theory, according to which bullying can be seen as the outcome of a disposition to protect one’s ego through the use of projection and/or scapegoating (Dixon & Smith, 2011 ; Wampold, 2015 ).

In explaining aggression, a central role has sometimes been accorded to the consequences of frustration and/or being placed under considerable strain through negative life events with which a person is unable to cope. The classic definition of frustration in psychology is any event or stimulus that prevents an individual from attaining a goal and its accompanying reinforcement quality (Dollard et al., 1939 ). On the basis of empirical studies, it has been reported that experiencing frustration, even if unintended, commonly leads to a person acting aggressively (Berkowitz, 1989 ). This may include bullying behavior. For instance, levels of school bullying have been reported as relatively high in schools in England where community resentment and associated frustration have been aroused by increases in foreign migration (Denti, 2021 ). For some students and families, such perceived “intrusion” may constitute a strain leading to anti-social acts such as bullying (Agnew, 1992 ).

At the same time, not every instance of frustration or negative life events leads to acts of interpersonal aggression. Hence, one aspect or dimension of personality relevant to bullying is tolerance of frustration. As predicted, Potard et al. ( 2021 ) have confirmed that adolescent schoolchildren in France who were identified as bullies were more likely than those not involved bullying to report a relatively low level of tolerance of frustration on a Frustration Discomfort Scale. This result was significant on two subscales, one relating to entitlement, “I can’t stand it when people go against my wishes,” and one to achievement, “I can’t bear the frustration of not achieving my goals.”

Persons may be described according to cognitive capacities or modes of thinking that are related to bullying. Explanations of bullying may be derived from cognitive theory as developed by Bandura ( 1999 ). It has been reported that children who bully tend to be morally disengaged (Hymel & Bonnanno, 2014 ). They commonly invent reasons why a victim deserves to be hurt and are untroubled by any scruples (Thornberg & Jungert, 2014 ). It has been further claimed that having a greater cognitive capacity for discerning what others may be thinking, as in theory of mind, may advantage some prospective bullies who choose to exploit this capacity (Smith, 2017 ).

The person ( P ) in the Lewin formulation may also include age and gender. Both these factors have been found to be related to bullying behavior. Increases in its prevalence in schools have been reported as occurring in early adolescence. Boys are more commonly reported as perpetrators, at least as far as physical bullying is concerned; however, this difference may not extend to other forms of bullying, such as verbal and cyber bullying (Menesini & Salmivalli, 2017 ) and can depend on the cultural background (Rigby et al., 2019 ).

The Environment ( E )

The most general theory to account for behavior including bullying is reinforcement theory, as propounded by Skinner ( 1953 ). This theory dismisses the need to postulate any internal states, such as “desire” to explain bullying behavior. It is claimed that all bullying can best be understood as a consequence of certain actions, defined as bullying, being taken and positively reinforced. Positive behavior support programs in schools to counter bullying are based on the assumption that bullying will cease if it is not reinforced (Ross & Horner, 2009 ). In more recent years, learning theorists have sought to explain bullying by expanding the “purer” Skinnerian version of how learning occurs to include more cognitive factors and the importance of modeling in the acquisition of bullying behaviors (Bandura, 1977 ).

Other explanations specify features of the environment that give rise to bullying. These may include physical features such as the ambient temperature in one’s locality (Wei et al., 2017 ) and the built environment in which one spends time (Fram & Dickman, 2012 ). More commonly, attention is paid to the social environment, past and present. Following the seminal work of Bronfenbrenner ( 2009 ), a variety of social systems and influences have been identified as contributing to bullying behavior (See Espelage, 2014 ; Swearer & Hymel, 2015 ; Hornby, 2015 ). These include interacting microsystems in the immediate environment, such as the home, the local neighborhood, and the school. Other more expansive systems involve society and culture, within which government policies, the Law, and the media may play a part (Rigby, 2021b ). Each of these ecological systems is conceived as interacting with and influencing each other in all aspects of the children’s lives, including their interpersonal relations at school, and may, in some circumstances, result in bullying.

Research findings have supported some of the claims that aspects of the social ecology may influence the occurrence of bullying in schools. The home environment of children who experience cold, authoritarian parenting has been reported as being more likely than others to bully their peers at school (Connell et al., 2016 ; Rigby, 2013 ). Levels of reported bullying in school have been found to be much higher in some neighborhoods and communities than others; for example, they have been reported to be significantly higher in countries with greater economic inequality (Elgar et al., 2009 ). The ethos of the school attended by a child, as indicated by prevailing attitudes, values, and behaviors of students and teachers, is reportedly related to how children interact with their peers, with bullying perpetration being less prevalent in schools in which children feel supported by school staff (Modin et al., 2017 ; Thornberg et al., 2018 ). Social norms endorsed by peer or friendship groups, especially in relation to negative treatment of outsiders and those against whom there is bias or prejudice, are seen as contributing to bullying (Perkins et al., 2011 ).

The complexity of explaining bullying within an ecological framework becomes evident when the nature of interactions between the factors is considered. For example, the influence of an oppressive home environment may have more adverse consequences for a child when combined with negative school ethos, or have a less negative effect if combined with positive relations with teachers.

Interactions Between P and E

Reverting to the Lewin formulation, as adapted, B (bullying) = f ( P , E ), one may ask how in practice this may help in explaining bullying. It requires us to consider how effects traceably to the environment are modified in accordance with the nature of individual persons. One might expect some ecological factors to influence bullying behavior more so or less so, according to the personal qualities of the child. As an example, a child with a low tolerance of frustration may become aggressive and engage in bullying in one school, but not in another school where he or she is helped by a teacher to control negative emotions. The relationship between a person and the environment can be viewed as reciprocal. A person is not only acted on by the environment but may also act to modify the environment, which in turn may produce changes in the person. For instance, learning not to over-react to provocation may lead to a change in how a child is treated by others at school, that is, produce a change in the social environment and, as a consequence, how he or she subsequently treats others.

A number of heuristic models have been constructed to identify factors, relationships, and inter-relationships that are thought to be relevant to understanding and explaining bullying in schools. They may differ in two ways: first according to the selection of variables considered relevant and, second, whether they indicate a “process” according to which selected independent variables bring about bullying behavior.

A wide range of relevant variables have been suggested by Astor and Benbenishty ( 2018 ). These are differentiated according to whether they are (i) internal factors, that is, ones that operate within a school, such as school climate, school leadership, availability of resources, and disciplinary procedures, and (ii) external factors, such as home background, neighborhood, and the mass media. Internal and external factors are seen as interacting in ways that may change over time. Person factors, apart from age and gender, are not considered; genetic influences or personality or attitude variables are not seen as playing any part. Acknowledging that evidence for the associations between measures of the factors is correlational, the authors do not claim directional, causal links between the variables. They point out, for instance, that a reduction in bullying in a school may result in an improvement in the school climate, which may further reduce bullying prevalence. Whilst their contribution notes a wide range of ecological factors that may influence bullying behavior, they do not attempt to show how such factors may, in combination, determine bullying behavior. The two models to be examined in this article describe or imply a “process” according to which environmental and person-related variables in combination give rise to bullying behavior.

The first model is derived from the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980 ), further elaborated by Ajzen ( 1991 ) in the theory of planned behavior. In an adaptation of this model (Rigby, 1997 ), three factors were identified as interacting and contributing to the intention to bully someone, (i) personal attitudes towards bullying behavior, seen as a consequence of a history of reinforcement following acts of bullying, (ii) perceived or subjective norms regarding bullying, and (iii) perceived behavioral control, that is, belief in one’s capacity to carry out the action of bullying. Factors (i) and (iii) are regarded as related to person. Normative influences, filtered through individual perceptions, relate to the environment. Collectively, these factors were thought to predict intention to act. Ajzen claimed that the intention to act is closely related to actually doing so. Thus, if a person has a positive attitude towards bullying behavior, believes that significant others, for example, a friendship group, actually support bullying behavior, and holds the belief that he or she is able to bully someone, then, according to the model, bullying is more likely to result. Unlike the model proposed by Astor and Benbenishty, hypothesized relationships predicting bullying behavior are testable (see Fig. 1 ).

Application of the model of planned behavior to bullying, based on Ajzen ( 1991 )

The planned behavior model has some theoretical and empirical support. It draws upon principles of reinforcement theory as applied in bullying interventions (Ross & Horner, 2009 ) and also upon social cognitive theory in highlighting the influence of perceived social norms among students (Burns et al., 2008 ; Salmivalli, 2010 ). The model includes the factor of perceived capability to perform an act of bullying, thereby recognizing that it can occur in circumstances in which there is an imbalance of power favoring the bully (Olweus, 1993 ). This model has used in several studies of adolescent schoolchildren to predict intention to bully (Rigby, 1997 ) and, more specifically, to engage in cyber bullying (Pabian & Vandebosch, 2014 ; Auemaneekul et al., 2020 ; Siriporn, 2021 ). In each study, all three factors, independently and collectively, made significant contributions.

A second model is more comprehensive in its inclusion of factors that may influence bullying behavior and also includes a description of how what may follow once the intention to bully has been made. The comprehensive model of bullying (CMB) as described by Rigby ( 2021b ) is distinctive in being based largely on the assumption made by Tattum and Tattum that bullying behavior is driven primarily by a desire on the part of a perpetrator to hurt or place someone under stress. Desire is seen here as a disposition or state of mind to act to bring about a specific outcome (Anscombe, 2000 ; Rigby, 2012a , b , 2021b ). It assumes that this hypothesized desire is determined by genetic or personality factors, together with a range of ecological factors. The stronger the influence in increasing the desire to hurt or place someone under stress, the more likely it is that a child will engage in aggressive and possibly bullying behavior. How the hypothesized desire may be generated is suggested in Fig. 2 , together with possible sequelae.

The comprehensive bullying model (CBM)

As in the formulation of Astor and Benbenishty, a number of relevant environmental factors are identified. These include an authoritarian and abusive home background (Georgiou et al., 2013 ), a troublesome neighborhood (Bowes et al., 2009 ), and a negative school ethos (Modin et al., 2017 ) as indicated by negative relations between students and staff members. Negative and non-accepting attitudes towards other students may also contribute to bullying behavior. A qualitative study of how students in primary and secondary schools in Australia felt about “children at this school” indicated that negative judgements were expressed by 24% of the students, as in being “stupid,” “mean,” “bitchy,” “stuck up,” “uncool,” and “idiots.” Students making such judgements were also significantly more likely than others to report engaging in bullying at school (Rigby & Bortolozzo, 2013 ).

A set of person factors are also identified, including extraversion, low empathy, disagreeableness, and sadism. The environmental and person factors are seen as contributing in some way, directly or through interaction with each other, to produce a frame of mind characterized as having, in varying degrees, a desire to act hurt or pressure another person, and which under some conditions and circumstances could result in bullying behavior.

Whether children actually engage in aggressive behavior is seen to depend, in part, on whether the desire is sufficiently intense and sustained. It may dissipate over time without any aggression being expressed. Whether any aggression involves bullying (as distinct from conflict between individuals or groups of equal or similar power) may depend in part on the moral engagement or otherwise of the potential perpetrator. Morally disengaged students are seen as more likely to engage in bullying. Such disengagement is likely to be influenced by group membership and the social norms they share, as well as by personal prejudice (Iannello et al., 2021 ).

This model also draws attention to possible sequelae. These include (i) decisions made as to the person or persons to be targeted; (ii) the method(s) to be employed in carrying out the bullying, e.g., physical, verbal, and/or cyber; (iii) reactions of the targeted person(s) when the bullying is attempted, e.g., resisting and calling on help; (iv) opposing (restraining) or supporting (facilitating) bystander responses; and (v) the perceived presence and effectiveness of teacher surveillance and/or intervention. Given the perceived “successes, and especially the satisfaction it gives to the perpetrator, one might expect in some cases a cycle would be set up, with others joining in, so that the bullying becomes more difficult to stop.

Finding better, more comprehensive explanations for the occurrence of bullying in schools is an important step towards developing anti-bully policies and effective method of prevention and intervention. Many suggestions have been made as to the origins of this prevalent and harmful form of behavior. Various explanations have been proposed drawing on evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics, reinforcement theory, frustration-aggression theory, strain theory, personality theory, social ecology, and cognitive theory. The models described above draw upon some of the reported findings and theoretical explanation relating to bullying behavior and are consistent with the view that bullying is an outcome of both person and environmental factors.

The model based on the theory of planned behavior recognizes that environmental and personal factors may interact in determining bullying, for instance, perceived social norms and enduring attitudes to bullying (considered a person attribute) seen as derived from a history of reinforcement. It challenges schools to consider how negative social group norms can be countered and the part that can be played through reinforcing positive, pro-social behavior. It also recognizes that bullying necessarily involves a perceived imbalance of power, which may in some cases be reduced, arguably by teaching targeted children to be more assertive, as appropriate. However, it may be criticized in being too narrowly conceived and as not including other factors that need to be taken into account in addressing bullying, such as a genetic predisposition, home background, and school ethos. Finally, it does not recognize the central role of motivation and how a state of mind prone to bully others can be managed.

The CMB provides a more comprehensive explanation of bullying behavior. It draws attention to the contribution of a range of person and environmental factors that have been identified as potentially influencing bullying behavior. It differs from the other models in postulating a state of mind, a desire to hurt or place another under stress, that may, under some conditions, motivate and give rise to bullying behavior. Inspection of the model may enable schools to identify steps that can be taken to prevent bullying or respond effectively to actual cases.

First, in focusing on the state of mind in students, namely a desire to hurt or place another under stress as leading to bullying behavior, educators are challenged to examine what they can do to reduce unnecessary sources of frustration or strain in the school for example, by promoting interpersonal empathy (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006 ); developing a supportive and caring school environment (Smit & Scherman, 2016 ); encouraging cooperative learning (Van Ryzin & Roseth, 2019 ); and working constructively with parents (Healy & Sanders, 2014 ).

It draws attention to students in a chronic or recurrent states of hostility and how they might be helped to regulate their emotions, for example, by teaching techniques of mindfulness (Foody & Samara, 2018 ) and/or conducting motivational interviewing with students who bully and are seeking help to change their behavior (Cross et al., 2018 ).

In considering the decision-making process whereby a student takes action to bully someone, attention is directed towards the means by which moral disengagement can be discouraged among students through counselling (Campaert et al., 2017 ).

As well as seeking to develop a school ethos that may prevent bullying, the model may encourage schools to develop more effective and appropriate intervention methods, recognizing that a failure to stop cases of bullying from continuing can set up a cycle of bullying that may become more difficult to deal with, as more students may join in the bullying (Rigby, 2012a , b , 2021a ).

It identifies the importance of bystander behavior, given the strong influence of positive bystander action in stopping cases from continuing (Hawkins et al., 2001 ; Salmivalli, 2014 ). Teachers can encourage positive bystander action to assist victims through classroom discussions (Rigby & Johnson, 2006a , 2006b ). There is, however, a danger that by their actions bystanders can draw attention to the status of victims and put them more at risk of being bullied (Healy, 2020 )–and thereby perpetuate the problem.

Limitations and Criticism

The question remains as to why given experiences, such as perceived social norms supporting bullying and abusive, authoritarian parenting, should result in the desire to hurt and in some cases bullying behavior. Possible explanations for following social norms have included the desire to belong to an admired group who approve of the bullying, the acquisition of a positive self-image, and a fear of rejection and isolation if one adopts a contrary attitude (Gross & Vostroknutov, 2022 ). Why abusive parenting and negative school ethos may lead to children bullying others may also be seen as a consequence of frustration, especially among students with low tolerance for frustration, as suggested by the frustration-aggression hypothesis.

However, arguably, not all bullying may involve an aggressive intent. The motivation may, for instance, be a desire to increase or maintain one’s status in a group and/or to be admired by some peers (Veenstra et al., 2010 ). In such cases, the aim is not to hurt, though it may well do so. Parents and others may at times encourage and reinforce such behavior, mindful that their children’s “success” (defined by “social status”) may be achieved by dominating others in ways that may be viewed as non-malign. It may therefore be that the model is limited in its application to bullying behavior that involves an intention of the bully to harm another person. It would be of interest to discover how often a desire to hurt is present in cases of bullying as distinct from bullying that does not include such an element.

According to the famous maxim of Kurt Lewin ( 1951 ), there is nothing more practical than a good theory. It is with this expectation that one may follow the trail of his formula, as adapted: B (bullying) = f ( P , E ). How successful this journey can be remains to be seen. The models presented here were consistent with empirical findings in relating bullying behavior to ecological and person variables. Furthermore, the models discussed can be used to draw attention to points at which appropriate interventions may be undertaken by schools to prevent bullying from occurring or from continuing and provide justifications for various actions in addressing the problem.

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Rigby, K. Theoretical Perspectives and Two Explanatory Models of School Bullying. Int Journal of Bullying Prevention (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-022-00141-x

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Preventing Bullying Through Science, Policy, and Practice (2016)

Chapter: 1 introduction, 1 introduction.

Bullying, long tolerated by many as a rite of passage into adulthood, is now recognized as a major and preventable public health problem, one that can have long-lasting consequences ( McDougall and Vaillancourt, 2015 ; Wolke and Lereya, 2015 ). Those consequences—for those who are bullied, for the perpetrators of bullying, and for witnesses who are present during a bullying event—include poor school performance, anxiety, depression, and future delinquent and aggressive behavior. Federal, state, and local governments have responded by adopting laws and implementing programs to prevent bullying and deal with its consequences. However, many of these responses have been undertaken with little attention to what is known about bullying and its effects. Even the definition of bullying varies among both researchers and lawmakers, though it generally includes physical and verbal behavior, behavior leading to social isolation, and behavior that uses digital communications technology (cyberbullying). This report adopts the term “bullying behavior,” which is frequently used in the research field, to cover all of these behaviors.

Bullying behavior is evident as early as preschool, although it peaks during the middle school years ( Currie et al., 2012 ; Vaillancourt et al., 2010 ). It can occur in diverse social settings, including classrooms, school gyms and cafeterias, on school buses, and online. Bullying behavior affects not only the children and youth who are bullied, who bully, and who are both bullied and bully others but also bystanders to bullying incidents. Given the myriad situations in which bullying can occur and the many people who may be involved, identifying effective prevention programs and policies is challenging, and it is unlikely that any one approach will be ap-

propriate in all situations. Commonly used bullying prevention approaches include policies regarding acceptable behavior in schools and behavioral interventions to promote positive cultural norms.

STUDY CHARGE

Recognizing that bullying behavior is a major public health problem that demands the concerted and coordinated time and attention of parents, educators and school administrators, health care providers, policy makers, families, and others concerned with the care of children, a group of federal agencies and private foundations asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to undertake a study of what is known and what needs to be known to further the field of preventing bullying behavior. The Committee on the Biological and Psychosocial Effects of Peer Victimization:

Lessons for Bullying Prevention was created to carry out this task under the Academies’ Board on Children, Youth, and Families and the Committee on Law and Justice. The study received financial support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Highmark Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Semi J. and Ruth W. Begun Foundation, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The full statement of task for the committee is presented in Box 1-1 .

Although the committee acknowledges the importance of this topic as it pertains to all children in the United States and in U.S. territories, this report focuses on the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Also, while the committee acknowledges that bullying behavior occurs in the school

environment for youth in foster care, in juvenile justice facilities, and in other residential treatment facilities, this report does not address bullying behavior in those environments because it is beyond the study charge.

CONTEXT FOR THE STUDY

This section of the report highlights relevant work in the field and, later in the chapter under “The Committee’s Approach,” presents the conceptual framework and corresponding definitions of terms that the committee has adopted.

Historical Context

Bullying behavior was first characterized in the scientific literature as part of the childhood experience more than 100 years ago in “Teasing and Bullying,” published in the Pedagogical Seminary ( Burk, 1897 ). The author described bullying behavior, attempted to delineate causes and cures for the tormenting of others, and called for additional research ( Koo, 2007 ). Nearly a century later, Dan Olweus, a Swedish research professor of psychology in Norway, conducted an intensive study on bullying ( Olweus, 1978 ). The efforts of Olweus brought awareness to the issue and motivated other professionals to conduct their own research, thereby expanding and contributing to knowledge of bullying behavior. Since Olweus’s early work, research on bullying has steadily increased (see Farrington and Ttofi, 2009 ; Hymel and Swearer, 2015 ).

Over the past few decades, venues where bullying behavior occurs have expanded with the advent of the Internet, chat rooms, instant messaging, social media, and other forms of digital electronic communication. These modes of communication have provided a new communal avenue for bullying. While the media reports linking bullying to suicide suggest a causal relationship, the available research suggests that there are often multiple factors that contribute to a youth’s suicide-related ideology and behavior. Several studies, however, have demonstrated an association between bullying involvement and suicide-related ideology and behavior (see, e.g., Holt et al., 2015 ; Kim and Leventhal, 2008 ; Sourander, 2010 ; van Geel et al., 2014 ).

In 2013, the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requested that the Institute of Medicine 1 and the National Research Council convene an ad hoc planning committee to plan and conduct a 2-day public workshop to highlight relevant information and knowledge that could inform a multidisciplinary

___________________

1 Prior to 2015, the National Academy of Medicine was known as the Institute of Medicine.

road map on next steps for the field of bullying prevention. Content areas that were explored during the April 2014 workshop included the identification of conceptual models and interventions that have proven effective in decreasing bullying and the antecedents to bullying while increasing protective factors that mitigate the negative health impact of bullying. The discussions highlighted the need for a better understanding of the effectiveness of program interventions in realistic settings; the importance of understanding what works for whom and under what circumstances, as well as the influence of different mediators (i.e., what accounts for associations between variables) and moderators (i.e., what affects the direction or strength of associations between variables) in bullying prevention efforts; and the need for coordination among agencies to prevent and respond to bullying. The workshop summary ( Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2014c ) informs this committee’s work.

Federal Efforts to Address Bullying and Related Topics

Currently, there is no comprehensive federal statute that explicitly prohibits bullying among children and adolescents, including cyberbullying. However, in the wake of the growing concerns surrounding the implications of bullying, several federal initiatives do address bullying among children and adolescents, and although some of them do not primarily focus on bullying, they permit some funds to be used for bullying prevention purposes.

The earliest federal initiative was in 1999, when three agencies collaborated to establish the Safe Schools/Healthy Students initiative in response to a series of deadly school shootings in the late 1990s. The program is administered by the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice to prevent youth violence and promote the healthy development of youth. It is jointly funded by the Department of Education and by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The program has provided grantees with both the opportunity to benefit from collaboration and the tools to sustain it through deliberate planning, more cost-effective service delivery, and a broader funding base ( Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2015 ).

The next major effort was in 2010, when the Department of Education awarded $38.8 million in grants under the Safe and Supportive Schools (S3) Program to 11 states to support statewide measurement of conditions for learning and targeted programmatic interventions to improve conditions for learning, in order to help schools improve safety and reduce substance use. The S3 Program was administered by the Safe and Supportive Schools Group, which also administered the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act State and Local Grants Program, authorized by the

1994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 2 It was one of several programs related to developing and maintaining safe, disciplined, and drug-free schools. In addition to the S3 grants program, the group administered a number of interagency agreements with a focus on (but not limited to) bullying, school recovery research, data collection, and drug and violence prevention activities ( U.S. Department of Education, 2015 ).

A collaborative effort among the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Interior, and Justice; the Federal Trade Commission; and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders created the Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention (FPBP) Steering Committee. Led by the U.S. Department of Education, the FPBP works to coordinate policy, research, and communications on bullying topics. The FPBP Website provides extensive resources on bullying behavior, including information on what bullying is, its risk factors, its warning signs, and its effects. 3 The FPBP Steering Committee also plans to provide details on how to get help for those who have been bullied. It also was involved in creating the “Be More than a Bystander” Public Service Announcement campaign with the Ad Council to engage students in bullying prevention. To improve school climate and reduce rates of bullying nationwide, FPBP has sponsored four bullying prevention summits attended by education practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and federal officials.

In 2014, the National Institute of Justice—the scientific research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice—launched the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative with a congressional appropriation of $75 million. The funds are to be used for rigorous research to produce practical knowledge that can improve the safety of schools and students, including bullying prevention. The initiative is carried out through partnerships among researchers, educators, and other stakeholders, including law enforcement, behavioral and mental health professionals, courts, and other justice system professionals ( National Institute of Justice, 2015 ).

In 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act was signed by President Obama, reauthorizing the 50-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which is committed to providing equal opportunities for all students. Although bullying is neither defined nor prohibited in this act, it is explicitly mentioned in regard to applicability of safe school funding, which it had not been in previous iterations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

The above are examples of federal initiatives aimed at promoting the

2 The Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act was included as Title IV, Part A, of the 1994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. See http://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/gun_violence/sect08-i.html [October 2015].

3 For details, see http://www.stopbullying.gov/ [October 2015].

healthy development of youth, improving the safety of schools and students, and reducing rates of bullying behavior. There are several other federal initiatives that address student bullying directly or allow funds to be used for bullying prevention activities.

Definitional Context

The terms “bullying,” “harassment,” and “peer victimization” have been used in the scientific literature to refer to behavior that is aggressive, is carried out repeatedly and over time, and occurs in an interpersonal relationship where a power imbalance exists ( Eisenberg and Aalsma, 2005 ). Although some of these terms have been used interchangeably in the literature, peer victimization is targeted aggressive behavior of one child against another that causes physical, emotional, social, or psychological harm. While conflict and bullying among siblings are important in their own right ( Tanrikulu and Campbell, 2015 ), this area falls outside of the scope of the committee’s charge. Sibling conflict and aggression falls under the broader concept of interpersonal aggression, which includes dating violence, sexual assault, and sibling violence, in addition to bullying as defined for this report. Olweus (1993) noted that bullying, unlike other forms of peer victimization where the children involved are equally matched, involves a power imbalance between the perpetrator and the target, where the target has difficulty defending him or herself and feels helpless against the aggressor. This power imbalance is typically considered a defining feature of bullying, which distinguishes this particular form of aggression from other forms, and is typically repeated in multiple bullying incidents involving the same individuals over time ( Olweus, 1993 ).

Bullying and violence are subcategories of aggressive behavior that overlap ( Olweus, 1996 ). There are situations in which violence is used in the context of bullying. However, not all forms of bullying (e.g., rumor spreading) involve violent behavior. The committee also acknowledges that perspective about intentions can matter and that in many situations, there may be at least two plausible perceptions involved in the bullying behavior.

A number of factors may influence one’s perception of the term “bullying” ( Smith and Monks, 2008 ). Children and adolescents’ understanding of the term “bullying” may be subject to cultural interpretations or translations of the term ( Hopkins et al., 2013 ). Studies have also shown that influences on children’s understanding of bullying include the child’s experiences as he or she matures and whether the child witnesses the bullying behavior of others ( Hellström et al., 2015 ; Monks and Smith, 2006 ; Smith and Monks, 2008 ).

In 2010, the FPBP Steering Committee convened its first summit, which brought together more than 150 nonprofit and corporate leaders,

researchers, practitioners, parents, and youths to identify challenges in bullying prevention. Discussions at the summit revealed inconsistencies in the definition of bullying behavior and the need to create a uniform definition of bullying. Subsequently, a review of the 2011 CDC publication of assessment tools used to measure bullying among youth ( Hamburger et al., 2011 ) revealed inconsistent definitions of bullying and diverse measurement strategies. Those inconsistencies and diverse measurements make it difficult to compare the prevalence of bullying across studies ( Vivolo et al., 2011 ) and complicate the task of distinguishing bullying from other types of aggression between youths. A uniform definition can support the consistent tracking of bullying behavior over time, facilitate the comparison of bullying prevalence rates and associated risk and protective factors across different data collection systems, and enable the collection of comparable information on the performance of bullying intervention and prevention programs across contexts ( Gladden et al., 2014 ). The CDC and U.S. Department of Education collaborated on the creation of the following uniform definition of bullying (quoted in Gladden et al., 2014, p. 7 ):

Bullying is any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying may inflict harm or distress on the targeted youth including physical, psychological, social, or educational harm.

This report noted that the definition includes school-age individuals ages 5-18 and explicitly excludes sibling violence and violence that occurs in the context of a dating or intimate relationship ( Gladden et al., 2014 ). This definition also highlighted that there are direct and indirect modes of bullying, as well as different types of bullying. Direct bullying involves “aggressive behavior(s) that occur in the presence of the targeted youth”; indirect bullying includes “aggressive behavior(s) that are not directly communicated to the targeted youth” ( Gladden et al., 2014, p. 7 ). The direct forms of violence (e.g., sibling violence, teen dating violence, intimate partner violence) can include aggression that is physical, sexual, or psychological, but the context and uniquely dynamic nature of the relationship between the target and the perpetrator in which these acts occur is different from that of peer bullying. Examples of direct bullying include pushing, hitting, verbal taunting, or direct written communication. A common form of indirect bullying is spreading rumors. Four different types of bullying are commonly identified—physical, verbal, relational, and damage to property. Some observational studies have shown that the different forms of bullying that youths commonly experience may overlap ( Bradshaw et al., 2015 ;

Godleski et al., 2015 ). The four types of bullying are defined as follows ( Gladden et al., 2014 ):

Physical bullying involves the use of physical force (e.g., shoving, hitting, spitting, pushing, and tripping).
Verbal bullying involves oral or written communication that causes harm (e.g., taunting, name calling, offensive notes or hand gestures, verbal threats).
Relational bullying is behavior “designed to harm the reputation and relationships of the targeted youth (e.g., social isolation, rumor spreading, posting derogatory comments or pictures online).”
Damage to property is “theft, alteration, or damaging of the target youth’s property by the perpetrator to cause harm.”

In recent years, a new form of aggression or bullying has emerged, labeled “cyberbullying,” in which the aggression occurs through modern technological devices, specifically mobile phones or the Internet ( Slonje and Smith, 2008 ). Cyberbullying may take the form of mean or nasty messages or comments, rumor spreading through posts or creation of groups, and exclusion by groups of peers online.

While the CDC definition identifies bullying that occurs using technology as electronic bullying and views that as a context or location where bullying occurs, one of the major challenges in the field is how to conceptualize and define cyberbullying ( Tokunaga, 2010 ). The extent to which the CDC definition can be applied to cyberbullying is unclear, particularly with respect to several key concepts within the CDC definition. First, whether determination of an interaction as “wanted” or “unwanted” or whether communication was intended to be harmful can be challenging to assess in the absence of important in-person socioemotional cues (e.g., vocal tone, facial expressions). Second, assessing “repetition” is challenging in that a single harmful act on the Internet has the potential to be shared or viewed multiple times ( Sticca and Perren, 2013 ). Third, cyberbullying can involve a less powerful peer using technological tools to bully a peer who is perceived to have more power. In this manner, technology may provide the tools that create a power imbalance, in contrast to traditional bullying, which typically involves an existing power imbalance.

A study that used focus groups with college students to discuss whether the CDC definition applied to cyberbullying found that students were wary of applying the definition due to their perception that cyberbullying often involves less emphasis on aggression, intention, and repetition than other forms of bullying ( Kota et al., 2014 ). Many researchers have responded to this lack of conceptual and definitional clarity by creating their own measures to assess cyberbullying. It is noteworthy that very few of these

definitions and measures include the components of traditional bullying—i.e., repetition, power imbalance, and intent ( Berne et al., 2013 ). A more recent study argues that the term “cyberbullying” should be reserved for incidents that involve key aspects of bullying such as repetition and differential power ( Ybarra et al., 2014 ).

Although the formulation of a uniform definition of bullying appears to be a step in the right direction for the field of bullying prevention, there are some limitations of the CDC definition. For example, some researchers find the focus on school-age youth as well as the repeated nature of bullying to be rather limiting; similarly the exclusion of bullying in the context of sibling relationships or dating relationships may preclude full appreciation of the range of aggressive behaviors that may co-occur with or constitute bullying behavior. As noted above, other researchers have raised concerns about whether cyberbullying should be considered a particular form or mode under the broader heading of bullying as suggested in the CDC definition, or whether a separate defintion is needed. Furthermore, the measurement of bullying prevalence using such a definiton of bullying is rather complex and does not lend itself well to large-scale survey research. The CDC definition was intended to inform public health surveillance efforts, rather than to serve as a definition for policy. However, increased alignment between bullying definitions used by policy makers and researchers would greatly advance the field. Much of the extant research on bullying has not applied a consistent definition or one that aligns with the CDC definition. As a result of these and other challenges to the CDC definition, thus far there has been inconsistent adoption of this particular definition by researchers, practitioners, or policy makers; however, as the definition was created in 2014, less than 2 years is not a sufficient amount of time to assess whether it has been successfully adopted or will be in the future.

THE COMMITTEE’S APPROACH

This report builds on the April 2014 workshop, summarized in Building Capacity to Reduce Bullying: Workshop Summary ( Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2014c ). The committee’s work was accomplished over an 18-month period that began in October 2014, after the workshop was held and the formal summary of it had been released. The study committee members represented expertise in communication technology, criminology, developmental and clinical psychology, education, mental health, neurobiological development, pediatrics, public health, school administration, school district policy, and state law and policy. (See Appendix E for biographical sketches of the committee members and staff.) The committee met three times in person and conducted other meetings by teleconferences and electronic communication.

Information Gathering

The committee conducted an extensive review of the literature pertaining to peer victimization and bullying. In some instances, the committee drew upon the broader literature on aggression and violence. The review began with an English-language literature search of online databases, including ERIC, Google Scholar, Lexis Law Reviews Database, Medline, PubMed, Scopus, PsycInfo, and Web of Science, and was expanded as literature and resources from other countries were identified by committee members and project staff as relevant. The committee drew upon the early childhood literature since there is substantial evidence indicating that bullying involvement happens as early as preschool (see Vlachou et al., 2011 ). The committee also drew on the literature on late adolescence and looked at related areas of research such as maltreatment for insights into this emerging field.

The committee used a variety of sources to supplement its review of the literature. The committee held two public information-gathering sessions, one with the study sponsors and the second with experts on the neurobiology of bullying; bullying as a group phenomenon and the role of bystanders; the role of media in bullying prevention; and the intersection of social science, the law, and bullying and peer victimization. See Appendix A for the agendas for these two sessions. To explore different facets of bullying and give perspectives from the field, a subgroup of the committee and study staff also conducted a site visit to a northeastern city, where they convened four stakeholder groups comprised, respectively, of local practitioners, school personnel, private foundation representatives, and young adults. The site visit provided the committee with an opportunity for place-based learning about bullying prevention programs and best practices. Each focus group was transcribed and summarized thematically in accordance with this report’s chapter considerations. Themes related to the chapters are displayed throughout the report in boxes titled “Perspectives from the Field”; these boxes reflect responses synthesized from all four focus groups. See Appendix B for the site visit’s agenda and for summaries of the focus groups.

The committee also benefited from earlier reports by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine through its Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education and the Institute of Medicine, most notably:

Reducing Risks for Mental Disorders: Frontiers for Preventive Intervention Research ( Institute of Medicine, 1994 )
Community Programs to Promote Youth Development ( National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2002 )
Deadly Lessons: Understanding Lethal School Violence ( National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2003 )
Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People: Progress and Possibilities ( National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2009 )
The Science of Adolescent Risk-Taking: Workshop Report ( Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2011 )
Communications and Technology for Violence Prevention: Workshop Summary ( Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2012 )
Building Capacity to Reduce Bullying: Workshop Summary ( Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2014c )
The Evidence for Violence Prevention across the Lifespan and Around the World: Workshop Summary ( Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2014a )
Strategies for Scaling Effective Family-Focused Preventive Interventions to Promote Children’s Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Health: Workshop Summary ( Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2014b )
Investing in the Health and Well-Being of Young Adults ( Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2015 )

Although these past reports and workshop summaries address various forms of violence and victimization, this report is the first consensus study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on the state of the science on the biological and psychosocial consequences of bullying and the risk and protective factors that either increase or decrease bullying behavior and its consequences.

Terminology

Given the variable use of the terms “bullying” and “peer victimization” in both the research-based and practice-based literature, the committee chose to use the current CDC definition quoted above ( Gladden et al., 2014, p. 7 ). While the committee determined that this was the best definition to use, it acknowledges that this definition is not necessarily the most user-friendly definition for students and has the potential to cause problems for students reporting bullying. Not only does this definition provide detail on the common elements of bullying behavior but it also was developed with input from a panel of researchers and practitioners. The committee also followed the CDC in focusing primarily on individuals between the ages of 5 and 18. The committee recognizes that children’s development occurs on a continuum, and so while it relied primarily on the CDC defini-

tion, its work and this report acknowledge the importance of addressing bullying in both early childhood and emerging adulthood. For purposes of this report, the committee used the terms “early childhood” to refer to ages 1-4, “middle childhood” for ages 5 to 10, “early adolescence” for ages 11-14, “middle adolescence” for ages 15-17, and “late adolescence” for ages 18-21. This terminology and the associated age ranges are consistent with the Bright Futures and American Academy of Pediatrics definition of the stages of development. 4

A given instance of bullying behavior involves at least two unequal roles: one or more individuals who perpetrate the behavior (the perpetrator in this instance) and at least one individual who is bullied (the target in this instance). To avoid labeling and potentially further stigmatizing individuals with the terms “bully” and “victim,” which are sometimes viewed as traits of persons rather than role descriptions in a particular instance of behavior, the committee decided to use “individual who is bullied” to refer to the target of a bullying instance or pattern and “individual who bullies” to refer to the perpetrator of a bullying instance or pattern. Thus, “individual who is bullied and bullies others” can refer to one who is either perpetrating a bullying behavior or a target of bullying behavior, depending on the incident. This terminology is consistent with the approach used by the FPBP (see above). Also, bullying is a dynamic social interaction ( Espelage and Swearer, 2003 ) where individuals can play different roles in bullying interactions based on both individual and contextual factors.

The committee used “cyberbullying” to refer to bullying that takes place using technology or digital electronic means. “Digital electronic forms of contact” comprise a broad category that may include e-mail, blogs, social networking Websites, online games, chat rooms, forums, instant messaging, Skype, text messaging, and mobile phone pictures. The committee uses the term “traditional bullying” to refer to bullying behavior that is not cyberbullying (to aid in comparisons), recognizing that the term has been used at times in slightly different senses in the literature.

Where accurate reporting of study findings requires use of the above terms but with senses different from those specified here, the committee has noted the sense in which the source used the term. Similarly, accurate reporting has at times required use of terms such as “victimization” or “victim” that the committee has chosen to avoid in its own statements.

4 For details on these stages of adolescence, see https://brightfutures.aap.org/Bright%20Futures%20Documents/3-Promoting_Child_Development.pdf [October 2015].

ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT

This report is organized into seven chapters. After this introductory chapter, Chapter 2 provides a broad overview of the scope of the problem.

Chapter 3 focuses on the conceptual frameworks for the study and the developmental trajectory of the child who is bullied, the child who bullies, and the child who is bullied and also bullies. It explores processes that can explain heterogeneity in bullying outcomes by focusing on contextual processes that moderate the effect of individual characteristics on bullying behavior.

Chapter 4 discusses the cyclical nature of bullying and the consequences of bullying behavior. It summarizes what is known about the psychosocial, physical health, neurobiological, academic-performance, and population-level consequences of bullying.

Chapter 5 provides an overview of the landscape in bullying prevention programming. This chapter describes in detail the context for preventive interventions and the specific actions that various stakeholders can take to achieve a coordinated response to bullying behavior. The chapter uses the Institute of Medicine’s multi-tiered framework ( National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2009 ) to present the different levels of approaches to preventing bullying behavior.

Chapter 6 reviews what is known about federal, state, and local laws and policies and their impact on bullying.

After a critical review of the relevant research and practice-based literatures, Chapter 7 discusses the committee conclusions and recommendations and provides a path forward for bullying prevention.

The report includes a number of appendixes. Appendix A includes meeting agendas of the committee’s public information-gathering meetings. Appendix B includes the agenda and summaries of the site visit. Appendix C includes summaries of bullying prevalence data from the national surveys discussed in Chapter 2 . Appendix D provides a list of selected federal resources on bullying for parents and teachers. Appendix E provides biographical sketches of the committee members and project staff.

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Bullying has long been tolerated as a rite of passage among children and adolescents. There is an implication that individuals who are bullied must have "asked for" this type of treatment, or deserved it. Sometimes, even the child who is bullied begins to internalize this idea. For many years, there has been a general acceptance and collective shrug when it comes to a child or adolescent with greater social capital or power pushing around a child perceived as subordinate. But bullying is not developmentally appropriate; it should not be considered a normal part of the typical social grouping that occurs throughout a child's life.

Although bullying behavior endures through generations, the milieu is changing. Historically, bulling has occurred at school, the physical setting in which most of childhood is centered and the primary source for peer group formation. In recent years, however, the physical setting is not the only place bullying is occurring. Technology allows for an entirely new type of digital electronic aggression, cyberbullying, which takes place through chat rooms, instant messaging, social media, and other forms of digital electronic communication.

Composition of peer groups, shifting demographics, changing societal norms, and modern technology are contextual factors that must be considered to understand and effectively react to bullying in the United States. Youth are embedded in multiple contexts and each of these contexts interacts with individual characteristics of youth in ways that either exacerbate or attenuate the association between these individual characteristics and bullying perpetration or victimization. Recognizing that bullying behavior is a major public health problem that demands the concerted and coordinated time and attention of parents, educators and school administrators, health care providers, policy makers, families, and others concerned with the care of children, this report evaluates the state of the science on biological and psychosocial consequences of peer victimization and the risk and protective factors that either increase or decrease peer victimization behavior and consequences.

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Bullying in School Essay

Introduction, historical roots of bullying, research and statistical reports on bullying in schools.

Bullying can be defined as aggressive behavior that takes into account unwanted and negative actions toward another person or group of people. It is a situation whereby people repeatedly and intentionally use actions or words against others with an aim of causing distress and risks to them. Bullying is mostly evident when there is an imbalance of power among individuals.

For instance, powerful or influential people are said to practice or bully other learners (Olweus, 1993, p. 20). In addition to this, those in power tend to bully others with an aim of making them feel less powerful. Bullying is totally different from conflict though it has been evident that some people bully others because of conflict. The purpose of this study is to explore bullying as it applies in the learning institutions such as schools (Olweus, 1993, p. 45).

There are three different types of bullying namely face-to-face bullying, covert bullying and cyber bullying. Despite their differences, the results are the same that is distress and pain to the people being bullied. Face-to-face bullying is an interesting area of study because it clearly demonstrates bullying in school (Espelage & Swearer 2004, p. 71).

Students tend to think that bullying is harmless by considering it as a part of life or growth for juniors to experience. In contrary, bullying is harmful because it can result to physical harm, loneliness, insecurity and unhappiness to students being bullied. Face-to-face bullying involves actions such as kicking or punching, insulting and name-calling (Smith, Pepler &Rigby, 2004, p. 57).

Students consider bullying as a school culture even though it is contrary to the school rules and regulations of schools. From historical point of view, bullying is often associated with senior students who perceive themselves as being more powerful than juniors.

In regard to this, new comers or first year students are the victim of bullying (McGrath, 2006, p. 23). It has been noted that bullying gains its historical roots from the discipline of the school. This is to mean that the origin of bullying could be traced back to the history of the school based on the aspect of discipline.

In schools whereby discipline is lacking, there are high levels of bullying among students because there are no active rules that can hinder them from bullying each other (Van- Krieken, Habibis, Smith, et al, 2010, p. 34). However, it was further noted that students bully each other because they have been bullied before meaning that they bully others as way of revenge of what happened to them (Rigby, 2007, p. 61).

Through a review of several researches conducted in the U.S. based on bullying in public school it was evident that eighty percent (80%) of public school experience some incidence of bullying among the students for instance, public schools with students of different or varying races such as the black American and the whites (Rigby, 2007, p. 36). In such schools, segregation of students by race is highly witness with white students bullying black American students because of ethnicity background (Beane, 2010, p. 25).

Nearly in every school there is a certain level of bullying because bullying is perceived as a school culture whereby students nickname each other, insult, and punch or kick each other. Statistically, in every 100 fresher’s, at least twenty percent are bullied by senior students. Second year students are said to practice bullying more often than any other students because they tend to think that first years are powerless students in school.

The research findings indicated that schools with high levels of bullying experiences low levels of academic performance among the students. For instance, according to Beane (2010), 90% of bullied students attain poor grades in school because their concentration is interfered with by bullies (Beane, 2010, p. 43).

Bullying in schools is highly associated with the level of discipline practiced in schools meaning that schools with low levels of disciplines provides fertile grounds for aggressive behaviors leading to incidences of bullying. As mentioned within the context of the study, bullying is applicable in every public school in varying levels of implications.

Africa- American students are prone to bullying by the whites students in America public schools. Bullying can only be eliminated if discipline is given a place to play in school but it is quite difficult to clear or do away with bullying in its totality because it is perceived by students as a school culture.

Beane, A. L. (2010). Bullying prevention for schools: A step-by-step guide to implementing a successful anti-bullying program. New Jersey, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

Espelage, L. D. & Swearer, M. (2004). Bullying in American schools: A social-ecological perspective on prevention and intervention . New York, NY: Routledge.

McGrath, M. J. (2006). School bullying: Tools for avoiding harm and liability . London: Corwin Press.

Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at school: What we know and what we can do . New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell.

Rigby, K. (2007). Bullying in schools and what to do about it: Revised and updated . London: Aust Council for Ed Research.

Rigby, K. (2010). Bullying interventions in schools: Six basic approaches . London: Aust Council for Ed Research.

Smith, P., Pepler, D.J &Rigby, K. (2004). Bullying in schools: How successful can interventions be? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Van- Krieken, R., Habibis, D., Smith, P., et al (2010). Sociology. 4 Edn. Sydney: Pearson Education.

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Bibliography

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School Bullying: Causes and Police Prevention
Nature of Bullying
“Adolescents’ Perception of Bullying” by Frisen et al.
Jane Elliot – A Class Divided
The Issue of Motivation in English Second Learners
Why College Students Should Not Turn to Caffeine
The Youth Issues of Burden Tackling
Bullying in the Schools

What you need to know about school violence and bullying

Bullying in schools deprives millions of children and young people of their fundamental right to education. A recent UNESCO report revealed that more than 30% of the world's students have been victims of bullying, with devastating consequences on academic achievement, school dropout, and physical and mental health.

The world is marking the first International Day against Violence and Bullying at School Including Cyberbullying , on 5 November. Here is what you need to know about school violence and bullying.

What is school violence?

School violence refers to all forms of violence that takes place in and around schools and is experienced by students and perpetrated by other students, teachers and other school staff. This includes bullying and cyberbullying. Bullying is one of the most pervasive forms of school violence, affecting 1 in 3 young people.

What forms may school violence take?

Based on existing international surveys that collect data on violence in schools, UNESCO recognizes the following forms of school violence:

Physical violence, which is any form of physical aggression with intention to hurt perpetrated by peers, teachers or school staff.
Psychological violence as verbal and emotional abuse, which includes any forms of isolating, rejecting, ignoring, insults, spreading rumors, making up lies, name-calling, ridicule, humiliation and threats, and psychological punishment.
Sexual violence, which includes intimidation of a sexual nature, sexual harassment, unwanted touching, sexual coercion and rape, and it is perpetrated by a teacher, school staff or a schoolmate or classmate.
Physical bullying, including hitting, kicking and the destruction of property;
Psychological bullying, such as teasing, insulting and threatening; or relational, through the spreading of rumours and exclusion from a group; and
Sexual bullying, such as making fun of a victim with sexual jokes, comments or gestures, which may be defined as sexual ‘harassment’ in some countries.
Cyberbullying is a form of psychological or sexual bullying that takes place online. Examples of cyberbullying include posting or sending messages, pictures or videos, aimed at harassing, threatening or targeting another person via a variety of media and social media platforms. Cyberbullying may also include spreading rumours, posting false information, hurtful messages, embarrassing comments or photos, or excluding someone from online networks or other communications.

Who perpetrates school violence?

School violence is perpetrated by students, teachers and other school staff. However, available evidence shows that violence perpetrated by peers is the most common.

What are the main reasons why children are bullied?

All children can be bullied, yet evidence shows that children who are perceived to be “different” in any way are more at risk. Key factors include physical appearance, ethnic, linguistic or cultural background, gender, including not conforming to gender norms and stereotypes; social status and disability.

What are the consequences of school violence?

Educational consequences: Being bullied undermines the sense of belonging at school and affects continued engagement in education. Children who are frequently bullied are more likely to feel like an outsider at school, and more likely to want to leave school after finishing secondary education. Children who are bullied have lower academic achievements than those who are not frequently bullied.

Health consequences: Children’s mental health and well-being can be adversely impacted by bullying. Bullying is associated with higher rates of feeling lonely and suicidal, higher rates of smoking, alcohol and cannabis use and lower rates of self-reported life satisfaction and health. School violence can also cause physical injuries and harm.

What are the linkages between school violence and bullying, school-related gender-based violence and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression?

School violence may be perpetrated as a result of gender norms and stereotypes and enforced by unequal power dynamics and is therefore referred to as school-related gender-based violence. It includes, in particular, a specific type of gender-based violence that is linked to the actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity or expression of victims, including homophobic and transphobic bullying. School-related gender-based violence is a significant part of school violence that requires specific efforts to address.

Does school-related gender-based violence refer to sexual violence against girls only?

No. School-related gender-based violence refers to all forms of school violence that is based on or driven by gender norms and stereotypes, which also includes violence against and between boys.

Is school violence always gender-based?

There are many factors that drive school violence. Gender is one of the significant drivers of violence but not all school violence is based on gender. Moreover, international surveys do not systematically collect data on the gendered nature of school violence, nor on violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

Based on the analysis of global data, there are no major differences in the prevalence of bullying for boys and girls. However, there are some differences between boys and girls in terms of the types of bullying they experience. Boys are much more exposed to physical bullying, and to physical violence in general, than girls. Girls are slightly more exposed to psychological bullying, particularly through cyberbullying. According to the same data, sexual bullying the same proportion of boys and girls. Data coming from different countries, however, shows that girls are increasingly exposed to sexual bullying online.

How does UNESCO help prevent and address school violence and bullying?

The best available evidence shows that responses to school violence and bullying that are effective should be comprehensive and include a combination of policies and interventions. Often this comprehensive response to school violence and bullying is referred to as a whole-school approach. Based on an extensive review of existing conceptual frameworks that describe that whole-school approach, UNESCO has identified nine key components of a response that goes beyond schools and could be better described as a whole-education system or whole-education approach. These components are the following:

Strong political leadership and robust legal and policy framework to address school violence and bullying;
Training and support for teachers on school violence and bullying prevention and positive classroom management
Curriculum, learning & teaching to promote, a caring (i.e. anti- school violence and bullying) school climate and students’ social and emotional skills
A safe psychological and physical school and classroom environment
Reporting mechanisms for students affected by school violence and bullying, together with support and referral services
Involvement of all stakeholders in the school community including parents
Student empowerment and participation
Collaboration and partnerships between the education sector and a wide range of partners (other government sectors, NGOs, academia)
Evidence: monitoring of school violence and bullying and evaluation of responses

More on UNESCO’s work to prevent and address school violence and bullying

Read UNESCO's publication Behind the numbers: Ending school violence and bullying

Photo: Eakachai Leesin/Shutterstock.com

More on this subject

Sixth International Conference on Learning Cities

Event International Conference of the Memory of the World Programme, incorporating the 4th Global Policy Forum 28 October 2024 - 29 October 2024

Global Network of Learning Cities webinar ‘Countering climate disinformation: strengthening global citizenship education and media literacy’

Essay on Bullying in Schools

School bullying can be defined as the situation in which one or more students (The Bullies) single out a child (victim) and intend in behavior intended to cause discomfort or harm the child. A bully will repeatedly target the same victim several times. Under all circumstances, bullies have an advantage over the victim as they possess more power. Compared to the victim, bullies usually have physically stronger with a large circle of friends or higher social standing. Bullying can inflict emotional distress, humiliation, and physical harm. More than 95% of learning institutions experience bullying globally. Bullying must be meet a specific rationale to be considered bullying. Such requirements include repetitiveness, recurrent imbalance of power, and provocation. Bullying can occur in schools, on campus, or the outskirts of school, but its setting must have been created within the school. Regardless of the position, all the stakeholders in a school context, such as parents, educators, children, and community members, are required to contribute to the prevention of bullying in schools. School bullying is increasingly becoming a social problem in modern society. Ideally, there are several types of school bullying attached to different causes. The effects of school bullying can be classified in psychological, economical, and academic dimensions.

Types of Bullying in Schools

The common types of bullying in a school setting include verbal, sexual, cyber, psychological, physical, and higher education bullying. Notably, victims in a learning context can experience bullying regardless of age. The aforementioned types of bullying are further classified as either direct or indirect bullying. Direct bullying is defined as an attack that is openly targeted to a victim. Direct bullying is either verbal or physical. Contrary, indirect bullying involves different forms of relational aggression that leads to social isolation through defaming one’s reputation and manipulating the conscience of others into falsehood. Indirect bullying is usually hard and subtle to detect in a school setting (Goodwin et al. 330). If undertaken by a group of bullies, direct and indirect bullying can be referred to as pack bullying. The different types of bullying can be defined either directly or indirectly relative to the implication to the victim.

Physical bullying occurs when there is unwanted physical contact between the victim and the bully. Physical contact can be hand to hand or tripping and throwing items at others that can cause physical harm. The second is emotional bullying. Emotional bullying can be defined as hurting others emotionally by negatively influencing their moods and psyche. The primary examples of emotional bullying include; belittling, spreading false information, and defamation. Verbal bullying can be defined as the usage of slanderous language or statements causing emotional distress to other people. Examples of verbal bullying include harassing, mocking, teasing, and threatening to cause harm. Finally, Cyberbullying is attached to the evolution of the internet and computers. The use of computers in bullying at schoolyards is on the surge. In most instances, schools experience difficulties in controlling cyberbullying as experiences are beyond the school fraternity.

The other common types of school bullying are sexual bullying and higher education bullying. Sexual bullying is either non-physical or physical, grounded on the gender or sexuality of the victim. In most instances, sexual bullying is undertaken by the male gender. The United States department of education reports an average of 60% of expulsions and suspensions from learning institutions attached to sexual bullying (Goodwin et al. 328). In most instances, the young ones are frames into tricks to share their nudes, after which there are forced to fulfill specific sexual demands at the expense of exposure. Higher education bullying occurs at the campus or college level. Around 95% of students have reported having been bullied at the college level. Higher education bullying results in depression and suicide in most cases.

Measures to Control Bullying

The main approaches in controlling bullying in school settings include the implementation of educative programs, creating a positive school climate, engaging parents, encouraging open communication and punishments. These techniques, however, vary depending on the learning level and the prevalence of bullying in the particular period. Education programs involve creating awareness to parents, students, and teachers regarding what constitutes bullying. Educative programs are instrumental in creating insight into the harmful nature of whichever kind of bullying. All the stakeholders within the school fraternity are enrolled in sessions of creating awareness on the signs of bullying and the most appropriate intervention criteria. The most common ways in educating on bullying include role-play, identification and reporting discussions, and other approaches to decline being involved in bullying. Nickerson(19) argued that educative programs are 62% effective in curbing the prevalence of bullying in learning institutions.

Secondly, schools can help in the prevention of bullying by promoting a positive school climate. Schools with a positive climate are presumed to have a healthy development, while the negative school climate results in a surge in bullying cases, unsafe feelings, victimization, and aggression. While the elements of positive school culture vary from norms relative to power, relationships, and feelings, it’s evident that a positive climate is a product of a conscious process that becomes self-reinforcing (Goodwin et al. 330). The main determinants of a positive climate include leadership and integrity in learning institutions. Therefore, the ability to have cognitive leaders is an advantage of coping with bullying in schools.

Third, schools should engage parents. Parents spend most of their time with children at the primary level. While there are many stakeholders involved in the lives of the children, parents play an essential role in understanding their behavior. Engaging parents in bullying scenarios means initiating communication on the progress of the children in terms of behavior and performance. Integration between parents and teachers is essential in providing consistent approaches that help yield a more productive and appropriate behavior (Nickerson 22). Parents can help their children recognize while being bullied by others. However, the approach is not viable in urban schools as parents experience difficulties establishing trust with schools.

Finally, schools should initiate open communication techniques. Open communication is essential in building rapport. Having open communication means that students can disclose their problems to teachers. Open communication helps the teachers gain more insight into existing bullies in the school (Nickerson 20). For instance, classroom meetings in grade 4 will enable teachers to obtain crucial information in enacting more controls to curb bullying in schools. Teachers are expected to listen carefully during the class meetings to avoid inflicting fear on the learners. Students should be assured of confidentiality and privacy of the information obtained as any disclosure might attract further bullying.

Effects of School Bullying

The effect of school bullying can be categorized in psychological and academic dimensions. Bullying results in poor performance in school. More than 70% of learners subjected to bullying ends up recording a decline in academic performance. The results are more severe at a young age. Bullying would result in fading of interest and participation of learners in school activities as it results in unexplained injuries linked to affecting concentration (Menesini and Christina 246). The impact of bullying on educational performance is increasingly becoming imminent. Bullying installs fear in learners from attending school regularly, thus affecting their consistency and concentration in class. Based on this explanation, it’s evident that bullied students will experience difficulties in achieving their academic goals. Moreover, bullying is linked with an unsafe learning environment that creates a negative climate of fear and insecurities and the perception that teachers do not care about the welfare of learners, thus decline in quality of education.

Secondly, bullying is associated with psychological problems. While bullying to individuals helps them enhance their personality and perceptions as they grow, it’s presumed that bullying can risk an individual developing an antisocial personality disorder linked to committing crimes. Bullying leads to depression, anxiety, and psychosomatic symptoms, which often leads to alcohol and substance abuse by the victims at a later stage in their lives. It’s argued that victims of depression feel free and open to share their experience with others, unlike in bullying, where the victims would choose to shy talking about the feeling in fear of being bullied again. In the short run, bystanders of the bullying experience may develop the fear, guiltiness, and sadness, and if the experience persists, they might get psychologically drained (Sampson). Therefore, the victims of bullying experiences struggle with insomnia, suicidal thoughts, health problems, and depression. Bullying does affect not only the students but also their classmates and family. Feeling powerless, parents and immediate family members might fall victim to depression and emotional distress. Some parents would invest more time in protecting their children, thus affecting them psychologically and economically.

Causes of Bullying

There are numerous causes of school bullying attached to religion, socioeconomic status, race, and gender. Understanding the reasons why students chose to bully their classmates is significant to teachers in combating bullying. The National Center for Educational Statistics report established that 25% of Blacks, 22% of Caucasians, 17% of Hispanics, and 9% of Asian students were bullied in 2017 (Divecha). Some of the students that bully others have higher levels of courage and confidence and can respond aggressively if threatened by the behavior. Students at the college level get bullied on sexual matters. For instance, the subscribers to LGBTQA sexual orientation get bullied based on their decision as gay or lesbians. Moreover, bullying in schools is caused by other factors attached to families. Students from abuse and divorced families are likely to bully others due to jealousy, anger, and despair.

From the above discussion, it’s evident that school bullying in whichever capacity is detrimental to human dignity. School bullying is increasingly becoming a social problem in modern society. Ideally, there are several types of school bullying attached to different causes. The effects of school bullying can be classified in psychological, economical, and academic dimensions. The primary forms of school form such as verbal, sexual, cyber, psychological, physical, and higher education bullying are categorized into direct and indirect bullying. The intervention strategies to curb bullying should involve all the stakeholders, such as parents, teachers, and students. The main approaches in controlling bullying in school settings include implementing educative programs, creating a positive school climate, engaging parents, and encouraging open communication and punishments.

Works Cited

Divecha, Diana. “What Are the Best Ways to Prevent Bullying in Schools?” Greater Good , https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_are_the_best_ways_to_prevent_bullyi ng_in_schools

Sampson, Rana. “Center for Problem-Oriented Policing.” Arizona State University, https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/bullying-schools-0

Menesini, Ersilia, and Christina Salmivalli. “Bullying in schools: the state of knowledge and effective interventions.” Psychology, health & medicine 22.sup1 (2017): 240-253.

Goodwin, John, et al. “Bullying in schools: an evaluation of the use of drama in bullying prevention.” Journal of Creativity in Mental Health 14.3 (2019): 329-342.

Nickerson, Amanda B. “Preventing and intervening with bullying in schools: A framework for evidence- based practice.” School Mental Health 11.1 (2019): 15-28.

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Bullying Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on bullying.

Bullying refers to aggressive behavior so as to dominate the other person. It refers to the coercion of power over others so that one individual can dominate others. It is an act that is not one time, instead, it keeps on repeating over frequent intervals. The person(s) who bullies others can be termed as bullies, who make fun of others due to several reasons. Bullying is a result of someone’s perception of the imbalance of power.

Types of bullying :

There can be various types of bullying, like:

Physical bullying: When the bullies try to physically hurt or torture someone, or even touch someone without his/her consent can be termed as physical bullying .
Verbal bullying: It is when a person taunts or teases the other person.
Psychological bullying: When a person or group of persons gossip about another person or exclude them from being part of the group, can be termed as psychological bullying.
Cyber bullying: When bullies make use of social media to insult or hurt someone. They may make comments bad and degrading comments on the person at the public forum and hence make the other person feel embarrassed. Bullies may also post personal information, pictures or videos on social media to deteriorate some one’s public image.

Read Essay on Cyber Bullying

Bullying can happen at any stage of life, such as school bullying, College bullying, Workplace bullying, Public Place bullying, etc. Many times not only the other persons but the family members or parents also unknowingly bully an individual by making constant discouraging remarks. Hence the victim gradually starts losing his/her self-esteem, and may also suffer from psychological disorders.

A UNESCO report says that 32% of students are bullied at schools worldwide. In our country as well, bullying is becoming quite common. Instead, bullying is becoming a major problem worldwide. It has been noted that physical bullying is prevalent amongst boys and psychological bullying is prevalent amongst girls.

Prevention strategies:

In the case of school bullying, parents and teachers can play an important role. They should try and notice the early symptoms of children/students such as behavioral change, lack of self-esteem, concentration deficit, etc. Early recognition of symptoms, prompt action and timely counseling can reduce the after-effects of bullying on the victim.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Anti-bullying laws :

One should be aware of the anti-bullying laws in India. Awareness about such laws may also create discouragement to the act of bullying amongst children and youngsters. Some information about anti-bullying laws is as follows:

Laws in School: To put a notice on the notice board that if any student is found bullying other students then he/she can be rusticated. A committee should be formed which can have representatives from school, parents, legal, etc.
Laws in Colleges: The government of India, in order to prevent ragging , has created guideline called “UGC regulations on curbing the menace of ragging in Higher Education Institutions,2009”.
Cyber Bullying Laws: The victim can file a complaint under the Indian Penal Code .

Conclusion:

It is the duty of the parents to constantly preach their children about not bullying anyone and that it is wrong. Hence, if we, as a society need to grow and develop then we have to collectively work towards discouraging the act of bullying and hence make our children feel secure.

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About Youth Violence
Risk and Protective Factors
School-Associated Violent Death Study
Youth Violence Prevention Centers

About Bullying

Bullying is a form of youth violence and an adverse childhood experience (ACE).
Bullying is widespread in the U.S., but bullying is preventable.

What is bullying?

CDC defines bullying as any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths, who are not siblings or current dating partners, that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance, and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying may inflict harm or distress on the targeted youth including physical, psychological, social, or educational harm. 1 Common types of bullying include:

Physical such as hitting, kicking, and tripping.
Verbal including name-calling and teasing.
Relational or social such as spreading rumors and leaving out of the group.
Damage to victim's property.

Bullying can also occur through technology, which is called electronic bullying or cyberbullying. 1 A young person can be a perpetrator, a victim, or both (also known as "bully/victim").

For more information about bullying definitions, please see Bullying Surveillance Among Youths: Uniform Definitions for Public Health and Recommended Data Elements, Version 1 .

Quick facts and stats

Bullying is widespread in the United States. Bullying negatively impacts all youth involved including those who are bullied, those who bully others, and those who witness bullying, known as bystanders.

Bullying is common . About 1 in 5 high school students reported being bullied on school property. More than 1 in 6 high school students reported being bullied electronically in the last year. 2
Some youth experience bullying more than others . Nearly 40% of high school students who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual and about 33% of those who were not sure of their sexual identity experienced bullying at school or electronically in the last year, compared to 22% of heterosexual high school students. About 30% of female high school students experienced bullying at school or electronically in the last year, compared to about 19% of males. Nearly 29% of white high school students experienced bullying at school or electronically in the last year compared to about 19% of Hispanic and 18% of Black high school students. 2
Reports of bullying are highest in middle schools (28%) followed by high schools (16%), combined schools (12%), and primary schools (9%).
Reports of cyberbullying are highest in middle schools (33%) followed by high schools (30%), combined schools (20%), and primary schools (5%). 3

Bullying can result in physical injury, social and emotional distress, self-harm, and even death. It also increases the risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic achievement, and dropping out of school. Youth who bully others are at increased risk for substance misuse, academic problems, and experiencing violence later in adolescence and adulthood. 4 Youth who bully others and are bullied themselves suffer the most serious consequences and are at greater risk for mental health and behavioral problems.

Bullying is preventable. There are many factors that may increase or decrease the risk for perpetrating or experiencing bullying. To prevent bullying, we must understand and address the factors that put people at risk for or protect them from violence . CDC developed, Youth Violence Prevention Resource for Action , to help communities take advantage of the best available evidence to prevent youth violence. 5 This resource is also available in Spanish and can be used as a tool in efforts to impact individual behaviors as well as the relationship, family, school, community, and societal risk and protective factors for violence. The approaches in this resource, particularly universal school-based programs that strengthen youths' skills and modify the physical and social environment, have been shown to reduce violence and bullying or key risk factors.

Different types of violence are connected and often share root causes. Bullying is linked to other forms of violence through shared risk and protective factors. Addressing and preventing one form of violence may have an impact on preventing other forms of violence.

Gladden RM, Vivolo-Kantor AM, Hamburger ME, Lumpkin CD. Bullying surveillance among youths: Uniform definitions for public health and recommended data elements, Version 1.0. Atlanta, GA; National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of Education; 2013. Available from https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/bullying-definitionsfinal-a.pdf.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Youth risk behavior surveillance—United States, 2019. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report–Surveillance Summaries 2020; 69(SS1). Available from https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/2019/su6901-H.pdf
Diliberti, M., Jackson, M., Correa, S., and Padgett, Z. (2019). Crime, Violence, Discipline, and Safety in U.S. Public Schools: Findings From the School Survey on Crime and Safety: 2017–18 (NCES 2019-061). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch
Farrington D, Baldry A. Individual risk factors for school bullying. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research 2010; 2(1):4-16. Available from https://doi.org/10.5042/jacpr.2010.0001.
David-Ferdon, C., Vivolo-Kantor, A. M., Dahlberg, L. L., Marshall, K. J., Rainford, N. & Hall, J. E. (2016). Youth Violence Prevention Resource for Action: A Compilation of the Best Available Evidence. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Note: The title of this document was changed in July 2023 to align with other Prevention Resources being developed by CDC's Injury Center. The document was previously cited as "A Comprehensive Technical Package for the Prevention of Youth Violence and Associated Risk Behaviors."

Youth Violence Prevention

Youth violence affects thousands of young people each day, and in turn, their families, schools, and communities. CDC works to understand the problem of violence experienced by youth and prevent it.

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Bullying: Problems and Solutions, Essay Example

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In recent years bullying has received greater attention in America’s schools, though the issue of bullying is hardly a new one. While many people might consider bullying to be a matter involving physical intimidation and even physical violence, the range of behaviors that comprise bullying are much broader, and include psychological as well as physical intimidation and actions. According to Long and Alexander (2010), bullying “has been defined as hostile actions, recurring over time that is deliberately destructive and occurs without provocation.” Long and Alexander go on to describe bullying as “a subtype of violent behavior,” driving home the point that the emotional impact of bullying is a form of violence even if no actual physical contact is involved. Bullying behaviors are not restricted to schools; they’re also found ion homes and other social settings, and even in the workplace among adults. From a statistical standpoint, however, bullying is especially pervasive among students of middle-school age (Long & Alexander), and as such it is of significant concern to administrators, teachers, and parents. The following paper examines some of the issues and problems associated with school bullying, as well as several possible solutions.

While bullying is associated with a number of problems for victims and those whose role it is to protect them, perhaps the most significant problem involving bullying is simply recognizing it. There are a number of reasons why bullying often goes unnoticed; among these is that many of the behaviors that constitute bullying often take place less overtly than some of the most blatant acts of physical intimidation or violence. Identifying is inherently subjective, and those who are tasked with identifying it and reporting it will not always see bullying when it occurs (Brank, Hoetger& Hazen, 2012). What might look like harmless teasing to one person might appear to be a clear case of bullying to another. Many forms of bullying fall under the heading of indirect or “relational” bullying, including gossip and rumor, social exclusion, and other social behaviors that can be difficult to identify as bullying (Long & Alexander). Another related problem is that even when some teachers or administrators are aware of bullying, they choose not to intervene. According to one study, 71% of teachers simply ignore most instances of bullying (Schroeder, 1999). Before any effective solutions can be found to bullying it is first necessary for teachers, administrators and parents to know how to identify it and to take it seriously.

Another set of problems associated with bullying are the risk factors that correlate to becoming a potential victim of bullying.Being the victim of bullying is known to be associated with a number of serious risk factors. Studies have determined that there are some cognitive and emotional factors that are commonly seen in victims, which seems to indicate a causal relationship between the two (Brank et al.) These include such conditions as Asperger’s syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum that undermines an individual’s capacity to understand social norms and respond with socially appropriate behaviors. Children with stronger peer and friend relationships are less likely to be targeted for bullying, though there may be an inverse relationship at work, with victims of bullying retreating from social relationships, thereby affirming the conditions of victim status (Brank et al.). External factors such as socioeconomic background and race are also correlated with bullying, especially when these factors place victims in a social minority at school.

The most serious problems associated with bullying are, of course, the effects on victims. Bullying victims suffer from a range of problems, including higher rates of emotional disturbances such as depression and anxiety (Long & Alexander). Victims of bullying are at a greater risk of committing suicide, using drugs and alcohol, and becoming detached from social settings such as school and family (Brank et al). Victims may develop overt physical symptoms predicated by the stress of victimization, and often report headaches, stomachaches, and other ailments (Collier, 2013). Bullying has clear and often serious effects on victims.

Solving the problem of bullying has no one-size-fits-all solution, and typically requires a multi-pronged approach. The first step towards addressing the issue of bullying is simply raising awareness among responsible adults about the seriousness of the problem. Teachers, administrators, and parents must be given the tools and information to identify bullying behaviors and to understand their negative consequences in order to be able to intervene appropriately. This requires more than just informal conversations, and must include appropriate programs that are provided in an adequate and complete fashion. Settings fort this might include seminars and forums for school officials and teachers, as well as parent-teacher conferences and other settings where parents can be given educational materials and information about available resources.

This educational information must be backed up by practical structures and interventions in schools, with clearly-defined anti-bullying policies and clearly-defined consequences for students who victimize other students (Long & Alexander). Students must also be properly informed about the seriousness of bullying and about the consequences for bullies who engage in inappropriate behavior. Many states have passed anti-bullying legislation which makes bullying a legal matter, and such legislation generally includes significant punitive measures for bullies, including suspension, expulsion, and even incarceration (Duncan, 2011). While such rules and laws are helpful and appropriate, the best way to protect potential victims is for those responsible for supervising students to intervene as early as possible to minimize the damage of bullying.

Parents of bullying victims can also take steps to minimize the effects of bullying. This can include providing “insulating or protective factors” (Brank et al) to help the victim avoid contact with the bully and to provide positive emotional support. For victims who do not have strong social bonds, parents can help by involving their children in activities of interest or, in some cases, switching schools or finding alternatives to typical education. Victims of bullying may be helped by counseling, and schools should help provide information about the resources available to victims and their families.

While bullying is clearly a serious problem for many victims, it is also clear that bullying behaviors often go unnoticed or ignored by those who are in a position to intervene. Teachers and school officials must learn to identify the range of bullying behaviors and to take these behaviors seriously, while school officials must provide appropriate information for teachers and establish guidelines and policies for students related to anti-bullying measures. Parents must learn to spot the signs that indicate their child is being bullied, and take advantage of the resources and information available to protect and help their children. There is no single solution to stopping bullying, but by working together, parents and schools can help to reduce the problem.

Brank,, E., Hoetger, L., & Hazen, K. (2012). Bullying. Annual Review Of Law And Social Science I , 8 (2132).

Long, T., Alexander, K. (2010). Bullying: Dilemmas, Definitions, And Solutions. (2010). Contemporary Issues In Education Research , 3 (2).

Collier, R. (2013). Bullying Symptoms. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal , 85 (16).

Duncan, S. (2011). Restorative Justice and Bullying: A Missing Solution in the Anti-Bullying Laws. New England Journal On Criminal & Civil Confinement , 327 (267).

Schroeder, K. (1999). Bullying. The Education Digest , 65 (4).

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Elementary school-age boy rests head on crossed arms on desk with other kids in background

Florida’s school safety dashboard helps parents and teachers address root causes of bullying, fighting and other misbehavior

Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy, University of Florida

Disclosure statement

F. Chris Curran works with Safe Schools for Alex on the development of the school safety dashboard. He receives funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

University of Florida provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US.

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Florida updated its school safety dashboard in April 2024, and it is now one of the most comprehensive in the nation. F. Chris Curran is an education policy professor at the University of Florida who partnered with Safe Schools for Alex , a nonprofit created by Max Schachter following the murder of his son Alex in the Parkland massacre in 2018 , to release the new version of the dashboard. The Conversation asked him how parents and schools can benefit from the dashboard and what other states might learn from it as well.

What can this dashboard show parents about how safe a school is for their child?

Parents can use the Safe Schools for Alex dashboard to compare safety metrics in their child’s school with district and state averages as well as with other similar schools. The dashboard includes all public K-12 schools in Florida and over 50 indicators of school safety – ranging from fights and weapons to school bus crashes. Parents can also see information on school responses and resources, such as whether school staff are trained in suicide prevention and the ratio of counselors to students.

Access to this data lets parents and parent-teacher associations know what questions to ask of their teachers and school leaders to help them contribute to school improvement plans. It can also help parents better support their own children at home by talking about and addressing issues they see in the dashboard. For example, parents might talk to their kids about bullying or hazing, using the statistics in the dashboard.

With numerous measures of school safety at their fingertips, parents can look for the indicators that meet the needs of their individual child. For example, a parent with a child dealing with anxiety or depression might compare the mental health resources available at different schools.

A view of the Safe Schools for Alex School Safety Dashboard with different charts

How can schools use the dashboard?

School districts and educators can see their school safety data in relation to other schools and districts – and how such data relates to standardized test scores, community violence and other indicators. So, for example, a school might see an increasing trend in its community of students in poverty or living without health insurance and focus on connecting families with external social support resources. In contrast, a school that sees increases in school incidents despite improving community indicators might instead focus on improving school engagement and disciplinary responses.

In partnership with Safe Schools for Alex, my team also developed training that uses the dashboard to start conversations about school safety and find solutions. School leaders can use the dashboard to identify areas of concern in their own school – such as an increasing pattern of fights. The dashboard and the training then facilitate conversation about root causes of the issue. The dashboard’s list of resources provides evidence-based approaches to developing and implementing solutions. For example, school leaders might find a new bullying prevention program to implement or identify another school with decreasing fights to reach out to and learn from.

Could there be unintended consequences?

Unfortunately, research has shown that data dashboards can result in a stigma toward certain schools and lead to more affluent families leaving those schools . Public rankings of schools have been linked to increases in economic, racial and educational segregation . Lower-ranked schools, in turn, can lose enrollment and resources as wealthier parents opt for higher-ranked schools.

The Safe Schools for Alex dashboard purposefully avoids ranking or labeling schools as “safe” or “unsafe” for this reason. The dashboard includes a range of indicators so educators and parents can avoid a simplistic view of a school as safe or not. While parents often want a single indicator of a school’s performance, such indicators often misrepresent safety or achievement, as they tend to be more indicative of other factors , such as the poverty level of students served.

What does the dashboard reveal about violence in schools today?

Schools nationwide have reported increases in student misbehavior over the past several years. The dashboard shows this increase too. However, while some of the increase in safety-related incidents is due to violence such as fights, a large part is driven by nonviolent incidents – particularly vaping.

The data also shows that while rates of some incidents are increasing, so are state resources such as funding for school safety and mental health. Specifically, state funding per student for mental health has doubled from about $24 per student to $48 per student in Florida over the past five years. Meanwhile, funding for implementing security practices such as hiring school police officers has increased by about 15% .

Ultimately, the dashboard reveals that there is a lot of variation across schools and districts. Some have high and some have low rates of violence; some are increasing and some are decreasing.

People attend a memorial service on the fifth anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting

What’s next?

School safety is a top priority of students, parents and educators. Just as schools have embraced the use of data to improve academic instruction , the use of data to ensure school safety is also growing. Yet, we have found that a quarter to a third of states currently do not make school safety or discipline data publicly available.

Along with the Florida dashboard, Safe Schools for Alex has dashboards for Kentucky , Pennsylvania , New Hampshire and Virginia . These other dashboards are in the process of being enhanced to include more data and features like the Florida one.

A number of other states, including Georgia , have their own dashboards that similarly include wide-ranging data points and interactive features. And some states, such as Kentucky , have integrated such measures into their broader school report cards.

These dashboards do not have all the answers, but they can help parents and school leaders know what questions to ask and where to find resources to make schools safer, fairer and more conducive to learning.

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Schools Successfully Fighting Chronic Absenteeism Have This in Common

A surge in students’ chronic absenteeism since the return to in-person classes hasn’t discriminated, threatening academic recovery in schools of all sizes and demographic makeups across the country.

But schools that are finding success in combating the problem tend to have at least one thing in common: They’ve leveraged help from outside of school, including community groups, families, and political leaders.

President Joe Biden’s administration on May 15 stepped up a call for communities across the country to “cultivate a culture of attendance” and make it clear that students need to be in school to learn and develop important academic and social skills.

“This is a very crucial moment for academic recovery, so we need all hands on deck to make sure that we’re getting students fully engaged … to attend school every day,” U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said at a White House event held to highlight approaches to fighting chronic absenteeism and new policy steps from the Biden administration to support those approaches.

The importance of community partnerships was a recurring theme of the May 15 event, which was called the Every Day Counts Summit and featured school district leaders, education advocates, and state officials discussing how communities can best address chronic absenteeism—and why it matters.

More than 1 in 4 students nationwide were chronically absent —missing at least 10 percent of school days—during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, according to an analysis of federal data conducted by the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University and Attendance Works. Those figures represented a marked increase over pre-pandemic levels.

Chronic absences have profound impacts on students who miss classes, affecting their grades, connectedness to their peers and school community, and chances of completing high school. When chronic absences reach high levels, the classroom churn makes it harder for teachers to set classroom norms and teach, and harder for students to learn even when they show up every day. Chronic absenteeism can also be self-perpetuating, as research has shown that student absences can make peers more likely to miss school , and absences have contributed to national declines in math and reading in recent years.

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.

To help more states and districts take collaborative approaches to boost attendance, Cardona announced a handful of new partnerships and resources at the event, saying the country’s students “cannot afford to normalize” high rates of chronic absences.

Among the resources touted by Cardona were $250 million in grant funding for learning acceleration , which can include measures to fight absenteeism; a “toolkit” for districts to use to communicate with families about the importance of attending school, which will be available by the fall; and a new partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics that will encourage pediatricians to provide resources to parents explaining when it is appropriate to keep children home from school, tips for addressing school avoidance, and guidance on preparing for the start of a new school year.

Putting plans into action

Although strong messaging campaigns can be effective, driving down students’ absences will take much more, speakers said during the event.

In Connecticut, statewide absenteeism rates more than doubled during the pandemic, from 12 percent to about 25 percent, according to Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat.

The most successful approach districts in the state have used has been old-school door-knocking campaigns, through which thousands of volunteers—teachers, superintendents, student leaders, and others—knocked on the doors of families of students missing school and said, “We miss you and want you back—how can we make that happen?” Lamont said.

Every family had a story to tell about why their children were absent—a teenager got a part-time job to help pay the family’s bills, a mom needed her daughter to help translate at doctor’s appointments, a child was nervous about bullying.

Districts worked to address each individual situation, providing as many solutions as possible and referring families to outside organizations for assistance they couldn’t provide (such as for housing and counseling).

The model, Lamont said, proves that “schools can’t do this alone.”

The barriers families face

The reasons students are chronically absent generally fall into four main categories, said Robert Balfanz, director of the Everyone Graduates Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education.

Barriers: These can include challenges such as older students having to care for younger siblings or take jobs, and a lack of transportation to school.
Aversion: When students don’t want to go to school due to factors like social anxiety, which has been increasingly true for students who took online classes during key developmental or transition years (from elementary to middle school or middle to high school, for example).
Disengagement: When students lack a connection to peers and adults at school, or don’t understand how coursework is relevant.
Misconceptions: These reasons can include assumptions among parents that students should be kept at home for even minor illnesses or a perception that in-person classes aren’t all that important because students can make up work later.

Every community is different, Balfanz said, and district leaders need to understand their community’s individual needs to make meaningful progress in fighting absenteeism.

Then, districts must adjust staffing and resources to respond to those needs, instead of continuing to rely on “pre-pandemic norms” that are outdated and leave schools “underpowered.”

There is no silver bullet solution, but if school and district leaders are looking for a good place to start, making efforts to ensure every student has a person they connect with at school can go a long way, Balfanz said.

“School connectedness is as close as we have to a universal prevention measure,” he said. “You have to believe there’s an adult who knows and cares about you as a person … This is where we as a nation have to double down.”

Students at Ruby Bridges Elementary School in Woodinville, Wash., play during recess on April 2, 2024. Students have access to cards with images and words on them so all students, including those who do not speak, can communicate on the playground.

Real-time data are a powerful tool

Several leaders, including Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee and Indiana State Superintendent Katie Jenner, emphasized the importance of districts gathering and tracking real-time absence data.

Rhode Island and Indiana have both developed online dashboards that are updated daily with absence rates at every school in each state. The Rhode Island tool is available online publicly. Indiana’s will become publicly available soon, Jenner said.

Rhode Island’s dashboard was developed as part of an initiative called Attendance Matters RI , which has taken an “all-hands-on-deck” approach, said McKee, a Democrat.

As part of the campaign, local leaders and influencers have created videos discussing how it’s important—and cool—to be in school, organizers have written opinion pieces for local newspapers, businesses have sponsored attendance incentives that allow students and families to receive special perks for good attendance, and mayors have recorded robocalls emphasizing the importance of attendance.

More than 90 percent of schools in the state are reporting fewer chronically absent students than a year ago, McKee said.

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Perm Krai Capital of Culture

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Project initators:

“ Cultural Planning will help to ensure the Perm region will remain distinctive and unique” , Mr. Protasevich said. “It will mean planning ways to support and preserve our heritage, developing appealing opportunities for artists and musicians regardless of age, and generating education and employment. It will mean building a creative community with a buzz.”

“Some of the identified objectives of “Perm krai international:young journalists@school” project include facilitating greater communication and cooperation among young community and official organizations in Perm krai”, said the Vice-Minister of Perm krai.

“Perm Krai International: young journalistes@school”

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The international children festival of theatre arts “Long Break”

What is the international child festival of theatre arts “Long Break”? It is a real holiday for young spectators and their parents. The international child festival of theatre arts “Long Break” will be hold from the 30th of April to the 5th of May. It will be in Perm and Lysva. It will be hold under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Culture, Youth Politics and Mass Communications of Perm Krai. The program of the festival is prepared by Russian and foreign experts of child theatre. There are the most interesting for children events of the world arts. The “Long Break” familiarizes children with actual artists. It is the platform where people communicate with people using the language of modern arts which is understandable for a new generation.

The festival “The White Nights in Perm”

The participants of the festival of land art “Ural Myths” will create art objects using natural materials. The objects will have the same mythological idea.
During the festival of bears “MedveDay” the masters Teddy-makers will tell gripping stories about a symbol of the city. They will organize some exhibitions of teddy bears and they will give master classes.

The exhibition “Mammoth’s track” will gather mammoths from different corners of Russia on Perm’s territory. There will be even a famous mammoth Dima.
And at last the international festival of street arts «Open sky» will represent the various program: carnival processions, a 5-day master class «Mask Art», street shows and performances, performances of Russian and foreign street theatres.

The IX International festival “Heavenly Fair of Ural”

From the 26th to the 3rd of July the IX International festival “Heavenly Fair of Ural” takes place in Kungur. There will be a fight for the I Privolzhski Federal Disctrict Cup for aerostatics and the VII Perm Krai Open Cup for aerostatics.This year Kungur won’t hold rating competitions which results are taking into general account of the pilots. They counted on creating entertainment activities “Air battles over Kungur”. There will be the representatives of sub-units of ultralight aviation, detachment of parachute troops and water means. All the battles will take place straight over the city. And natives will take part in the festival too.According to initial data 15 aeronauts and about 50 ultralight aviation pilots expressed willingness to take part at the festival. And a dirigible pilot confirmed his participation.Ultralight aviation pilots will take part in the “Air games” within the festival. As last year a campsite of ultralight aviation will base in an area near a village Milniki.

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Dabney Coleman: Where to Stream His Best Movies and TV Shows

Coleman’s characters frequently displayed the kind of antagonistic demeanor familiar to anyone who has ever dealt with a bad boss or a disgruntled customer.

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A man in a black suit crosses his arms and looks at a man in a tan suit with disgust

By Noel Murray

The veteran character actor Dabney Coleman died Thursday at 92. Coleman began appearing in movies and TV series in the 1960s, when he was in his early 30s, and from the beginning, he had the look and the attitude of a grumpy middle-aged man.

For most of his career — except on those rare occasions when he got to play a lead role — Coleman’s job was to pop in for a scene or two to growl and grumble in a manner that was generally both humorous and more than a little scary. He reliably brought the kind of antagonistic energy familiar to anyone who has ever dealt with a bad boss or a disgruntled customer.

Much of Coleman’s best TV work — like the short-lived sitcoms “Buffalo Bill” and “The Slap Maxwell Story,” and the soap opera parody “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” — aren’t available to stream. And while he had roles in dozens of very good films and TV shows, he was often low in the billing. The seven Coleman performances below, though, are both outstanding and substantial, showcasing his imposing screen presence and ace comic timing.

‘9 to 5’ (1980)

After nearly 20 years in the business, Coleman’s career really took off in the 1980s, when producers started casting him in parts that let him hang around onscreen a little longer. He had his breakout performance in this hit comedy, which stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton as secretaries who try to overcome corporate sexism by imprisoning their boss. Coleman plays that piggish executive, whose disrespect for women in general (and these three employees in particular) is so infuriating to watch that audiences couldn’t wait to see him get his comeuppance.

Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime Video , Apple TV or YouTube .

‘On Golden Pond’ (1981)

Coleman teamed again with Jane Fonda a year later for an Oscar-winning big-screen adaptation of Ernest Thompson’s play “On Golden Pond,” a passion project for the actress, who wanted to work with her aging father, Henry Fonda. Coleman only has a small part in the film, playing Bill, the fiancé of Jane Fonda’s character Chelsea, the estranged daughter of Henry Fonda’s prickly Norman. Coleman gets to hit some of his usual sour notes when Bill stands up to Norman’s passive-aggressive bullying, but he’s not the villain of the story this time. He’s a decent man who just won’t be pushed too far, a Coleman character shown in a somewhat more flattering light.

Stream it on Peacock or Tubi ; rent or buy it on Amazon Prime Video , Apple TV , Google Play or YouTube .

‘Tootsie’ (1982)

Like “9 to 5,” this is a zeitgeist-grabbing comedy about endemic sexism in an American cultural institution. But for once, Coleman’s character isn’t the biggest chauvinist in the room. He plays Ron, a soap opera director trying to get the best from his new star, Dorothy Michaels (Dustin Hoffman) — who is actually a struggling New York theater actor named Michael Dorsey posing as a woman and dealing with the handsiness of his blustery co-star John Van Horn (George Gaynes). Ron’s no-nonsense attitude and wry asides amount to only one piece of the film’s fast-paced, intricate comic rhythms. But it is an important piece, and Coleman is as much of a pro as the character he’s playing, hitting his beats with precision.

Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime Video , Apple TV , Google Play or YouTube .

‘WarGames’ (1983)

Whenever Coleman wasn’t playing an out-and-out jerk (or a misunderstood jerk, as was the case with “Buffalo Bill” and “Slap Maxwell”), he often took on the role of a snappish authority figure. The richest of those performances came in this Cold War thriller. Coleman played Dr. John McKittrick, an engineer keeping an eye out for Soviet missile attacks at NORAD. When a curious teenage hacker (Matthew Broderick) accidentally triggers a simulated thermonuclear war that threatens to go global, McKittrick’s distrust of this kid runs the risk of making the situation worse. The surly Coleman perfectly embodies the kind of well-meaning bureaucracy that may not be able to adapt in time to stave off an apocalypse.

Stream it on Max ; rent or buy it on Amazon Prime Video , Apple TV , Google Play or YouTube .

‘Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star’ (1991)

Coleman first appeared in “Columbo” in the 1973 episode “Double Shock,” in which he played a Los Angeles detective who appears in just a few scenes. By 1991, though, he had become a big enough name to be one of the show’s guest villains: a shady attorney who murders his duplicitous girlfriend and frames her lover. Coleman’s character is one of those “Columbo” killers who gets easily irritated by the relentlessness of the rumpled lieutenant (Peter Falk), making it all the more entertaining as his clever alibi gets gradually peeled away.

Stream it on Peacock or Tubi .

‘The Guardian’ (2001-04)

Later in his career, Coleman landed a plum role in this CBS drama, playing a respected lawyer trying to reestablish a relationship with his wayward son, Nick (Simon Baker), a lawyer who has been sentenced to work with children as part of his community service for a drug offense. It is a complicated character, allowing Coleman to show a softer side while still having plenty of opportunities to bark orders and deliver withering wisecracks.

Stream it on Paramount+ ; buy it on Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV .

‘Boardwalk Empire’ (2010-11)

Coleman had another late-career highlight with this HBO period crime drama, which he guest starred on throughout its first two seasons. He played Commodore Louis Kaestner, an early 20th century Atlantic City politician and business mogul who remains a puppet-master well into the Prohibition era, even as his protégés battle each other for power. Coleman plays the character as a frail but formidable man who relies on the city’s collective memory of all that he built — and everyone he hurt — to maintain control. “Boardwalk Empire” viewers didn’t need to see the Commodore in his heyday in order to understand why so many of the show’s antiheroes were still scared of him. To the end, Coleman could command attention and make people nervous.

Stream it on Max ; buy it on Amazon Prime Video , Apple TV or Google Play .

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The USA vs. Russia Education Compared

No comments · Posted by Alex Smirnov in Education

The US and Russia have fairly old systems of education. They have several similarities and also main differences. In both nations, the governments are committed to a learned population that can continually thrust the nations forward economically, socially, and politically.

Formal education, especially higher education, contributes significantly to the high level of technological advancements observed in the two largest nations in terms of landmass. The similarities and differences in their education systems can be summarized as follows.

Education system controlled by the government

Both nations have government and private schools but they all follow an education system set by the government. The department of education sets the curriculum and controls what schools should teach, starting from the lowest grades to the highest.

This kind of system ensures a unified form of information for all students who go through the education system. To the governments, it is the best way to bring their citizens to a point where they will understand the nation’s dream and play their role towards its fulfillment.

Critical thinking versus memorization

In terms of teaching, American education differs from Russian. The American teacher creates an environment where the learner can actively use his or her mind to create a solution. The teacher will guide the learner on how to create the solution, but at the same time gives them space for independent thinking.

For example, if the students are learning a scientific principle, the teacher allows their students to think about how it works practically. They will do so through experiments, games, writing, and so on.

The system is different in Russia. The Russian teacher is interested more in answers than the process. The student who provides instant answers to a question is more favored than the slow student.

This disparity has turned the students into a community of crammers where students memorize answers instead of stating the facts. As a result, they get challenged when facing real-life after they complete schooling.

Essay writing assistance

Essay writing continues to be a major method for testing student knowledge while in college. It is also the form of testing that most students would wish was not part of college education study. The main reason is due to the hardships many students face when writing essays.

The solution is for the students to seek essay writing help from professional writers. Edubirdie is an established professional academic writing service provider for all college assignments. It includes essays, thesis, dissertations, term papers and much more.

Schooling in a geographical location

Preschool classes in the American system are the responsibility of parents/guardians. They teach their children the basics of education before taking them to grade one. In Russia, there are official early childhood schools and no child can join primary school without having gone through a pre-school. As a result, parents are less concerned with teaching their children at home.

In America, schools are classified into districts. A child can only attend a school within his or her district. If a parent wishes to transfer their child to a school in another district, the only option is to move and live in that district.

In Russia, however, every parent is free to take their child to any school they desire as long as they are willing to study in that school. During admission, the priority is given to children from the district before admitting those from other districts.

College education

Russia does not have too many requirements to join college. All that is needed is for the student to pass the national exam and attain the relevant college entry points. Every academic year has two semesters and each semester ends with an exam. In some instances, students can access higher education for free.

In the US, entry into college has several requirements . Apart from the exams, a student must be recommended by a teacher, be good in extra curriculum activities, write an essay, and be interviewed. During their study, regular knowledge and special talents are taken into account. Higher education in the US is paid for by all students. Special cases need to apply for scholarships or grants.

The level of literacy in any nation is first judged by the number of citizens that have gone through formal education. Every government should create a conducive environment for its citizens to pursue education to the highest level. The governments of Russia and America have played a significant role in ensuring their masses are educated. There are many more chances to improve the current system of education to a better one that produces critical thinkers who can become change agents in technology and the economy.

Author’s Bio:

Julius Sim is the Head of Support Team at EduBirdie and has been a major force behind the academic writing service’s massive success. He has been instrumental in reducing delivery errors to almost zero and ensuring fast resolution to student queries and issues. In his free time, he enjoys walking his pet and watching movies and following business news.

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Essay writing assistance. Essay writing continues to be a major method for testing student knowledge while in college. It is also the form of testing that most students would wish was not part of college education study. The main reason is due to the hardships many students face when writing essays. ... In America, schools are classified into ...