Since 1992, there have been 250 violent deaths in schools, and in virtually every one, bullying has been a contributing factor to the violence. As in the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado, most of the students who committed these violent crimes were victims of bullying who decided to get revenge. Such violence has become one of the most serious problems in America today, and both bullies and their victims need help. Chapter One defines bullying as a form of violence among children and discusses characteristics of bullies. Chapter Two identifies myths about bullies and presents research that dispels those myths. Chapter Three considers how serious violence begins with seemingly innocent put-downs and teasing. Chapter Four explores how bullying may indicate the beginning of a generally antisocial and rule-breaking behavior pattern that can extend into adulthood, and presents successful programs and interventions. Chapter Five presents useful solutions and strategies to stop bullying.
Choice's Outstanding Academic Title list for 2013 Through interviews and case studies, Klein develops an explanation for bully behavior in America's schools In today’s schools, kids bullying kids is not an occasional occurrence but rather an everyday reality where children learn early that being sensitive, respectful, and kind earns them no respect. Jessie Klein makes the provocative argument that the rise of school shootings across America, and childhood aggression more broadly, are the consequences of a society that actually promotes aggressive and competitive behavior. The Bully Society is a call to reclaim America’s schools from the vicious cycle of aggression that threatens our children and our society at large. Heartbreaking interviews illuminate how both boys and girls obtain status by acting “masculine”—displaying aggression at one another’s expense as both students and adults police one another to uphold gender stereotypes. Klein shows that the aggressive ritual of gender policing in American culture creates emotional damage that perpetuates violence through revenge, and that this cycle is the main cause of not only the many school shootings that have shocked America, but also related problems in schools, manifesting in high rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-cutting, truancy, and substance abuse. After two decades working in schools as a school social worker and professor, Klein proposes ways to transcend these destructive trends—transforming school bully societies into compassionate communities.
This book provides an exciting compilation of research, with a social-ecological perspective that illustrates the complexity of bullying behaviors and offers suggestions for data-based decision-making to intervene and reduce those behaviors.
This is a compilation of research on bullying in school-aged youth conducted across the United States by a representative group of researchers. It emphasizes the complexity of bullying behaviours and offers suggestions for using data-based decision-making to intervene and reduce bullying.
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.
The peer-reviewed report presented as a series of 11 briefs, addresses legislative, policy, and procedural matters with pragmatic and practical strategies for prevention of bullying.
School bullying and cyberbullying are widely recognized as an international problem, but publications have focused on the western tradition of research. In India, recognition of these issues and research on the topics have been emerging in recent years. Beginning with cross-cultural differences across Indian, European and Australian contexts, this volume provides direct empirical comparisons between western and Indian situations. It then discusses innovative ways of hearing the views of students, pre-service teachers and teachers, featuring a range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The concluding commentaries from North American investigators provide a further international perspective from another region where much progress in researching these areas has been made. Together this ground-breaking collection comprises contributions from four continents on the prevalent issues of bullying, cyberbullying and student well-being.
`This is a worthwhile read and many of the ideas could well be used in schools to address the issues of bullying. There is something for everyone in the book, and it should be on any reading list for student teachers and certainly for the senior manager with responsibility for pastoral systems in every school′ - Emotional & Behavioural Difficulties `This book is a must for all teachers in secondary school throughout the country. The value of this book lies in the potential for its application in a realistic school setting by staff from the head teacher, to teachers, to pupils and all those who are in the school environment′ - Dr L F Lowenstein, Clinical and Educational Psychologist `The authors of this book adopt a new approach to dealing with bullying. Instead of discussing how often it occurs, who bullies and who is bullied, they see bullying as part of a social dynamic and unsafe school culture. This book is an essential practical guide to dealing with bullying for teachers, teachers trainers, counsellors, pupil and families′ - Childright `This book is an important and comprehensive resource dealing with school bullying issues in a practical way, with strategies designed to be used easily in the classroom. It gives valuable advice to teachers on dealing with bullies in the most effective way, using victims and bystanders as part of the solution. It should be required reading in every secondary school′ - Liz Carnell, Director, Bullying Online This book is a practical guide to dealing with bullying in secondary schools. The authors present what we know about bullying, describe development issues for adolescence and discuss the social context of the school. They analyze key features of healthy and unhealthy schools, and set out a whole school approach to bullying and other social problems that arise in the secondary school. The authors show that by empowering the bystanders through providing effective teacher support, much of the bullying can be stopped at an early age and a healthy and safe school can be created. Their suggestions are based on student-centred responses and on programmes developed specifically to deal with bullying. This book is written especially for secondary school teachers, administrators and students, and the families and caregivers of the students. It is also for those who train teachers, for counsellors and for educators at all levels.
This text brings years of experience in research and applied behavioral sciences to show how educators, school psychologists, counselors, and other professionals can address the problem of bullying and aggression in schools. It provides definitions, statistics, and theories that helps identify and characterize bullying.
