Many youngsters are targets of verbal and physical abuse or social ostracism at some point during their school careers, and a minority are repeatedly victimized by their peers. Which students become the targets of aggressive behavior, and why? What are the psychological and health consequences of victimization? Of crucial importance, what can school professionals do to help? This volume brings together leading investigators to present the latest psychological research on chronically victimized children and adolescents. Chapters review conceptual and methodological issues, identify developmental differences in types of harassment, and explore various reaction patterns associated with victimization. Findings are presented on the correlates and consequences of harassment, from peer rejection to compromised mental and physical health, as well as its role in peer group dynamics. Highlighting the practical implications of current research, the volume discusses a number of school-based prevention and intervention approaches.
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.
Bullying is now widely recognised as a serious problem that affects many children in schools. It can take many forms, including direct verbal and physical harassment and indirect forms such as deliberate exclusion and the targeting of individuals using cyber technology. Continual and severe bullying can cause both short term and long term damage, making it difficult for victims to form intimate relationships with others and for habitual bullies to avoid following a delinquent lifestyle and becoming perpetrators of domestic violence. Even though this type of abuse affects many of our school children, Ken Rigby believes there are grounds for optimism. This passionate and motivating book shows that there are ways of reducing the likelihood of bullying occurring in a school and effective ways of tackling cases when they do occur. Using up-to-date studies, Bullying in Schools helps us to understand the nature of bullying and why it so often takes place in schools. Importantly, it examines and evaluates what schools can do to promote more positive peer relationships within the school community and take effective and sustainable action to deal with problems that may arise. Teachers, parents, school leaders, policy makers, and health professionals will find it invaluable and empowering.
Bullying and harassment threaten academic achievement and mental health in our schools. Look beyond your work with individual students to address these problems in their larger context! This book presents enlightening empirical studies and reviews of the literature on peer harassment, bullying, and victimization. Designed to expand our knowledge and understanding of these topics, Bullying, Peer Harassment, and Victimization in the Schools: The Next Generation of Prevention documents the widespread nature of the phenomena both inside and outside the United States, identifies risk and protective factors, and provides practitioners with specific, evidence-based guidelines for effective preventive action. From the editors: The problem of bullying, peer harassment, and victimization is a serious one in our schools. It greatly affects the climate for learning and productivity and the emotional health of students and staff. This book presents empirical data and theoretical and legal case reviews to show how pervasive and serious these problems are and how they threaten both academic achievement and mental health within many of our schools. Taking a longitudinal and developmental perspective, the authors begin to outline the next generation of research in this field that will shape knowledge and practice for the next few decades. For practitioners, the book is a call to action, particularly at the school-wide level, focusing on reducing the substantial social/emotional harm done to perpetrators, bystanders, and especially, victims. Bullying, Peer Harassment, and Victimization in the Schools provides vital information on: what mental health professionals can do to prevent and respond to sexual harassment in schools the relationship between middle-school adjustment and bullying aggressive behavior and friendship patterns in immigrant children school-based intervention strategies the relationship between the cultures of childhood and sexual harassmentfrom developmental, domestic violence, and legal perspectives risk factors and protective factors affecting victimization and more! It has been estimated that bullying affects more than half of the students in American schools. This book can add significantly to your ability to combat and prevent this pervasive problem. Use it to improve the quality of education received by students in your community!
In recent years there have been an increasing number of incidents where children have either perpetrated or been the victims of violence in the schools. Often times the children who perpetrated the violence had been the victims of school bullying. If bullying once was a matter of extorting lunch money from one's peers, it has since escalated into slander, sexual harassment, and violence. And the victims, unable to find relief, become depressed and/or violent in return. Despite all the media attention on recent school tragedies, many of which can be traced to bullied children, there has been little in the way of research-based books toward understanding why and how bullying occurs, the effects on all the individuals involved and the most effective intervention techniques. Summarizing research in education, social, developmental, and counseling psychology, Bullying: Implications for the Classroom examines the personality and background of both those who become bullies and those most likely to become their victims, how families, peers, and schools influence bullying behavior, and the most effective interventions in pre-school, primary and middle schools. Intended for researchers, educators, and professionals in related fields, this book provides an international review of research on bullying. KEY FEATURES: * Presents practical ideas regarding prevention/intervention of bullying * Covers theoretical views of bullying * Provides an international perspective on bullying * Discusses bullying similarities and differences in elementary and middle school * Presents practical ideas regarding prevention/intervention of bullying * Provides an international perspective on bullying * Outlines information regarding bullying during the elementary and middle school years * Covers theoretical views of bullying * Presents new approaches to explaining bullying * Contributing authors include internationally known researchers in the field
These timely intervention strategies make your school safer for everyone! Bullying Behavior: Current Issues, Research, and Interventions provides the most up-to-date reports on the dynamics of bullying, including who bullies and why, who the victims are, and how depression and anxiety are correlated with bullying. It also presents detailed case studies of successful anti-bullying strategies for both local schools and national campaigns. Drawing on national and international clinical research, this book is indispensable for teachers and school administrators, therapists and child psychologists, social workers, child advocates and counselors, court personnel, probation officers, and education policymakers. Bullying Behavior addresses all the issues of bullying, including: preventing sexual harassment models of bully and victim behavior the roles of dominance and bullying in the development of early heterosexual relationships psychosocial correlates in bullying and victimization peer influences during early adolescence students who are passive observers to the victimization of others