SIRS Antibullying is not helping

Education Week
Vol. 29, No. 32
May 19, 2010, pp. 1-3

Vol. 29, No. 32 Copyright © Editorial Projects in Education, Inc. May 19, 2010. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.


Studies Probe 'Ecology' of Bullying

By Debra Viadero



In the mid-1990s, a pair of Canadian researchers videotaping children on playgrounds made a simple observation that helped shift experts' views about bullying: When children bullied other children, they rarely did it alone.

"People began to realize that bullying wasn't just a problem between two kids," said Susan M. Swearer, an associate professor of school psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "It moved a lot of people's thinking toward the complexity of bullying."

Research now suggests that bullies, their victims, bystanders, parents, teachers, and other adults in the building are all part of an ecology in schools that can either sustain or suppress bullying behaviors. And finding a solution to the problem requires a similarly broad, multilevel response, an interdisciplinary group of researchers argued earlier this year in a special issue of Educational Researcher .

Understanding the full measure of bullying is especially important now as districts, states, and federal education officials step up their efforts to combat the scourge in schools.

Most recently, Massachusetts became the 42nd state to enact an anti-bullying law.

Momentum for the bill in that state grew after the death of Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old who committed suicide in January after experiencing months of alleged bullying by classmates at the South Hadley, Mass., high school that she entered in the fall. Similar tragedies are spurring educators elsewhere to take action as well.

Among its requirements, the new anti-bullying law in the Bay State calls on schools to develop and teach a curriculum aimed at preventing the kind of harassment that Ms. Prince was said to have endured, whether it takes place in a school hallway, on a cellphone, or on the Internet.

Mixed Record

Finding a program that's been shown to work in every school context, however, won't be easy. Studies of schoolwide anti-bullying programs in the United States have yielded only mixed success in reducing bullying behaviors.

Arguably the most widely used program, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, has consistently been proved to be successful in studies conducted in Scandinavian countries, but North American trials of the program have produced only sporadic success, Ms. Swearer and her colleagues wrote in one of the Educational Researcher articles.

"Indeed, there isn't a single, large-scale clinical trial of a schoolwide bullying-prevention program, a fact that highlights the need to conduct rigorous randomized trials in this area," the article in the journal's February issue went on to say. "Bullying will be reduced and/or stopped when prevention and intervention programs target the complexity of individual, peer, school, family, and community contexts in which bullying unfolds."

Ms. Swearer, for one, recommends a multipronged approach for schools. In addition to schoolwide programs aimed at preventing bullying or promoting positive social behaviors in students, she and other researchers said, direct efforts to target bullies and their victims may also be in order.

"What we find is that when counselors are able to work with the victims, they can reduce the level of bullying going on, and then that has a ripple effect," said Dewey G. Cornell, an education professor at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, and the director of the Virginia Youth Violence Project, which works with 330 schools across the state. "It communicates to other kids that, hey, they take bullying seriously."

Ms. Swearer suggests that instead of suspending bullies, schools can require them to undergo three hours of positive-behavior training on a Saturday.

The Canadian playground studies also showed that bystanders were involved in 85 percent of bullying incidents. Researchers Deba Pepler of Toronto's York University and Wendy Craig of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, also found that people standing around watching or laughing at the bullying tended to prolong it.

Other studies also suggest that aggressive youths seek out and befriend other aggressive youths, which helps explain why bullying often breaks out on sports teams, cliques, and fraternities.

"That is normalizing or reinforcing bullying," said Sabina M. Low, an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Wichita State University, in Kansas. "I think there's evidence, especially for males, that they're less likely to act in isolation."

Setting an Example

Ms. Swearer said such findings have led over the years to the creation of programs aimed specifically at bystanders. And some, such as Steps to Respect, developed by the Seattle-based Committee for Children, have been shown to reduce the kinds of bystander behaviors that encourage bullying.

But researchers said adults, too, help normalize bullying when they ignore it or model bullying behavior themselves--the teacher, for instance, who humiliates a student for the entertainment of the class.

A new study of 7th and 8th grade students and teachers at nine middle schools also suggests that students dislike school more, and are more likely to feel sorry for bullying victims, when they perceive that their teachers do too little to address bullying.

"We also found that teachers could be empathetic, but only under certain circumstances," said Rebecca A. Robles-Piña, a professor of statistics and research and psychology of learning at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. She said teachers got lower ratings for empathy when they had a heavier workload and felt less supported by administrators.

Study after study, in fact, suggests there are big disconnects between students' perceptions of bullying and those of their teachers. In a study of 33 elementary schools that was presented at the American Educational Research Association conference in Denver last month, Ms. Low and her colleagues found that 93 percent of teachers--but only 59 percent of 3rd through 5th graders--agreed that "students in this school generally get along with each other."

Likewise, 58 percent of the upper-elementary students identified students who push, shove, or trip weaker students as a problem in their schools, compared with 25 percent of their teachers. And teasing, spreading rumors and lies, or saying mean things to classmates were perceived to be a problem at the school by 25 percent of teachers and 58 percent of students.

While such statistics suggest teachers may be underestimating the extent of the problem, they can also be somewhat unreliable because they are based on self-reports rather than actual incidents, some other researchers said. Students, for instance, may exaggerate the problem or fail to understand what constitutes bullying.

For that reason, Mr. Cornell said, when he administers school climate surveys in the schools he works with, he gets more-accurate numbers by asking students to identify victims. When a name comes up three or more times, that student is referred to the school counselor.

"When we started out doing this, there was some reluctance among counselors and some concern that students might not like it," said Mr. Cornell. "Now counselors are saying, 'Can't you get this information to us sooner?' "

No Set Profiles

At the same time, Mr. Cornell said, schools have to update their climate surveys each year to keep an accurate picture of the extent of the problem in their own buildings.

"It's like crab grass in your lawn," he said. "It comes back, and each year there's a new group of students, so it really requires continuous monitoring,"

Research is unclear, though, on who the bullies and victims are. While statistics show that students who are obese, gay, or have disabilities may be more likely overall to be bullied than peers who might blend in more easily at school, all other bets are off. Some studies suggest bullies are popular; others say they're not. Plus, victims and bullies can overlap, with many victims reporting that they themselves have bullied others.

"In some schools, the smart kids are the most victimized. There are others where the smart kids are doing the bullying," Ms. Swearer said. "It goes back to the nature of the school community."

That's why she advocates tailoring bullying-prevention efforts to the needs of individual school communities. "If the culture is one where athletes are doing the bullying," she said as an example, "there can be an intervention around coaches and athletic teams."

That's what led Ms. Robles-Piña to develop and test a bilingual bullying-prevention program aimed at 4th graders in a predominantly Hispanic community in Texas. One thing the researchers learned, from interviewing parents and educators in that unnamed city, was that latchkey children were often hounded by bullies who would follow them home after school and ask them to open the doors to their houses or apartments."That was something I'd never heard of before," Ms. Robles-Piña said. After the six-month intervention, which school counselors provided in once-a-week lessons, students were better able to articulate possible solutions to that scenario.

"There's such diversity across schools and across the country, that it's really hard to say what works in one school is likely to work in another," Ms. Swearer concluded. "It's the people who are going to create the climate that's going to allow bullying to take place or not."

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Viadero, Debra. "Studies Probe 'Ecology' of Bullying." Education Week Vol. 29, No. 32. 19 May 2010: 1-3. SIRS Researcher. Web. 10 Nov 2010.



Accessed on 11/10/2010 from SIRS Researcher via SIRS Knowledge Source <http://www.sirs.com>


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McClatchy - Tribune Business News
Oct 5, 2009, n.p.

Copyright © 2009, McClatchy - Tribune Business News. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.


Schools Need to Follow Through Against Bullying


The Pantagraph

Bloomington, Ill.



Oct. 5--What good is passing laws against "bullying" if states aren't doing much to enforce them?



When a tragedy occurs, such as the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado 10 years ago, there is a natural desire to do "something" to prevent a similar occurrence.



That's good. But it's relatively meaningless if officials and the public think that just passing a law will make the problem go away.



Illinois is among 44 states with laws against bullying.



In Illinois, that amounts to requiring school districts to have a policy on bullying. The policy is supposed to be filed with the State Board of Education and updated every two years. Each year, schools are supposed to let students and their parents know what the policy is.



The law--105 ILCS 5/2723.7--doesn't say what the policy should include. Although instruction in bullying prevention is encouraged, the law doesn't require it.



Fortunately, many schools--and their students--take the matter seriously.



As noted in a Pantagraph article earlier this month ("Safer schools," Sept. 14, Page A1), Lincoln Community High School and Normal Community West High School have instituted Rachel's Challenge, a program aimed at limiting school violence begun in honor of a student killed in the Columbine incident.



That program notes the importance of follow-up activities, not relying on a single presentation in an auditorium to bring about permanent positive changes.



Bullying can take many forms, from teasing and social isolation to physical attacks and criminal acts.



It is important to recognize that bullying is not just "part of growing up." Rather, in extreme cases, it can prevent someone from growing up: This year alone, bullying was pointed to as a contributing factor in the suicides of one 10-year-old and two 11-year olds in Illinois.



When a victim reports a bully and nothing is done, that adds to the victim's feelings of powerlessness.



Bullying interferes with learning. A fearful student is unlikely to do well in school. They may miss school or even drop out.



Those who witness bullying can be harmed, too--either worrying that they might be the next target or engaging in bullying themselves as a sort of pre-emptive strike.



Studies have shown that bullies also are more likely to drop out of school and commit crimes, as their behavior interferes with their own education, socialization skills and ability to function in society.



Parents need to be aware of their children's behavior and listen to their fears.



Schools need to make it clear what behavior is unacceptable, enforce the rules and create an environment where victims and witnesses are comfortable coming forward.



And legislators have to stop pretending that just passing a law will solve every problem.

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McClatchy Newspapers
Apr 24, 2009, n.p.

Copyright © 2009, McClatchy Newspapers. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Bullied to Death: Addressing Harassment and Suicide Prevention in Schools

By Charles Robbins and Eliza Byard
(MCT)

The affect of language and behavior can be deadly, especially in a school environment where young people are already highly impressionable and vulnerable. Unfortunately, this difficult lesson has been conveyed many times when young people resort to drastic and permanent measures to escape the despair of enduring constant bullying and harassment at school.



It is deeply disturbing that on April 6, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old sixth-grader from Springfield, Mass., hanged himself with an extension cord in his family's home after being subjected to continuous anti-gay bullying and harassment at his middle school. It is equally as disheartening that on April 16, less than two weeks later, Jaheem Herrera, an 11-year-old fifth-grader from DeKalb County, Ga., also hanged himself at home after being the subject of anti-gay taunts from his classmates. These were two completely separate and isolated instances, but the tragic and preventable nature of each unfortunate loss of life remains the same.



Neither Carl nor Jaheem identified as gay, yet their peers' defamatory language and hurtful behaviors broke the barriers of sexual orientation and gender identity. Being taunted as "faggot," "queer" or "homo" by classmates is offensive and demeaning to any student--straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning alike.



Carl is the fourth middle school student this year to complete suicide due to bullying, and Jaheem was still in elementary school. Older students are also at a high risk, as suicide is one of the top three causes of death among 15 to 24 year olds and the second leading cause of death on college campuses. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, and those who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to do so.



Two of the top three reasons secondary school students said their peers were most often bullied at school were actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender expression, according to a 2005 report by GLSEN and Harris Interactive. In addition, The Trevor Project fields tens of thousands of calls from young people each year, both straight and LGBT-identified, with rejection and harassment by peers being one of the top five issues reported by callers.



In the same GLSEN and Harris report, more than a third of middle and high school students said that bullying, name-calling and harassment is a somewhat or very serious problem at their school. Furthermore, two-thirds of middle school students reported being assaulted or harassed in the previous year and only 41% said they felt safe at school.



Enough is enough. It is time for school administrators, educators, parents, students and the government to work together to stop bullying and harassment in schools. Furthermore, we must teach young people to understand the profound impact of words and actions, and to recognize depression and suicidal ideations amongst their peers. By helping young people take responsibility for their actions and respect their peers, and simultaneously empowering them with the knowledge and skills they need to understand when their classmates are in crisis, we can work toward ending the dual epidemics of school bullying and youth suicide once and for all.



We as parents, teachers and concerned citizens can do our part to protect students by speaking out and demanding that anti-bullying and harassment programs and suicide prevention education are mandated in all schools. We can seek commitment from the government to end bullying by training educators on how to effectively intervene, teaching students to respect and help one another, and ensuring that all students know how to reach out to a peer who may be in crisis. We must lead by example and remember that the language we choose is easily repeated by young people. We must listen to children when they reach out for help, and demonstrate to them that we will be understanding and non-judgmental if they need to talk.



Days like the GLSEN-sponsored National Day of Silence bring attention to anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools. On this day, thousands of students call for practical, appropriate interventions that work, hoping to move us closer to a future where every child can go to school free from fear. Weeks including the National Suicide Prevention Week encourage programs to increase suicide prevention efforts, including initiatives supported by The Trevor Project to protect LGBT youth.



It is our hope that in memory of Carl and Jaheem, and in honor of all young people who have completed suicide after enduring constant torment at school, we will be able to work together to promote school environments that celebrate diversity and encourage acceptance of all people. Only then will we be confident that our children are receiving the respect and education they deserve today in order to become the successful and equality-minded leaders of tomorrow.



Charles Robbins is the Executive Director & CEO of The Trevor Project and Eliza Byard, Ph.D., is the Executive Director, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

The Trevor Project is the non-profit organization that operates the only nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. The Trevor Project was established in 1998 to promote acceptance of LGBTQ youth, and to aid in crisis and suicide prevention among that group.

GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, is the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students. Established nationally in 1995, GLSEN envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.
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Robbins, Charles, and Eliza Byard. "Bullied to Death: Addressing Harassment and Suicide Prevention..." McClatchy Newspapers. 24 Apr 2009: n.p. SIRS Researcher. Web. 10 Nov 2010.



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The first article discusses an advantage of schools giving disciplinary action: better knowledge of what does and doesn't work in countering bullying. Same as the third.

The first article is about bullying such as the case of Phoebe Prince. Dewey G. Cornell, an education professor at the University of Virginia, states that counseling is more effective when they are able to speak directly to the victim. Ms. Swearer from the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, suggests that three hours of positive-behavior training is more effective than suspension. This type of punishment in school may help reduce the cases of bullying outside of school. The rest of the article goes on to elaborate on the varying forms of bullying around the country and how it's hard to create a single way of dealing with bullying for all cases.