Multiple Study Analysis - School

Multiple Study Analysis - School Bullying

MULTIPLE ARTICLE ANALYSIS - SCHOOL BULLYING Research

Volumes of prior research have conclusively documented the damaging effects of school bullying on its victims. In addition to suffering lasting emotional harm, children victimized by bullying perform worse academically and are at an increased risk of dropping out of high school before graduation (Wessler & De Andrade, 2006). The study of bullying in schools involves several different issues, such as the characteristic scenarios in which it occurs, the nature of victims and victimizers, strategies for addressing the problem, relative awareness of the problem among teachers of different levels of professional experience as educators, and the different types and degrees of harm associated with different forms of bullying behaviors.

Introduction to the Literature Reviewed:

This project consists of a comprehensive review of four pieces of peer-reviewed empirical research in several areas relevant to the general school bullying problem. The 2002 Nicolaides, Toda, & Smith study examines the relative understanding of the issues and competence to redress the problem of school bullying among experienced teachers and provides a comparison with less experienced (trainee) teachers. The 2006 Bauman & Del Rio study also considers the different levels of awareness and competence on the part of experienced and inexperienced teachers, but focuses more specifically on the particular element of the distinction among three different types of bullying behavior: physical, verbal, and relational bullying.

The 2006 Wessler & De Andrade study focuses on verbal bullying and harassment in school and provides an analysis of the distinction between the different types of verbal content, form, and impact of verbal bullying. In that regard, the authors also examine the identity of groups typically singled out for verbal bullying and harassment and suggest approaches to respond and prevent verbal bullying, partly as a function of understanding its underlying causes, themes, and psychological motivations.

Understanding Bullying in Middle and High School:

The Wessler & De Andrade study comprised primary data collected by the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence (CPHV) run by the study's authors. Specifically, the authors conducted 80 pre-programming student focus groups and more than 400 Student Leader Workshops in 11 states, making a dedicated effort to make sure that their data represent the fullest possible range of demographic, geographic, economic, and racial dynamics in both rural and urban communities. Their results represent the analysis of data provided by approximately 7,000 anonymous student statements on the subject of school bullying. The researchers collected data in the form of written responses to a series of questions relating student experiences with bias, harassment, and various responses by both fellow students and teachers. The data were solicited during individual group meetings of 4-12 students selected by administrators as socio-cultural group representatives, which also may constitute a weakness of the study because it introduces subjective opinion capable of reducing the representational integrity of the selected populations studied. The questions themselves consisted of asking the participants to describe: (1) incidents of bias or harassment witnessed personally; (2) the impact of such incidents of bias or harassment on the participant or an acquaintance; (3) positive responses of fellow students to incidents involving discriminatory language or harassment; (4) positive responses of faculty members to incidents involving discriminatory language or harassment; and (5) advice students would propose for faculty members in relation to observed instances of discriminatory language or any type of harassment among students.

One method of rectifying that potential weakness in future studies would be to use alternative methods for selecting socio-cultural group representatives, such as by allowing students to participate in the nomination of prospective group representatives instead of relying exclusively on teachers. In other respects, the study took great pains to reduce the influence of extraneous factors, such as by conducting both mixed-group and racial-ethnic majority and minority groups in addition to separate groups by gender as a result of previous data suggesting that the study of mixed-race and mixed-gender group meetings reduces the quality of data provided by certain group segments.

The results of the Wessler & De Andrade study disclosed that the incidence of degrading language by students targeted against other students involve race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion most intensely. Likewise, the study confirmed other research findings detailing the degree of harm that such verbal abuse and harassment are capable of producing. Most importantly, the study identified a fundamental distinction between motivation for bullying reflecting genuinely held beliefs, values, and predominant cultural attitudes and bullying reflecting social habits, general lack of awareness of its effects, and the desire to be perceived as funny among friends.

Finally, the Wessler & De Andrade study suggested that effective intervention through the use of student group discussions must accord equal status to all participants, must be sanctioned by school authorities, must foster cooperative rather than competitive alliances, and must reflect common goals. Ultimately, the researchers also acknowledged the potential weaknesses of their mitigation approach: namely, largely disparate group representations in the school complicate the prospect of success through the group contact discussion method; the genders may not respond similarly to the approach; and it may not adequately address victims whose group characteristics are not readily identifiable in the same manner as race and gender.

Perceptions About Different Types of Bullying Behavior:

The Bauman & Del Rio study comprised written responses from 82 students in an educational psychology course required within the teacher preparation curriculum at one large southwestern university. One supplemental study was conducted of a similar-sized group at the same university and another was conducted online to expand the results to include 36 authors of literature in the area of the subject matter in five foreign countries and other parts of the United States. The principal limitations of the study related to: (1) the exclusive reliance on participants from one university program in two studies, and (2) the overwhelming predominance of females and Caucasian participants in all three studies included in this research.. Those weaknesses, which were acknowledged by the researchers, could conceivably be addressed in future studies designed to include a wider cross section of participants such as the effort made in that regard with respect to students providing data in the Wessler & De Andrade study discussed previously.

The study itself used vignettes depicting various bullying scenarios of a physical nature, or of a verbal nature, or of a relational nature. The results of this study involving only teachers in training were subsequently compared with similar previous studies conducted by other researchers using only experienced professional teachers. The study concluded that, in general, new inexperienced teachers were more likely to intervene and to do so sooner than experienced teachers and that all teachers viewed physical bullying as the most serious, followed by verbal bullying.

In that regard, both trainees' and experienced teachers' responses reflected greater empathy toward the victims of physical and verbal bullying and greater focus on intervention and reprimand in the case of bullies engaging in physical and verbal bullying than relational bullying. By far, the most significant result of the study was that both inexperienced and experienced teachers failed to perceive that relational bullying is also a seriousness form of bullying that is no less associated with significant harmful consequences than physical and verbal forms of bullying. The study concluded that specific training is required to make teachers more aware of how damaging relational bullying is and that it requires intervention as much as other forms of bullying that may intuitively (but incorrectly) be perceived as comparatively inconsequential. Comparative Perceptions, Preparedness, and Competence of Teachers in Relation to Professional Teaching Experienced:

The Nicolaides, Toda, & Smith study was specifically designed to gauge the awareness level of teachers in training to issues in the realm of school bullying. It consisted of the written responses to objective questionnaires about the subject of school bullying from 270 participants all of whom were students at two London university programs. The questions pertained to the following areas of knowledge: (1) the identity, characteristics, and proportion of bullies and victims; (2) gender differences and involvement; (3) teacher involvement; and (4) students' attitudes.

Like the Bauman & Del Rio study, this study was also limited by the predominance of females, although not to the same extent as that study. Similarly, the Nicolaides, Toda, & Smith study also overrepresented Caucasian Europeans, although, again, not to the same extent as that study. The authors of this study also explicitly acknowledged these limitations among others, such as the low response rate of solicited prospective respondents. However, in that regard, the researchers also considered that the respondents may have represented the more motivated and better trained individuals than the non-respondents, and therefore minimized the effect of this particular limitation.