Bullying patterns across school gender and ethnic groups

Bullying: Race, Gender, Age, And Effects

Bullies, school, gender, ethnic groups

The destructive ramifications of bullying behavior in schools has become an issue of national (and even worldwide) concern for the safety of students. The fact that there has been an increase in school shootings has also increased awareness, especially due to the belief that bullying may be a precursor to some of the more violent school crimes. Furthermore, bullying has been linked with negative consequences in adulthood as well (Olweus 1991; Perry, Kusel, & Perry, 1988; Tritt & Duncan, 1997). Duncan (1999) and Hoover, Oliver and Hazler (1992) have found that the bullying is more pervasive in schools in the United States than in any other nation. Bullying is, undoubtedly, a problem, but what causes bullying? Why are some children more likely to get bullied than others? Through numerous studies conducted, there is some information to suggest that children from minority groups experience more indirect bullying of a racist nature. There are also studies that suggest that sexual identity formation during adolescence plays a quite significant role in the bullying as well and can affect both genders equally. Duncan (2004) found that the sexual bullying of girls by other girls was based upon more of a social esteemed sexual identity (i.e., being popular) while young men who socio-sexual identity does not "conform to the dominant ideal of masculinity" also experience bullying of a sexual nature. What can then be hypothesized taking into account the information from various studies, and what will be attempted to be illustrated in this paper, is that children do hold negative beliefs about other ethnic groups and children who are different from them, in general, which, when it comes to bullying, can make children of another race, or children with disabilities, more vulnerable to bullying acts, even if indirectly. Research also point to the notion that girls are bullied, overall, more than boys, however both boys and girls can experience bullying, yet it is hypothesized that while girls may be the victims of sexually-based bullying because of their "attractiveness," boys who are less "macho" or are considered to be homosexual, may experience sexually-based bullying as well. Through a review of different studies, it will be suggested that bully victimization occurs because of some sort of perceived isolation (race, gender, socio-economic status, or gender) on the part of the student being bullied.

Definition of Bullying.

The definition of bullying has been conceptualized in a variety of ways (Cowie 1994). Still, Farrington (1993) has suggested, and there is general agreement among researchers, that bullying involves five basic elements: (i) it can take on several different forms which include, but are not limited to, the physical, verbal and psychological; (22) the purpose of bullying is to invoke fear, harm and/or distress a person; (iii) it involves either an actual or perceived imbalance of power; (iv) the victim does not provoke it; (v) it repeatedly happens over time (1993).

Arora and Thompson (1987) questioned secondary school students about what they thought bullying entailed. Most of the students though that bullying was repeated occurrences that repeatedly happened with the same individuals. It should be noted that while many researchers agree with Farrington's (1993) elements of bullying, teachers and students both seem to hold much broader definitions of what they think bullying when compared to researchers (especially among younger school-aged children) (Cowie & Jennifer 2008), which most likely has to do with the fact that teachers are consistently faced with problems related to bullying as well as is the case with some children. Cowie and Jennifer (2008) note that in a questionnaire survey of 225 teachers and 1,820 secondary school students, which was investigating the definitions of bullying, only 18% of teachers and 8% of students included repeated bullying behavior in their answers (2008). Moreover, only 25% of the teachers and 4% of the students included "intention to harm," while almost 3/4 of teacher "invoked the imbalance of power criterion in their definitions," only 40% of the students did so (2008). Interestingly enough, when it comes to these definitions of bullying, the definitions appear to change as the children get older (2008).

According to estimates, approximately 30% of children report being victims of bullying at some point in their school careers, and between 5% and 10% are victims on a regular basis (Newman, Holden & Delville 2004). Boys are more likely to bully than to be bullied (Arora & Thompson 1987), although there are changing definitions of bullying that now include more indirect aggression such as teasing and alienation (2004). A study in Italy involving middle schools showed that girls' experiences with bullying included more rumors, name-calling, ostracism, and teasing, while boys' experiences include more physical threats and harm, and rejection (2004). This is just to show that the definitions of bullying are no longer simply related to physical harm or threats but now include social ostracism and derogatory name-calling and rumor-spreading.

Social Class and Bullying.

There have been several studies that have shown that "unprovoked aggression is a correlate of rejected status -- children who are classified as being rejected on the basis of sociometric techniques tend to show significantly higher levels of this type of aggression with peers than any of the other status groups" (Cowie 1994).

Peskin, Torolero, and Markham (2006) studied the prevalence of bullying and victimization by gender, grade level, and race among a sample of low socioeconomic black and Hispanic students in grades 6 through 12 in a large urban school district in Texas. The levels of bullying and victimization were measured using certain behaviors. Students were categorized as bullies (7%), victims (12%), bully-victims (5%), or neither (76%), depending on the different experiences. Types of bullying such as spreading lies about others and ostracism were participated in by 4.5% to 9.4% of students (self-reported) (2006). Other types of victimization like being physically harmed ranged from approximately 6% to 12% (2006). There were not gender differences observed for this study pertaining to general bullying and victimization, however, physical and certain types of verbal bullying were more common among males than females (2006). It was found that black students were more likely to take part in bullying and victimization and these occurrences seemed to peak around the 9th grade for them (2006).

The relationship between a child's involvement in bullying and social-economic status of their parents has offered mixed results (Rigby 2002). There is some evidence from studies (like Peskin et al.'s 2006 above) that suggest that social class does make children more or less prone to participating in bullying behaviors. In a study conducted by Mellor (1999; Rigby 2002), the researcher found that children of parents who worked in 'professional' jobs were less likely to be victims of bullying while those who had parents who worked in more 'laborious' jobs were more likely to be victims of bullying -- and were also more likely to be bullies themselves. However, in other studies done around the world, in places like Spain, France and Sweden, the results have been incredibly mixed, which leads one to the conclusion that there are many "cross-national differences in the psychological characteristics of members of higher and lower socio-economic status groups" (2002).

When looking at bullying and its relationship to social class, Rigby (2002) notes that it is important to differentiate between the ways that bullying is expressed. There has been research that has focused on the physical expression of aggression and has made the claim that this kind of bullying is more common in children who come from families that are considered to be of low socio-economic status (Rigby 2002).

According to Dodge, Pettit and Bates (1994; Rigby 2002) in the United States physical aggression on the part of children arises as a result of harsh discipline, lack of maternal warmth, exposure to aggressive adult models, maternal aggressive values, family life stressors, mother's lack of social support, peer group instability, and lack of cognitive stimulation. All of these, they suggest, are more common in families of low socio-economic status (Rigby 2002).

A study conducted in Australia in 2001 of school-aged children in seven different schools that were dramatically different in socio-economic class offered evidence that showed that students in the school with the lowest social status had the highest level of physical types of bullying (Rigby & Bagshaw 2001: Rigby 2002).

Race and Bullying.

There is a significant amount of information to suggest that children from ethnic minority groups experience bullying of a racist nature (Cowie & Jennifer 2008). One example of this can be illustrated in a study conducted in London that investigated black and white 11-year-olds' perspective on teasing and fighting in their middle schools. Of the 175 students participating, significantly more black students than white students reported that they had been teased because of their skin color (Mooney et al. 1991; Cowie & Jennifer 2008). In another study by Moran et al. (1993; Cowie & Jennifer 2008), the specific role of ethnicity in the experiences of bullying was examined. The researchers interviewed 33 pairs of Asian and white students, matched for age, gender and school. For the children who were being bullied, there were no differences by race found for where it occurred, or the likelihood of getting help (2008). However, the researchers found a dramatic difference by race for racist name-calling with one-half of the Asian students who were bulled, but none of the bullied white students, experiencing name-calling in association to their skin color or ethnicity (2008).

However, in a study conducted by Boulton, Smith and Cowie (1992), the researchers examined the extent to which children showed an own-race preference in a sample of Asian and White students between the ages of eight and 10. The children were asked to show, using the aid of photographs of children of different ethnic groups and gender, which children they would want to sit by in class, have play on their team, help with homework, invite home, or play with on the playground (1992). In general, both Asian and white girls showed a preference for their own race and own sex, but gender is what appeared to be more important in almost every scenario. These results showed that race is a much less significant factor when it comes to determining children's preference for partners.

In a study conducted by Spriggs, Iannotti, Nansel, and Haynie (2007), the researchers examined the associations between bullying and family, peer, and school relations for white, black and Hispanic adolescents. The researchers used a nationally representative sample (N = 11,033) of adolescent in grades six to 10, asking them to participate in a 2001 Health Behaviors in School-Aged Children survey. This survey asked them to self-report bullying involvement and other information pertaining to family, peer and school relations (2007). Descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression analyses controlling for age, gender, and affluence were stratified by race/ethnicity (2007).

Nine percent of the survey participants were victims of bulling, 9% were bullies, and 3% were "bully-victims" (Spriggs et al. 2007). African-American adolescents reported dramatically lower when it came to being victims of bullying, much lower than the white and Hispanic students (2007). Multivariate results showed modest racial/ethnic variation in associations between bullying and family, peer and social factors (2007). Communication with parents, social alienation, and student relationships were also related to bullying across racial/ethnic groups. Living with two biological parents was a safeguard against bullying involvement only for the white students. Moreover, though school satisfaction and performance were negatively linked with bullying involvement for white and Hispanic students, school factors were mainly unassociated with bullying among black students (2007).

Spriggs et al.'s (2007) study concluded with some interesting information. Though school attachment and performance were not related bullying behavior across race/ethnicity, bullying behavior was constantly linked to peer relationships across black, white, and Hispanic adolescents. The final conclusion of the study was that negative associations between family communication and bullying behaviors for all three ethnic groups show that there is a definite need for addressing family communication when it comes to helping to prevent bullies (2007).

Gender and Bullying.

Some of the earliest research on bullying focused on the physically aggressive behavior in boys because of the fact that physical aggression is easier to observe and it is a behavior that is more stereotypically male (Cowie & Jennifer 2008). In the 1980s and the 1990s, other researchers such as Farrington (1993) recognized that there were other forms of bullying such as verbal and psychological bullying and thus more research needed to be done than on just physical types of bullying.

By self-report, Nansel, Overpeck, Pilla, Ruan, Simmons-Morton and Schmidt (2001) state that boys are more likely than girls to bully others. Furthermore, girls frequently report being victims of bullying by both boys and girls, but boys most often bully other boys (Olweus 1993). The types of bullying that girls experience are often of a different nature than boys. While boys are more likely to be physically bullied, girls are more likely to report that they are victims of rumor-spreading and sexual comments (2001). Girls, as well, are more likely to bully by using social ostracism (1993).

Why is it that boys are more likely to be bullies than girls? The answer was usually that boys are more aggressive than girls. Rigby (2002), however, notes that this is true when we think of physical bullying and aggression, in general, but it is less true for verbal forms and other indirect forms of aggression. In order to come to an answer regarding why males might bully more than females, it needs to be asked why males are more aggressive, in general, than females.

One of the most popular explanations for why males are more aggressive than females is that males are "physically constituted so as to be more aggressive than females" (Rigby 2002). Some researchers have tried to apply reasons such as brain difference or testosterone levels, but neither of these suggestions have proved to have a relationship with aggressive behavior (2002).

Age and Bullying.

In a study conducted by Hilarski, Dulmus, Theriot, and Sowers (2005), the researchers set out to reveal whether bullying decreased with age and if males or females were differently affected by bullying as children aged. Yet, what they found is that verbal bully-victimization tends to increase as children get older. Gender and grade level also showed females as being chronically exposed to threatening and physical bully-victimization unlike males. The study showed that males experience more overt bullying than females.

Reports of bully victimization seem to decrease with age. This, as Newman et al. (2004) notes, is not a coincidence most likely since the majority of research involving bullying has been conducted on younger children.

Disabilities, Other Differences and Bullying.

Horowitz, Vessey, Calrson, Bradley, Montoya, McCullough, and David (2004) studied the teasing and bullying experiences of 11-to 14-year-old middle school students from Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Mississippi, and found that the "sources of teasing and bullying were physical appearance, personal behavior, family and environment, and school relations" (2004). The researchers concluded that "being different in any way" was the primary theme (2004). Rigby (2002) notes that it is quite common to hear a child or adult say that someone is being bullied because "they are different." When looking at the differences that could lead to bullying, one will find quite a wide range of characteristics.

These include characteristics such as being obese, skinny, red-haired, bespectacled, wearing a hearing aid. When I have asked children whether children who look different are bullied more often then others, most children have said yes. However, research findings have been reported that throw doubt upon this judgment. & #8230;Dan Olweus claims that children in Sweden who look physically different are not bullied more often than most… We see a fat person being bullied and assume that obesity is the explanation, forgetting that many other bulky people are free form any kind of harassment. Yet doubt remains. The literature on disability and bullying makes it clear that some physical differences can and sometimes do give rise to bullying (Rigby 2002).

Olweus (1993) notes that physical differences other than size and strength make little or no difference to the likelihood of being bulled, but when the differences constitute 'disability' the situation may be different (Rigby 2002). There is quite a lot of information that suggests that disabled people are more likely than non-disabled people to be bullied.

Some forms of bullying of disabled children may take the form of teasing and mocking and it is frequently seen with children who have a speech impediment (Rigby 2002). In a study in England of 324 adults who have a stammer, 83% of the individuals reported being bullied in school (Hugh-Jones & Smith 1999; Rigby 2002). Seventy-one percent reported that other students bulled them at least weekly while 18% reported that they were bullied by other students on a daily basis (1999; 2002). Rigby (2002) notes that this is much more than what is normally found among children. Likewise, research conducted by Durkin and Conti-Ramsden (2010) suggest that adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI) tend to be more vulnerable to bullying and other problems with peer relations than other adolescents. Mishna (2003) also found that there is significant research to believe that children with learning disabilities are at an increased risk of victimization.