Introduction

Definitions

Michele Elliott, author of the book 101 Ways to Deal with Bullying, defines bullying as the use of aggression with the intention of hurting another person. It results in pain and distress for the victim, who has in no way provoked the attack. Usually the bullying is a campaign against a child, but there may be just one incident. Bullying can be:

• physical—pushing, kicking, punching, hitting or any use or threatened use of physical violence
• verbal — name-calling, sarcasm, spreading rumours, nasty teasing, writing hurtful things about some one, leaving hurtful notes
• emotional — excluding someone from activities or conversations, being deliberately unfriendly, tormenting someone, racial taunting, making threatening or rude gestures
• menacing — demanding that some one hand over money or possessions, demanding to copy someone's homework, or threatening violence should the victim or bystanders report the bullying.

___

BBC Education, writing in the UK context: When people mention bullying, many automatically think of bullying in school. A study carried out by Sheffield University in 1994 revealed that, in Britain, ten per cent of primary children and four per cent of those in secondary schools are bullied once a week — 350,000 8 to 10-year-olds and 100,000 secondary school pupils countrywide. One expert says that 1.3 million children a year are involved in bullying. And it is believed that bullying leads to as many as 12 children a year committing suicide.

Bullying is responsible for 30-50 per cent of all stress-related illness in the workplace. This, says the Health & Safety Executive, costs employers 80 million working days and up to £2 billion in lost revenue every year. It also results in poor morale and productivity and higher staff turnover.

Bullying forms a large part of domestic abuse in the home and can lead to violence and extremely serious psychological damage. It is very common: 53 per cent of adults are verbally bullied by their partners, and 15 per cent are physically bullied. What some may disparagingly call 'nagging' or 'put-downs' can ruin your life if they continue unremittingly. Intimidation or actual physical abuse can make you feel trapped, turning your home — which should be a refuge — into a prison. Men suffer bullying as well as women, even though they may find it harder to admit to themselves, much less to others.

___

In Scotland, in a special feature in 1999, The Sunday Post wrote: Bullying can be a group or an individual against someone who can't defend him or herself and who is hurt by what happens. The bullying need not be deliberate. The hurt can be emotional or physical. The emotional effects are often harder to deal with. Hurt lingers after bruises have healed and people are often hurt more by words than physical abuse. Bullying takes many forms — excluding someone from a group, extorting money from someone, simple name-calling, physical violence. Bullying might be part of human behaviour but it's not acceptable.

Readings
The following readings and other relevant material are accessible on this site:

Bullying in schools (ERIC Digest)

Schools attack the roots of violence (ERIC Digest)

Michele Elliott: 101 Ways to Deal with Bullying (Book review/feature)

Children on Bullying — from the UK magazine Who Cares?

Ken Rigby: What can we do about bullying?

NewsDesk feature: Stopping the Bully Cycle

CYC-ONLINE article: Hate-Motivated Behaviour

CYC-ONLINE article: Stopping the Bullying

CYC-ONLINE article: Violence-Prevention Workshop

Responding To Hate At School   The entire manual in full-color PDF format.  www.splcenter.org/pdf/rthas.pdf

References

Action against Bullying: Drawing from Experience. Scottish Council for Research in Education, 1992, 38 p. Johnstone,-Margaret; And-Others Antecedents of Aggression and Peer Victimization: A Prospective Study. National Inst. of Mental Health (DHHS), Bethesda, MD, 31 p. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (60th, New Orleans, LA, March 25-28, 1993). Schwartz,-David

Australian Journal of Early Childhood; v19 n1 p3-10 Mar 1994 Peer Victimization at School. Slee,-Phillip-T.; Rigby,-Ken ISSN-0312-5033

British Journal of Special Education; v22 n1 p24-27 Mar 1995 Bullying and the Child Who Stammers. Mooney,-Siobhan; Smith,-Peter-K. ISSN-0952-3383

Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do. Blackwell Publishers/AIDC, 140 p. Olweus,-Dan ISBN-0-631-19241-7

Child Development; v62 n4 p812-26 Aug 1991 The Role of Aggression in Peer Relations: An Analysis of Aggression Episodes in Boys' Play Groups. Coie,-John-D.; And-Others ISSN-0009-3920

Children's Problems Caused by Consistent Rejection in Early Elementary School. Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, 25 p. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association (99th, Washington, DC, August 16-20, 1992). Cillessen,-Antonius-H.-N.; And-Others

Dawkins, J. L. (1996). Bullying, physical disability and the paediatric patient. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology,38, 603-612.

Developing Student's Knowledge, Intervention Skills, and a Willingness To Participate in Decreasing School Bullying: A Secondary School's Use of the Curriculum Approach. Doctoral Practicum, Nova University, 85 p. Young,-Gordon-H.

Early Child Development and Care; v88 p31-41 1993 Peer Persuasion: A Study of Children's Dominance Strategies. Williams,-David-E.; Schaller,-Kristi-A. ISSN-0300-4430

Early Child Development and Care; v87 p47-57 1993 Bullying: A Preliminary Investigation of Its Nature and the Effects of Social Cognition. Slee,-Phillip-T. ISSN-0300-4430

Education and Treatment of Children; v17 n3 p356-69 Aug 1994 Factors Associated with the Experience of School Violence among General Education, Leadership Class, Opportunity Class, and Special Day Class Pupils. Morrison,-Gale-M.; And-Others ISSN-0748-8491

Education Canada; v35 n1 p12-18 Spr 1995 Bullying at School: A Canadian Perspective. Charach,-Alice; And-Others ISSN-0013-1253

Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology; v14 n1 p59-71 1994 Bullying and Student Distress: Beneath the Tip of the Iceberg. Branwhite,-Tony ISSN-0144-3410

Educational Research; v36 n2 p123-34 Sum 1994 Who Gets Bullied? The Effect of School, Gender and Ethnic Group. Siann,-Gerda; And-Others ISSN-0013-1881

Educational Research; v35 n1 p3-25 Spr 1993 A Survey of the Nature and Extent of Bullying in Junior/Middle and Secondary Schools. Whitney,-Irene; Smith,-Peter-K. ISSN-0013-1881

Educational Studies; v19 n3 p307-21 1993 Bullying: Teacher's Views and School Effects. Siann,-Gerda; And-Others ISSN-0305-5698

Executive Educator; v14 n11 p20-22 Nov 1992 What Kids Say about Bullying. Hazler,-Richard-J.; And-Others ISSN-0161-9500

Finding Out about Bullying. Scottish Council for Research in Education Spotlights #43, 4 p. Mellor,-Andrew

From Fistfights to Gunfights: Preparing Teachers and Administrators To Cope with Violence in School. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (Chicago, IL, February 16-19, 1994), 10 p. Hughes,-H.-Woodrow

Harvard Educational Review; v65 n2 p145-62 Sum 1995 Sexual Harassment in School: The Public Performance of Gendered Violence. Stein,-Nan ISSN-0017-8055ealy, K. (1995) Care and connection: Responding to young mothers' experience of violence  Youth Studies Australia, v.14 n.1 pp.46-51

Helping Children Grow Up in the 90's: A Resource Book for Parents and Teachers. National Association of School Psychologists, Silver Spring, MD., 345 p. ISBN-0-932955-07-X

Japanese Special Education Today: Issues and Implications. National Inst. of Special Education, Tokosuka (Japan), 1992, 16 p. Narita,-Shigeru

Journal of Counseling & Development; v72 n4 p416-20 Mar-Apr 1994 The Perceived Roles of Bullying in Small-Town Midwestern Schools. Oliver,-Ronald; And-Others ISSN-0748-9633

Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Problems; v2 n1 p25-29 Spr 1993 Bullying in Europe and the United States. Hoover,-John-H.; Juul,-Kristen ISSN-1064-7023

Journal of Humanistic Education and Development; v32 n2 p76-84 Dec 1993 Perceived Victimization by School Bullies: New Research and Future Direction. Hoover,-John-H.; And-Others ISSN-0735-6846

Journal of Humanistic Education and Development; v29 n4 p143-50 Jun 1991 Student Perceptions of Victimization by Bullies in School. Hazler,-Richard-J.-And-Others ISSN-0735-6846

Learning; v22 n6 p38-41 Feb 1994 Bullying Breeds Violence. You Can Stop It! Hazler,-Richard-J. ISSN-0090-3167

Lessons from Japan. Exit Project, Indiana University at South Bend, 1990, 38 p. Rogers,-Bruce

Multicultural Teaching; v13 n2 p18-20 Spr 1995 Dropping the Bully to Find the Racist. Loach,-Bill; Bloor,-Cynthia ISSN-0263-0869

Personality and Individual Differences; v16 n1 p183-86 Jan 1994 Peer Victimization and Its Relationship to Self-Concept and Depression among Schoolgirls. Neary,-Ann; Joseph,-Stephen ISSN-0191-8869

Phi-Delta-Kappan; v75 n2 p130-32 Oct 1993 The Dark Underside of Japanese Education. Young,-Morley ISSN-0031-7217

Principal; v74 n1 p26-29 Sep 1994 Sexual Harassment at an Early Age. Strauss,-Susan ISSN-0271-6062

Preventing Youth Violence and Aggression and Promoting Safety in Schools. Bureau for Pupil Services, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, 27 p. Mulhern,-Sean; And-Others

Promoting "Fair Play": Interventions for Children as Victims and Victimizers. Annual Meeting of the National Association of School Psychologists (26th, Seattle, WA, March 4-5, 1994), 53 p. Wilczenski,-Felicia-L.; And-Others

Rigby, K. (1995). The motivation of Australian adolescent schoolchildren to engage in group discussions about bullying. The Journal of Social Psychology, 135 (6), 773-774.

This article discusses how willing high school students would talk about the bulling the occurs in their school with other students (conducted in Australian schools). One hundred and twenty-seven boys and 155 girls were administered questionnaires. Boys were found to be more reluctant to discuss this issue than girls. Also the students were asked if they had been bullied in the past year and how often. More girls indicated that they had been bullied more than once. Having few friends, believing that school was not a safe place, and avoiding school more frequently because of bullying was correlated with high degree of victimization. This was an interesting article; but relatively short. This study was done with Australian children only and I wonder if the study would turn out different using American children.

Rigby, K., & Cox, I. (1997). Cooperativeness and bully/victim problems among Australian schoolchildren. The Journal of Social Psychology, 137 (3), 357-368.

Rigby, K. (1998) Peer relations at school and the health of adolescents Youth Studies Australia,  v.17 n.1 pp.13-17

Safe Schools, Safe Students: A Collaborative Approach to Achieving Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free Schools Conducive to Learning -- Conference (Washington, DC, October 28-29, 1994). Bully-Proofing Your School: A Comprehensive Elementary Curriculum. Garrity,-Carla; And-Others, 5 p.

School Counselor; v42 n2 p137-46 Nov 1994 Early Lessons in Bullying and Victimization: The Help and Hindrance of Children's Literature. Oliver,-Ronald-L.; And-Others ISSN-0036-6536

School Counselor; v41 n3 p199-202 Jan 1994 Family Issues and Interventions in Bully and Victim Relationships. Oliver,-Ronald; And-Others ISSN-0036-6536

School Psychology Review; v23 n2 p165-74 1994 Bullies and Their Victims: Understanding a Pervasive Problem in the School Batsche,-George-M.; Knoff,-Howard-M. ISSN-0279-6015

Slee, P.T.  (1994) Life at school used to be good: Victimisation and health concerns of secondary school students Youth Studies Australia,  v.13 n.4 pp.20-23

Smith,  Chris (1999) Violence within relationships: What young people have to say Youth Studies Australia, v.18 n.3 pp.18-24

Stuart, Graeme (1999)  Conflict resolution and non-violence workshops with young people Youth Studies Australia, v.18 n.2 pp.37-41

Student Behaviour Problems: Positive Initiatives and New Frontiers. Selected Papers from the National Conference (5th, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia, 1993) Australian Council for Educational Research, Ltd., 286 p. Evans,-David, Ed.; And-Others. ISBN-0-86431-146-X

Supporting Schools Against Bullying: The Second SCRE Anti-Bullying Pack. Scottish Council for Research in Education (SCRE); 91 p. ISBN-0-947833-78-1

Tomsen, S. (1997) Youth violence and the limits of moral panic Youth Studies Australia,  v.16 n.1 pp.25-30

Update on Law Related Education; v19 n2 p4-8 Spr 1995 - Issue on: "Law, Governance, and School Violence." A Close Look at School Violence. Van-Acker,-Richard ISSN-0147-8648

Violence in the Schools: Programs and Policies for Prevention. Canadian Education Association, Toronto (Ontario), 75 p. Also available in French. MacDougall,-Jyl ISBN-0-920315-62-3

Discussion
Contributions from our e-mail discussion group members:

1. There are a number of good resources, but one we are recommending is "Bullyproofing our Unit; addressing bullying in children's units", prepared by South Lanraksire Council in Scotland, and is available from The
Centre for Residential Child Care (see website at http://www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/CRCC/. This is a training pack for staff to work on together, and includes a video. If you want more information or to order a copy, please contact either myself (Meg Lindsay) or Tracy Wilson at The Centre.

Meg Lindsay OBE, Director, [margaret.lindsay@strath.ac.uk]
The Centre for Residential Child Care,
University of Strathclyde,
Lymehurst,
74, Southbrae Drive,
Glasgow, G13 1SU,
SCOTLAND.
___

2. Try "Making a Difference in Bullying" by Depra Peplar and Wendy Craig. You can probably access it through The LaMarsh Centre on Violence and Conflict Resolution at York University.

Patti MacKenna [mackenna@interlog.com]

___

3. The Prepare Curriculum by Goldstein 
Building Peaceable Schools by Bodine et al.
and many other materials at Research Press. 2612 North Mattis Ave,
Champaign, Illinois, 61821. 
They also have a web site and toll free number.
There is also a website called Behaviourists for Social Responsibility that has some really good resources on anti violence work, refusal skills, peace building. http://www.bfsr.org/

The Quakers also have lots of excellent resources and have a catalog.

Linda Hill

Internet