Bullying and unhealthy psychological atmosphere.

Its impact on quality of education.

Danya Shahid

OCTOBER 1, 2018
MARIUM LODHI
Midterm
Chapter 2- Literature Review
Introduction

Bullying is defines as an aggressive behavior, a plan to hurt other person who is generally considered
week or have less power as compare to the person who is bullying. Bullying is been there for so many
years in different ways and people used different kinds of ways and techniques to bully others around
them. In this case the victim is unable to defend himself which gives the chance to the bullies to repeat
their behavior with those victims. Bullying can be defined as “Systematic Abuse of Power” (Smith P.
K., 2016). Bullying occurs in different stages of life in a different manner like school bullying and
workplace bullying.
A study reveals that victims of bullying demonstrated risks of severe mental health issues and different
psychological symptoms were visible like headache, backache, sleeping disorder, loosing appetite,
anxiety, depression, loneliness at the age group of 7-16. Victims can also think about self-harming like
suicides and self-injuries. Study also suggested that victims and bullies both experience lowest life
satisfaction higher level of depression anxiety and negative effects in different situations of life. It’s also
found out that involvement in risky situations which is part of their routine can lead to victim of bully
(Sujung & Jeoung, 2018)

Theoretical background

Bullying and its strategies are evolving with time, different types of methods are used by bullies to harass
or abuse others around who they considered as less powerful or week in the sense of intellect or physical
appearance. As this problem is increasing researches on this issues increased in the last 30 years.
Researchers identified different types of roles played by people when bully takes place for e.g. ringleader
(leads the bullying), assistant (who joins), reinforce (encourages), in some cases victim also becomes
bully which is called bully/victim a proactive victim who irritates others and in return gets attacked, then
there is a defender and a bystander who ignores it. (Smith P. K., 2016).
According to (Sujung & Jeoung, 2018) bullying is an action of harassment continuously happens with
someone in a repetitive manner which includes intentional negative actions and reactions and
uncontrollable power relationships between victim and bully. Conceptualize bullying defined as a
repeated and systematic abuse of power. It is also said that bullies were victims before they became
bully. This reaction is a reactive aggression because they want to fight back what they suffered.

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It is state that 31% of the children experienced bullying in their childhood, 43% of the children
experienced bullying in different forms like on the basis of discrimination, being an outsider or different.
(Brown & Taylor, 2008)
Bullying also have adverse effect the health and well-being of a children, the study in London shows
that 1/4th of the students were bullied in school and its becoming an international focus of concern.
School are also taking action to overcome this issue by having anti-bullying programs. (Brown & Taylor,
2008)
Bullying is a type of damage that not only affects the life of a child but also its education. It is a serious
weakness of education system. As child happiness and well-being is important at the time of schooling
it’s also visible that bullying have a long term effect which can also be felt during adulthood, as bullying
affects educational achievements negatively this can also indirectly influence employment prospects.
Another issue could be children starts to have negative experience of schooling and may not be willing
to have higher education in future which will affect their employment. (Brown & Taylor, 2008)
(Camodeca, Goossens, & Schuengel, 2002) Defined bullying as when he/she is exposed repeatedly to
negation actions and reactions of others which may be physical, verbal or psychological and they are
intentional nature. It is also defined as power imbalance, it’s now becomes a social issue which take
place in groups of people targeting one which is named as victim, who have less popularity, small circle
of friends. In this case victim suffer from different type of stress like emotional imbalance, lower self-
esteem, depression and negativity towards life and people around them.
This study (Camodeca, Goossens, & Schuengel, 2002) determines two different types of aggression
named as reactive and proactive aggression, in reactive aggression is defensive reaction towards bullies
and is mostly out of anger reaction whereas proactive aggression is on purpose have a goal and cooled-
blooded action, proactive aggression also leads to another type of aggression called instrumental
aggression which is object or person oriented used to frighten or control a peer. Bullies usually
demonstrate proactive aggression but some other studies also claims that bullies shows both type of
aggression because a victim can become a bully in future.
(Sujung & Jeoung, 2018) Combined two challenging theories of social control and lifestyle routine
activities to understand the risk and factors of physical verbal and social bullying. It was also examined
that children who are close to their parent’s teachers or friends were less likely to bully another person,
having a strong relationship with family and friends will lead to a positive outcome. It also indicated that
students who are associated with people who are lawless are most likely to be victimize by physical,
verbal or social bullying.

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Aggressive behavior leads to birth of bullies, because students having anger control issues or aggressive
in nature cause distress to other students who have less power or are not popular in school (victim).
According to the study 15% bullies were recorded, and 9% were reported for bullying children on weekly
basis. Bullying have long-term negative impact on all of those who are part of it including victim, bully
and peer group. This is major problem to be seen or observed in school on different level of education,
teachers play a vital role to decrease the ratio of bullies implementing different types of program which
will degrade the idea of bullying for e.g. intervention, attitude and behavior assessment programs. 85%
of the teachers reported that they observe bullying and stop them from doing almost every day whether
its classroom or playground (Craig, Henderson, & Murphy, 2000)
Racist attitude also comes under bullying its more of a verbal type of bullying which common and serious
problem among students who belong to different countries and races. 48% of the students reported that
they have seen racial fights in school and 77% of them said that they were called from different racial
names which was disrespectful. Girls and boys both part of victim and bully using physical and verbal
forms of bullying by having fights, name calling etc. 79% of the African-Caribbean boys were having
physical fights where as 43% of the female were also reported to be bully and victim. (Eslea & Mukhtar,
2000)
The study (Eslea & Mukhtar, 2000) stated that bully was more common among boys as compare to girls
but there was no relationship between ethnic group and gender bullies.

Forms of bullying

Bullying have 3 major forms named as physical, verbal, and social/relational and cyberbullying.

Direct Bullying

It is also called physical form of bullying such as hitting, pushing, having fights, it’s more of a face to
face in nature in direct bullying we can also have taunting behavior, mean comments, threatening gesture
(Erica Dolson;, 2010).

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Indirect bullying:

Indirect bullying is a form of bullying in which spreading rumors about the person, subtle behavior, the
bully not always target the person directly they try to get it done with the help of other person. Actions
like excluding the target from the group of people or making them famous for something they are not in
a negative sense (Erica Dolson;, 2010). It is a most damaging types of bullying and is mostly use among
girls following the behavior of spreading rumors, gossiping, about the target and destroying reputation
or the target. It can also be called as girl-to-girl bullying.

Verbal bullying:

Verbal bullying is more common such as name calling, teasing in a hurtful way. Verbal bullying destroy
persons image and have its effects for a long period of time bullied in school and association with
different names can make people remember you in negative way and have a negative effect on the victim.
In future that person can be recalled by that name for fun which will destroy the victim’s self-esteem.
Verbal bullying is considered to be strongest of all of the other forms and most of the suicidal acts are
because they were victim of verbal bullying. (Paul Deardorff)

Relational or social bullying

Relational bullying is mostly used when the bully is trying to control someone particular in group or they
want to improve their social status among the group or mostly try to lead or head all the members by
getting most of the attention. This can be observed in both boys and girls who are part of groups (Paul
Deardorff).

Cyber bullying

Cyber bullying is now main issue within schools and outside schools. This type of bullying is
uncontrollable because it spreads the news rapidly with the help of mms and instant internet connections
available all the time. Unknown and threatening confessions about another person on internet disclosing
secrets being anonymous. Use of technology is a negative manner comes under cyberbullying. Sites like

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Facebook, Myspace, and twitter are generally used to spread or make the information viral of the targeted
person. (Craig, Henderson, & Murphy, 2000)
It’s hard for the students and other to stay away from social networks and if they are victims of
cyberbullying it seems impossible for them to escape from it. The bully is just a text, mms, or Facebook
message away from the target (Paul Deardorff).

Age Differences

Being the person who bully other is sometime unjustified because of the age, like bullying at the level
of nursery it shows that they frequently change their behavior they are not all the time bully. Sometimes
it’s also confused between aggression and bullying because at the age of nursery level children are most
of the time are going through phases in which they are aggressive and they will treat the other person
around them in a g=negative way which cannot be considered as bullying. Bullying is generally on
purpose (Smith P. K., 2016)
Bullying nature decreases as the age grows but there is also workplace bullying in which the age group
lie under 18-60. Bullying becomes more aggressive as the person grows up who generally have anger
control issues at the age of 11to 14 years, it’s more of a physical indirect and relational bullying. (Smith
P. K., 2016)

Gender differences

Boys are most likely to be bullies and the targets are equal in gender, girls are most likely to be defenders
whereas boys are into more physical bullying because they have physical strength. Girls usually follow
indirect form of bullying as compare to boys and they both are now more into cyberbullying (Smith P.
K., 2016)

Role of parents, teachers and administrative

Role of teachers:
In different studies it is found that teachers are more likely to ignore or are unable to witness act of
bullying. Sometimes teachers are not able to resolve the conflict or issue of bullying, they not know what
to do when such incident occurs. To minimize this factor schools should be training teachers on how to
identify such acts and how to react (Jacibsen & Bauman, 2007)

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(Craig, Henderson, & Murphy, 2000) Found that teachers consider physical and verbal bullying more
serious as compare to relational bullying. They were trained to intervene physical bullying but they had
hard time to identify relational bullying because it’s more verbal and have different ways of doing it.

Role of administrators
Administrators are most likely to be concerned with all the student in their school and they are keeping
the record of students who are performing well and who is not and why. In the case of bullying they
should be well aware of what is happening in the school and the reasons behind it. They are well trained
to address social concerns and how to design and implement any program to stop any negative act
happening in the institute for e.g. Bullying (Jacibsen & Bauman, 2007).
(Erica Dolson;, 2010) Stated that administrative need to recognize bullying activities happening and
observe the behaviors of students and take important actions to stop the bully. Counselling hours should
be set with the kids who are facing bullies and also with the ones who are bullying them to bring out the
best in them and change their negative actions to positive ones.

Role of parents
Parents should have interactive sessions with their kids so that they start feeling more comfortable around
them and are able to discuss issues they are facing in school. Parents of children who are being bullied
should ask their children how and when it happened what exactly happened to take the action (Erica
Dolson;, 2010).

Parents of children who are bullying other kids should also have a talk with one another and should ask
them why and what are the reason behind such behavior, they should set some guidelines and parameters
for their children and convey the message of how they are expecting them to behave with other students
in school. It’s necessary for parents to explain their children what are their beliefs regarding bullying
behavior how unacceptable it is by society and what will be the consequences of such behavior in future
for the victims (Erica Dolson;, 2010).

Role of students who are aware of bullying

In school students are playing vital role in changing society and thoughts of people around them, students
who are not the victims and also not one of the bullies but are aware of someone being victim of bully
should take a stand against the bully and send the message that bullying is not acceptable. They can
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degrade bully is different ways for e.g. stopping the gossips, support the victim and become his or her
strength in public and private, alert any adult or higher authorities about it to take possible action against
it (Erica Dolson;, 2010).

Reasons that lead to bullying

Bullying occurs when there is imbalance of power, intellectual power, being rich and the other person is
not that rich, I most of the cases the victim is the one who is mostly the silent one or is different in some
manner, who have different lifestyle or a background which does not fit the criteria or the culture of the
school set by the students most if the time. It is usually known as social, verbal and emotional difference.
People who travel are most likely to be bullied for their particular race, religion, and ethnicity. Sometime
disability of person makes him the victim because he/she is week somehow (Erica Dolson;, 2010).
In schools younger students are also bullied or being used by senior kids physically and verbally both
because it’s easy to scare kids who are younger and most probably they will not report to their parents
and higher staff about because they are scared of the outcomes they will be facing at school (Smith, et
al., 2008).

Bullying in Pakistan

Pakistan is also facing problem regarding the topic of bullying. But as compare to other countries it’s
less visible. Physical bullying and harassment is being reported in most of the cases but verbal or indirect
bully are not generally being reported to the higher authorities in schools and work places. In Pakistan it
also seen that it is found more in boys than girls. In a study it shows that 45% of the bully was recorded
and 35% in female. Because males are mostly aggressive in nature they become part of fights more easily
and frequently. People who are victim of bullying were found lonely in the crowd, lack of sleep and
becoming absent minded and moving towards depressive stage. (Sheikh, 2013)

The study also shows that these students who belong to class of 8-9 age group of 14-15, are more likely
to be victims of bullying in case teachers and parents should observe these sign and try to have a positive
conversation so that they can create a healthy relation with the kid and help them fight back the
depression stage caused by bully. (Sheikh, 2013)

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In Pakistan there are lack of services to keep a check and balance of children health and lack of guidance
for children to meet the needs of children. 33% of the children had problem of being anti-social. Children
spent 1500 hours in school per year approx. And they have a different experience as compare to parent’s
thoughts (Syed, Hussein, & Haidry, 2009). Lacking of abilities and not able to cope with other children
around them have a negative impact of child image and end up being victim of bully because of
intellectual disabilities.
Institutes are now focusing on having human resource department under which they also have
departments that control harassment cases for both students and teachers working there to take possible
actions, to make the institute a safe place to study and work.

Conclusion
Bullying is becoming more and more common in each and every city consider it to be small in size or
large. People are reporting harassment cases, bullying cases happens with their children in school by
people in power and are threatening their children because of which students are not willing to go school
or bunk school to stay away from the bully which directly affects education of the victim because they
are unable to focus on their studies and become more stress about the comments passed on them
regarding their looks their living standards. Schools are focusing of how to train their teachers so that
they can easily identify the person who is a victim of bully and can take further actions to solve the issue.
Parents play an important role in the children life, they are the support system at the end of the day, and
they should take time out to discuss different topics with their kids so that they can be aware of if their
child is not the victim or the reason of bully.