Bullying

Bullying in Schools Sociocultural Theory April Hart How many people are bullied in their lifetime' Statistics say everyone has been a victim of some form of bullying at least once in their life. Bullying is a major issue facing schools today. There are many types of preventive programs in place, but bullying is worse than ever. Many ask the question, why are students being bullied. In order to answer this question, bullying has to be defined and the root of the bullying must be discovered. Many researchers have different opinions to why bullying occurs and many educators have given tips and strategies to prevent bullying. So, why does bullying happen everyday in our schools' Bullying in its truest form is comprised of a series of repeated intentionally cruel incidents, involving the same children in the same bully and victim roles. It differs from harassment and discrimination in that the focus is rarely based on gender, race, or disability. Children bully because of abuse at home, feelings, and inferiority. The consequences and effects of bullying are that the bullies suffer mentally in future, commit suicide, or suffer from depression. The solutions of bullying are to get together, talk about it, and educate people. Bullying is more than just a part of growing up. It is a form of aggressive or violent behavior shown to children. Many ask what causes a person to bully another person. There are many different theories. Bullying and early socialization have always been linked together. There are quite a few proven cases that highlight the effects of early socialization on a person’s psyche. There are many things that happen in the early life of a person that leave lasting impressions on them. It is possible that a person is spurred on to treat another badly because he has been subject to similar harassments at an early age. Many parents cite the reason for sending children to daycare or preschool is to learn social skills prior to commencing school. During their time in early childhood settings, children develop their social skills, form and negotiate friendships, fulfil a social role and establish their social status, and form opinions about what social behaviours are acceptable and which are not. They do so within the social context of early childhood teachers/carers and their peers who may be aged between six weeks and six years. Every child has the right to feel valued and safe in these settings, and early childhood settings provide an ideal environment for introducing bullying prevention and intervention strategies. Several theories have sought to explain the existence of bullying behavior. Some developmental theorists perceive bullying as a child’s attempt to establish social dominance over other children. This dominance is established through developmentally appropriate actions; in the early years, when children lack complex social skills, they bully using physical means. As these overt acts are punished by disciplinarians, and as children develop a larger repertoire of verbal language, bullying becomes more verbal in nature. Finally, when children gain the skills to understand and participate in intricate social relationships, they begin to use these. Peer rejection theory provides an important context for socialization that fosters social skills that children learn and use through out their lives. Rejection theory is based on the premise that children that are rejected by their peers are not given the same opportunities to socialize and develop socialization skills. This further distances them from their peers relationships as a more covert type of bullying in order to establish power and social dominance. Is bullying a socially accepted custom' To bully a person would be considered acceptable as long as it stays within decent limits. On the other hand, if you are going to subject another human being, who is usually in your peer group, to a lot of inhuman behavior, it would be quite dangerous. Some believe it is based on the sociocultural theory. Sociocultural theory grew from the work of psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who believed that parents, caregivers, peers and the culture at large were responsible for the development of higher order functions. Lev Vygotsky has had increasing influence on the practices of early childhood professionals. The work of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky provided the grounds for the use of sociocultural learning theory. Vygotsky emphasized the vibrant interdependence between the social and individual procedures in learning. Vygotsky's work emphasized 3 major themes. First, he opposed that cognitive development is rooted in social interactions and refereed by nonconcrete symbols, which he referred to as tools. Second, Vygotsky stated that these tools are not created in seclusion but rather are products of the sociocultural growth of an aggressively involved individual. Third, Vygotsky viewed learning as a developmental or genetic process. This overall innate law of cultural development stressed the importance of concentrating on the process by which higher functioning is established. This theory suggests that social interaction leads to continuous step-by-step changes in the thoughts of children and their behavior that can vary from culture to culture. He believed that adults and more expert peers help children master culturally meaningful activities; the communication between them becomes part of children’s thinking. According to Vygotsky, a child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level. This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. A further perspective seeks to explain bullying as an outcome of the existence of specified social groups with different levels of power. The focus is typically on differences which have a historical and cultural basis, such as gender, race or ethnicity and social class. Major emphasis has been placed upon differences associated with gender. Society is seen as essentially patriarchal. Males are seen as generally having morepower than females as a consequence of societal beliefs that males should be the dominant sex. In order to maintain their dominance, boys feel justified in oppressing girls. Numerous studies have, in fact,indicated that boys are more likely than girls to initiate bullying. Sociocultural Learning affects the development of children and how children view themselves compared to others. It also affects how children treat other children within structured enviroment. Lev Vygotsky believed that children learn from their own experience. As a teacher I have grown to learn that Vygotsky’s findings are true in so many ways. Just from watching the children in my classroom I see that boys tend to bully more than girls. Boys also tend to show their frustration and anger violently, were girls tend to cry or shut down. The sociocultural perspectiveon bullying can have striking implications for how a school approaches the problem of bullying. Attention is directed towards how the school curriculum in its broadest sense can influence children to accept and respect sociocultural differences. It is suggested that not only should the school curriculum explicitly and directly address issues related to differences in gender, race or ethnicity and social class in order to counter prejudice and discrimination, but importantly the mode of delivery of the curricula should indirectly address bullying through the stimulus it provides to cooperative problem-solving,emotional sensitivity and independent critical thinking. Evidence has steadily accumulated about the negative consequences of student involvement in bully/victim problems. On the basis of longitudinal studies, it has been concluded that repeated exposure to being bullied can, and indeed often does,undermine the health and wellbeing of vulnerable students. It is also known that the perpetrators of bullying not only tend to experience depression and engage in suicidal thinking but also, if not corrected at school, are more likely to act violently as adults in the home andworkplace. Bullies are concerned only with their needs, and are willing to use other children to get what they want. Adults know this behavior is unacceptable, but often don’t know when they should step in and take action, if at all. Important factors to consider before making an action are how an adult feels about handling the situation, and how a child or teenager feels. But if a child is being bullied, what should the parent do to help them' They can listen to them and encourage them to talk freely about their problems. Don’t dismiss any important complaints they have about bullies. By helping the child learn social skills, the adult is making it easier for them to make friends instead of enemies. A parent can teach their child ways to resolve arguments without violent words or actions. But a child or a teenager must have a say in what they would like to do about resolving the problem of bullying. “If I was being bullied, I would want my mommy to stick up for me,” is a reasonable request from a small child, but a teen would more likely try to resolve without parent involvment. Most young children would like an elder to be there to support and defend them. However, the same issue with teenagers must differ. Be aware of symptoms that children may be victims of a bully. A drop in grades, torn clothes, or needing more money for lunch may be indicative of this. Victims of bullying behavior are most likely targeted because of emotional conduct more than physical traits. Typical victims tend to be timid, bashful, and lacking confidence in themselves. If an adult knows their child is being abused at school, they should contact the principal or person in charge immediately. Having a number of people aware of the problem will push along the attempt to fix it. Children bully because they are abused at home, to achieve popularity, they are in need of money to fulfill their wishes and desires, they are hungry and they need to eat at drink because they don’t get fed at home, they are coping with a serious family situation, they have learned violence at home, they have displaced anger, they feel powerless and out of control, and they lack self esteem. People may bully because they are jealous of someone and they may not know how it makes other people feel and the person who is bullying may be bullied him or herself too. The consequences and effects of bullying are very bad. According to statistics from Smithtown Elementary School, by age twenty-three children who were identified as bullies in Middle school suffered from depression and low self-esteem than their peers who were not bullies. By age twenty-four, sixty percent of identified bullies had a criminal record. Bullies are less likely to finish college or locate long-term employment. Children who are labeled as bullies by their peers require more support as adults from government agencies, have more court convictions, more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, have more anti-social personality disorders, and use more mental health services. Children are lonely and they suffer from punishments. The victims’ suffer from emotional stress and commit suicide later on. Police report that seven students from Markville Secondary School were reported as being bullies and they hit children to steal their lunch money but they won’t reveal the names of the children. They were accused of beating up the children, stealing from them, and causing them severe bodily harms. Internet bullying goes on too, which is easier to hide from adults' There was a boy who brought a lawsuit against the people who wrote insulting statements about him while he was attending high school. Pepler, a psychologist from York University recommended, parents should put the computer in the kitchen or someplace that they’re going to have an opportunity to walk by and see what their children are involved in.. Verbal bullying is far worse than physical bullying because it does not leave any physical scars and no one knows that that particular person is being bullied. This type of bullying makes the victim loose marks, isolated, sick, despair, depressed, and scared. This type of bullying makes the witnesses feel anxiety and fear. Bullying has become a worldwide issue. One third of the kids reported bullying or being bullied on a moderate or frequent basis. The solution to bullying is that we need to get together and work as a community to stop this horrible nightmare. As parents, if they find out that their child is a bully, they need to stay calm, ask the child what he or she has been doing, ask the child if they have behaved like this before, contact school and work out an action plan with school, set limits and clear consequences, and teach their child good coping skills. The parents should teach their children how to manage good anger management and conflict solving skills, make it clear that violence is always unacceptable collect facts and make an individual plan, remain calm and be patient, and listen to the child and communicate with the school. If the child says that he or she was just kidding around, ask them questions about the child that they were kidding around with. For example, their likes and dislikes, their full name, the name of their parents and siblings. If they can’t answer these questions, then tell them that it’s not just kidding around. Given that programs designed to reduce peer victimisation have met with only limited success, it is appropriate to examine the range of explanations offered toaccount for bullying in schools and their implications for school policies and practices. Such explanations have been examined and each shown to make some contribution to our understanding of bully/victim problems in schools. Each has had some impact on what schools are doing to counter bullying. However, no single view is sufficiently comprehensive in providing a definitive answer as to what is “best practice”. Therefore, in applying anti-bullying policies and procedures, schools should consider the strengths and limitations of each suggested approach and thea ppropriateness of its application to particular bully/victim problems. Bullying is a major problem in schools and society. If bullying is not stopped in school, students will be adult bullies. Recent acts of violence, such as the Virginia Tech shooting, have proven students who are bullied are scarred for life. Many victims of bullying, later act out in violence when adults. I was bullied as a young girl at school for being overweight. I have emotional scars that do not show. I have struggled with weight problems and eating disorder, due to being bullied at a young age. I want to solve the problem and help students be respectful and love one another. God created us as equal and we should love one another. God made us different for a reason and we are created in His image. Reference Barry, J. (2007). Environment & social theory. New York, London: Routledge. Boulden, W. (Spring, 2010). The behavior intervention support team (BIST) program: Underlying theories. Reclaiming Children & Youth 19(1), 7-21. Espelage, D., Napitano, S., & Swearer, S. (2009). Bullying intervention & prevention: realistic strategies for schools. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Hoy, W. K., & Miskel, C. G. 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