How to stop bullying at schools?

Creating An Anti-Bullying Culture In Secondary Schools: Characterists to Consider When Constructing Appropriate Anti-Bullying Programs

Author(s): Joseph R. Jones and Sharon Murphy Augustine

Source: American Secondary Education , Summer 2015, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Summer 2015), pp. 73-84

Published by: Dwight Schar College of Education, Ashland University

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43694219

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American Secondary Education 43(3) Summer 2015

Creating An Anti-Bullying Culture In Secondary Schools: Characterists to

Consider When Constructing Appropriate Anti-Bullying Programs

Authors

Joseph R. Jones, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Tift College of Educa- tion at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia.

Sharon Murphy Augustine, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Tift Col-

lege of Education at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia.

Abstract

Bullying in schools is a tremendous challenge that many secondary educators are attempting to address within their school environments. However ; educa- tors are often unsure of the attributes of an effective anti-bullying program; thus , they tend to create programs on a "trial and error" basis. This article provides an overview of the problem of bullying and discusses six character- istics that should be included in attempting to create an effective anti-bullying program: community involvement , an assessment of the school climate , a consensus on the definition of bullying , student and parental engagement , professional development for faculty and staff, and ongoing program evalu- ation.

Bullying is not a new phenomenon in schools, but the topic is currently experiencing a renaissance of scholarly attention (Miller, Burns, & Johnson, 2013; Vail, 2009). Increased attention anti-bullying curricula in schools, es- pecially in secondary school environments, has occurred within the context of horrifying, deadly, and highly publicized events such as the Columbine school shootings, which resulted in the murder of twelve students and one teacher and the suicides of the two teen gunmen.

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American Secondary Education 43(3) Summer 2015

Anti-Bullying Culture Jones & Augustine

In her recent article on gun violence in American schools, Gupta (201 5) documented 55 school shootings between 1991 and 2013, which further shows a pattern of school violence. That pattern also includes cyberbully- ing, which has been linked to the teen suicides of Ryan Halligan in Vermont in 2003, Megan Meier in Missouri in 2006, Jessica Logan in Ohio in 2009, and Tyler Clementi in New Jersey in 2010. All of these teenagers committed suicide after being targeted by individuals using social media (Wood, 201 5). Vail (2009) noted that all forms of bullying have been linked by the "FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice" to school violence and low academic achievement (p. 43). All educators, especially secondary school educators, must address what the Centers for Disease Control (201 1 ) has labeled a pub- lic health crisis.

A Bullying Epidemic Statistics about students' lived experiences in schools describe a dire en- vironment of bullying. Haynie, et al. (2001) postulated that up to 45% of students in schools were involved in bullying practices, either as the target or as the bully. It has been estimated that 25% of students are bullied on a regu- lar basis, and 20% of students have bullied their peers (Bullying Statistics, 2013). In another study, 37.9% of students surveyed were involved in bully- ing behavior (O'Brennan & Sawyer, 2008). According to researchers (Hanish & Guerra, 2002; Hawker & Boulton, 2000), targets of bullying behaviors are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and loss of self-esteem.

Cyberbullying is bullying behavior that involves the use of electronic media, such as cell phones and social media. This type of bullying is differ- ent because harassment may be posted anonymously and may happen off school property; thus, it is more difficult for school administrators to address. 1 6% of high school students are cyberbullied (CDC, 201 1 ). Students who are cyberbullied experience the same detrimental results as traditional bullying (stopbullying.org).

Factors Associated with Bullying

In discussing the bullying epidemic, it may be beneficial to view a snapshot of factors that impact levels of harassment in secondary schools. Data from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES, 2013) show that racial bullying is a tremendous challenge facing educators. In fact, racial bullying is quite rampant among adolescents. Every minority group experienced being a target of bullying behaviors, and Asian Americans reported receiving the most harassment (NCES, 2013).

Data from the NCES (2013) indicate that lower socio-economic students are at a higher risk of being bullied because of their socioeconomic status… Students from impoverished families are at a higher risk for becoming tar- geted and victimized by others in their schools (Due, et al., 2009). Gender

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American Secondary Education 43(3) Summer 2015

Jones & Augustine Anti-Bullying Culture

also plays a role in the bullying epidemic with a majority of female adoles- cents being harassed by other females. As female students continue through secondary school, reports of harassment for girls are dramatically higher than boys (NCES, 2013). A majority of female bullying exists within high school settings and connects to the "mean girl" phenomenon in which girls demean and discipline each other (Garandeau & Cillessen, 2006).

Marginalized Students

As the data above support, bullying is a tremendous challenge in schools as it relates to race, class, and gender, but there are two specific marginal- ized groups who are the recipients of a majority of the harassment from their school-age peers: non-heterosexual students and students with special needs. One's perceived sexual orientation is one of the strongest contributing factors impacting bullying behavior, and the effects of homophobic bullying are devastating for students whose sexual orientation and gender expression differs from the majority population. Statistics reported by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network in their National School Climate Survey (GLSEN, 201 1 ), create a picture of what students face in schools on a regular basis:

• 84.9% of students heard 'gay' used in a negative way frequently or often at school

• 91 .4% reported that they felt distressed because of this language

• 71 .3% heard other homophobic remarks frequently or often.

• 56.9% of students reported hearing homophobic remarks from their teachers or other school staff.

• 81.9% were verbally harassed (e.g., called names or threatened) in the past year because of their sexual orientation.

• 38.3% were physically harassed (e.g., pushed or shoved) in the past year because of their sexual orientation.

Although these data are alarming, truly conceptualizing the problem of ho- mophobic bullying requires putting a face to the grim statistics. Consider the case of Madison, a 20 year-old college student:

[Madison] grew up in a middle class family, one where he was ex- pected to attend college. Although he had not come out in high school, everyone knew he was gay. They constantly harassed him, and he avoided sports because of the harassment and possible locker room assaults. He learned how to skip school without his parents finding out. To him, high school was not about having fun, but rather it was about survival (Jones, 2014b, p.3).

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American Secondary Education 43(3) Summer 2015

Anti-Bullying Culture Jones & Augustine

Students with special needs are another marginalized population within K-12 schools who receive a great amount of harassment. Students who self- reported taking ADHD medication, for instance, experienced more bullying than their peers did (Unnever & Cornell, 2003; Wiener & Mak, 2009). The online community AbilityRath.org (2014) provides statistics, resources, and networking opportunities for parents and educators. Their research reports disturbing statistics similar to those that non-heterosexual students encoun- tered:

• Students with special needs are two to three times more likely to be bullied than the general population of the school building.

• 47% of parents reported that their children had been hit by peers or siblings.

• 50% of parents reported their child was scared of their peers.

• 9% of the students with special needs were attacked by a group of students and hurt in their "private parts."

• 12% of parents indicated their child had never been invited to a birthday party.

• 6% of students were almost always picked last for teams.

• 3% of students ate alone at lunch every day (abilitypath.org).

Additionally, students with special needs were told not to tattle on others who had bullied them nearly twice as often as their non-special education counterparts. AbilityPath (2014) presents the case of Tyler Long as an ex- ample of the devastating effects of bullying.

[Tyler's] diagnosis with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) caused unique personality traits that made him unpopular in school. His mother, Tina Long, says being different made him a target of bul- lying. Classmates took his things, spat in his food and called Tyler names. On October 17, 2009, 17-year-old Tyler's battle with the bullies led to a tragic end. Depressed; he hanged himself before school and committed suicide. It devastated his family and engulfed a community to seek answers. (AbilityPath, 2014)

Bullying behaviors create hostile and oppressive climates for all students, especially non-heterosexual and students with special needs. It is not enough to be disheartened, outraged, or even angry that these statistics and personal accounts exist in the very place where students should learn, be safe, and be transformed by educational experiences rather than be targets of the bully-

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American Secondary Education 43(3) Summer 2015

Jones & Augustine Anti-Bullying Culture

ing. Instead, school systems must take action to change the climates of the school.

Creating an Empathetic School Teachers often assume that children come into school with the ability to empathize with their classmates, but empathy is a characteristic that must be taught (Schachter, 2011). Empathy clearly plays a tremendous role in an effective anti-bullying program. In addressing homophobia in schools, Jones (2010) argued that realizing the personal pain that homophobic bul- lying causes other students is vital in attempting to create safe places for all students Research supports the necessity of including empathy training in anti-bullying programs.. Stanbury, Bruce, Jain, & Stellern (2010), for instance, developed an empathy building anti-bully program that decreased bullying behaviors in their school building. Another study, (Rock, Hammond, & Ras- mussen, 2002) implemented a program teaching fairness, aiding victims, and other empathie traits. That program reduced bullying incidents in the build- ing by 73% .

Creating empathetic educators and students can be accomplished by implementing a community-based anti-bullying curriculum within schools, but doing so requires six important components: (a) community involvement, (b) an assessment of the school climate, (c) a consensus on the definition of bullying, (d) student and parental engagement, (e) professional development for faculty and staff, and (f) program evaluation. In the following discussion, we explore each of these components that are necessary to consider when constructing anti-bullying programs.

Community Involvement

Because we believe bullying exists because of a social construction of dif- ference, we argue, that successful programs must incorporate everyone in- volved in the schooling process such as administrators, teachers, parents, and community organizations. Engaging all members of the community ensures that the program will be appropriate for the school culture in which it is used (OJJDP, 2014). Effective anti-bullying programs should not be prefabricated (OJJDP, 201 4). As Langdon and Preble (2008) have argued, the entire school community and all educational stakeholders should be considered when at- tempting to combat bullying. Research has advocated that individuals must work together to effectively reduce bullying practices within schools (Croth- ers & Kolbert, 2004; Crothers, Kolbert, & Barker, 2006).

We are advocates of a paradigm shift within society concerning the process of social normalization. Jones (2014b) argued that combating bully- ing requires a change in the normalizing process of schooling. He believes that bullying behaviors develop because of the structures of binary opposi- tions, which control the ways through which individuals view difference,

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which engenders bullying behavior. For example, in terms of sexuality, so- ciety views sexual difference through a straight versus gay binary. Straight becomes the positive, or accepted, side of the binary, and gay is the negative side. Because society views these concepts as oppositional within a "good versus bad" mentality, homophobic bullying continues to thrive in society and schools.

Jones (2014b) postulated that the same oppositional framework exists with all forms of bullying as it relates to difference in race, class, gender, and so forth. Bullying only exists because society places difference within op- positional frameworks, and this view of difference is normalized within chil- dren as they grow. In this manner, schools become the major normalizing factor in students' lives when they enter the schooling process. Schools must, therefore, change how students view difference and build tolerant attitudes toward other individuals. In essence, Jones posits that schools must break the binary oppositions through which students view their world, and specifically view difference within their worlds.

Effective anti-bullying programs must combat social normalization by causing students to grapple and engage with their beliefs about otherness and to conceptualize how those beliefs were framed and constructed. We believe that this recognition has the possibility to lead individuals to a more tolerant attitude toward difference. However, beginning just with students is not enough, it is necessary to assess the school community.

Assessing the School Climate

Before an effective anti-bullying program can be constructed, one must as- sess the school community to fully understand how bullying is impacting the school building. As Jones (2014a) argued, school communities determine how they define difference and otherness based on socialized belief systems. For example, a student with a specific characteristic may be rejected and bul- lied in one community, but accepted within another community. Bullying ex- ists and strengthens because of social constructions about others. Therefore, it is important to assess, through surveys and interviews, the types of bullying behaviors that exist and the school personnel's overall beliefs about bully- ing in the school. Further, it may be necessary to survey the student body to gather data about specific bullying practices. This data provides informa- tion that is necessary for designing an anti-bullying program, and it provides directions for professional development that will be offered for faculty and staff. After assessing the school culture, the data should be used to construct the program, but every effective program must also have a consensus under- standing of how bullying is defined.

A Consensus on the Definition of Bullying

As Thompson and Cohen (2005) postulated, bullying must be defined in clear and understandable terms so everyone in the community can compre-

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hend how the school defines bullying behaviors. In doing so, it is necessary for the school and surrounding community to recognize the myths related to bullying (Scarpaci, 2006). Bullying is not:

• Just teasing,

• Something some students simply deserve,

• A behavior only males commit,

• A natural behavior (i.e., "kids will be kids"),

• A rite of passage for adolescence,

• Simply going to go away if the target ignores it,

• Something that is the result of the bully's low self-esteem,

• Something that requires the target to fight back,

There are numerous definitions of bullying in the literature, but bullying al- ways encompasses some basic attributes. Bullying cannot exist within an equal distribution of power (Costello, 2011). In this capacity, a more pow- erful individual exerts his or her power on a weaker individual. Moreover, bullying is the repeated targeting of an individual; it is not a one-time inci- dent. Finally, bullying behavior is classified as physical, verbal, and/or social harassment (Scarpaci, 2006).

In order for an anti-bullying program to be effective, the school com- munity must conceptualize how bullying is being defined and what behavior is classified as bullying behavior. Therefore, it may be beneficial to give the school community specific examples of bullying behaviors. It may also be beneficial for students to view skits that depict bullying practices to illustrate a clear definition.

Student and Parental Involvement

Effective anti-bullying programs should "increase student engagement, model caring behavior for students, offer mentoring programs, provide stu- dents with opportunities for service learning, address the difficult transition between elementary and middle school" (OJJDP, 2014, p.6). Moreover, the program must include an appropriate method for students to report incidents without the fear of the bully finding out, and must offer avenues for targets of bullying behavior to receive assistance and emotional support (Swearer, Espelage, & Napolitano, 2009).

Another aspect to consider when constructing anti-bullying programs in- volves educating parents and communicating with them about the program and its importance (OJJDP, 2014). Parents must also be trained to recognize

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when their child is being bullied. Students who are being bullied may exhibit a decrease in grades, fear attending school or faking an illness, a decrease in cell phone and social media use, or bruises or other injuries. Parents must be able to recognize these symptoms so that an intervention can place.

Preparing Faculty and Staff

Because colleges may not have provided formal training to address bullying behaviors within school environments, school districts must offer profession- al development for faculty and staff to address this challenge. This is impor- tant because, in a majority of instances, faculty and staff do not intervene in bullying practices (Craig, Pepler, & Atlas, 2000, GLSEN, 201 1), which sends a message to all of the students in the classroom who witness the teacher's avoidance (Jones, 201 0). Perhaps teacher reluctance to intervene grows from their lack of self-confidence in "intervention skills, or a lack knowledge' (Holmgren, Lamb, Miller, & Werderitch, 2011, p. 35). Moreover, a number of teachers do not intervene because they are not sure if what they are seeing is, in fact, bullying, which highlights the need for a well-developed definition of bullying in the school culture.

For years researchers (Olweus, 1993; Pepler, Craig & O'Connell, 1999) have postulated teacher intervention is necessary for reducing bullying prac- tices in schools. That being said, as Yoon (2004) discovered that it is impera- tive to provide continual staff development to increase teachers' awareness of the problem, which increases the likelihood that they will intervene in bullying behaviors. In order for professional development to be effective, however, teachers must believe that bullying is a problem in their schools (Marachi et al., 2007). Thus, it is necessary to share the results of the school- wide assessment that was conducted prior to attempting to construct the anti- bullying program. Receiving local and real data about their own students and school community impacts teachers' beliefs about bullying and tolerance (Jones, 2010).

Knowledge about one's own students raises awareness of the problem, which in turn, impacts teachers' adherence to the anti-bullying program. For example, Amy Grimes, a middle school science teacher, taught for several years without recognizing the bullying practices that were transpiring in her school. Several years after a student left her science lab, she received a letter and wept as she read how he "looked forward to my class each and every day because it was the one hour that he felt safe and accepted" (Jones, 201 2, p. 93). As a result of the letter, she changed her pedagogy and now keeps a post-it note on her desk that reads "minutes matter." She continues, "it made me stop and to think about how many minutes passed each year in my class- room, and how many life-changing consequences occurred with or without my knowledge" (p. 99).

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As with Amy, if teachers are aware that bullying is a problem in their school building, they are more likely to make changes. Teachers, as well as parents, must also be trained to recognize indicators of bullying such as a decrease in grades, fear of attending school, or an increase in bruises or injuries. Further, students who are being bullied may begin stealing money or being dishonest about being ill. Although it is important for teachers to recognize the signs of bullying, Allen (201 0) postulates most teachers do not recognize those signs because they have not been formally trained to do so.

Program Assessment

It is important to note that data suggest mixed results for the success of an- ti-bullying programs. Merrell, Gueldner, Ross, and Isava (2008) discovered little to no change in bullying behaviors after an intervention was conducted. Further, programs in the United States are less effective in completing their aim to reduce bullying behavior (Ttofi, Farrington, & Baldry, 2008). This fail- ure may be a result of attempting to use a "one size fits all&q