Paper Summary:

This paper examines the short and long term consequences of bullying and victimization in the nation's schools today. The paper provides a review of the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature, which includes a summary of the research and important findings. First, the paper cites a study that defines the types of bullying behavior. Next, it highlights how the growing body of research in this area has reinforced the need to examine bullying behavior from a socio-ecological perspective in order to better understand what compels some young people to aggressively persecute their peers today. Additional research is cited that demonstrates the adverse health-related consequences for both victim and perpetrator. Finally, the paper deals with teacher and staff perceptions of bullying and how they respond to it. The paper concludes by stating that in order to formulate effective interventions, teachers, administrators and parents must become more actively involved in reducing the incidence of bullying. This will require direct behavioral observations of students in the natural school setting in order to collect data on bullying frequency and the role of all students


Outline:
Review and Discussion
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"The results of a recent study by Holt, Finkelhor and Kantor (2007) confirmed the adverse health-related consequences for both victim and perpetrator. These researchers studied 689 fifth-grade students from 22 elementary schools in one school district located in a large northeastern city that were divided almost exactly into male and females, and reflecting the multicultural aspects of the larger population in this metropolitan region of about 100,000 citizens. Using the nine-item University of Illinois Bully Scale, the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire, and 21 items from the Anxious/Depressed and Withdrawn/Depressed scales from the Youth Self-Report, Holt and her colleagues found that young people who reported bullying behaviors were themselves frequently the victims of bullying by others, as well has having experienced physical and sexual abuse in the home; in fact, almost a third (32.1%) reported being sexually abused (Holt et al.). A significant percentage (43%) of the respondents also reported being bullied and/or victimized outside of the school environment in the community."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bradshaw, C. P., Sawyer, A. L. & O'Brennan, L. M. (2007). Bullying and peer victimization at school: Perceptual differences between students and school staff. School Psychology Review, 36(3), 361-363.
• Espelage, D. L. & Swearer, S. M. (2004). Bullying in American schools: A social-ecological perspective on prevention and intervention. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• ---. (2003). Research on school bullying and victimization: What have we learned and where do we go from here? School Psychology Review, 32(3), 365.
• Holt, M. K., Finkelhor, D. & Kantor, G. K. (2007). Hidden forms of victimization in elementary students involved in bullying. School Psychology Review, 36(3), 345-346.
• Peskin, M. F., Tortolero, S. R. & Markham, C. M. (2006). Bullying and victimization among black and Hispanic adolescents. Adolescence, 41(163), 467-468.

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