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Bullying among SchoolAged Youth: Examining Student and Teacher Perceptions

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Title: Bullying among SchoolAged Youth: Examining Student and Teacher Perceptions


1
Bullying among School-Aged Youth Examining
Student and Teacher Perceptions
  • Kisha M. Haye, M.A.
  • Courtney K. Miller, Ed.S.
  • Susan M. Swearer, Ph.D.
  • Rhonda Turner, M.A.
  • University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  • Paper presented at the annual meeting of the
    National Association of School Psychologists,
    Dallas, Texas, April, 2004

2
Target Bullying Ecologically-Based Prevention
and Intervention for Schools
3
Overview
  • The definition, prevalence, and assessment of
    bullying behaviors in school will be reviewed
  • A definition of school climate will be discussed
  • Comparison of student and teacher attitudes
    towards bullying and perceptions of school
    climate will be examined
  • Role of the bystander and implications that these
    students might have for prevention and
    intervention will be discussed

4
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5
Bullying and Peer Victimization
6
Definition
  • Students are being bullied when another student
    or several other students
  • Say mean and hurtful things to them or make fun
    of them.
  • Completely ignore or exclude them from their
    group of friends or leave them out of things on
    purpose.
  • Hit, kick, push, shove around, or lock them
    inside a room.

7
Definition (continued)
  • Tell lies, spread false rumors about them or send
    mean notes and try to make other students dislike
    them.
  • And
  • These things happen repeatedly.
  • It is difficult for the student being bullied to
    defend himself or herself.

8
Therefore..
  • Bullying is
  • 1) negative, mean behavior that
  • 2) occurs repeatedly (over time)
  • 3) in a relationship that is characterized by an
    imbalance of power or strength.
  • (Olweus, 1999)

9
Our Survey Definition
  • Bullying is anything from teasing, saying mean
    things, writing mean notes, or leaving someone
    out of a group, to physical attacks (hitting,
    pushing, kicking) where one person or a group of
    people picks on another person over and over
    again. Kids who are bullied have a hard time
    defending themselves.

10
Prevalence Rates for Bullying
  • According to Solberg and Olweus (2003), Two or
    three times a month is an accurate indicator of
    the prevalence of bullying and peer
    victimization.
  • 10.1 (Solberg Olweus, 2003) to 37 of students
    (Limber Small, 2000) report being bullied two
    or three times a month
  • 8.4 (Nansel et al., 2001) to 34 (Stockdale,
    Hangaduambo, Duys, Larson, Sarvela, 2002) of
    students in the U.S. report being victimized at
    least once per week.

11
Prevalence Rates (continued)
  • Worldwide rates range from 3 to 20 (Whitney
    Smith, 1993)
  • 75 of adolescents report having been bullied at
    some time during their school years (Hoover,
    Oliver, Hazler, 1992)

12
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13
Bully/Victim Continuum
  • Bully
  • Bully-victim
  • Victim
  • Bystander
  • Not-involved

14
The Bystander
  • Bystanders are key to school climate.
  • When bystanders take a stand against bullying
    they help create an environment that is safer and
    more conducive to learning.
  • (Tremlow, Peaceful Schools Project,
  • study with Topeka schools, 2002)

15
Role of Bystanders 80 of all participants
indicated that they had observed bullying
behavior in their school.
16
Benefits of School-wide Assessment
  • Accurate estimates of the prevalence of bullying
    in a particular school.
  • Identification of the students who are most
    likely to use bullying behaviors, or to be
    victimized (or both), or onlooker behaviors
    (bystanders).
  • Identification of students who are not involved
    in the bully/victim continuum.
  • Information about school policies and practices
    that might be encouraging or discouraging
    bullying.

17
School Climate
  • School climate can be defined as the total
    environmental quality within a school and is
    multi-dimensional physical, social, culture,
    milieu (Anderson, 1982).
  • Researchers have limited knowledge about the
    effects of the school setting on bullying,
    particularly how school climate affects victims
    and bullies (Ma, 2001) as well as the social and
    environmental factors that facilitate or inhibit
    bullying (Nansel et al., 2001).

18
School Climate (cont.)
  • The construct of school climate is often
    ill-defined and there is a limited number of
    validated assessment measures for this construct.
  • For the purpose of this study, school climate is
    defined as the positive and negative
    relationships between students and teachers.

19
Comprehensive Assessment Target Bullying
  • Self-nomination Bully survey
  • Peer nomination Inventory
  • Teacher nomination Inventory
  • Assessment of internalizing problems Depression
    (CDI), Anxiety (MASC), Hopelessness, Locus of
    Control, Aggression.
  • School records data Grades, GPA, Test Scores,
    Office referrals, Absences, Suspensions
  • School climate measure

20
Bully Attitudinal Scale
  • 12-item scale measuring attitudes towards
    bullying.
  • Items are rated on a five-point scale 1
    Totally False to 5 Totally True
  • Scores range from 12 to 60 higher scores
    indicate more pro-bullying attitudes

21
School Social Climate Measure
  • 13-item scale measuring aspects of school climate
    hypothesized to be relevant to students
    emotional and behavioral development.
  • Items are rated on a four-point scale 1
    Totally False to 4 Totally True
  • Scores range from 13 to 52 higher scores
    indicate more positive perceptions of school
    climate.

22
Participants Spring 2003
  • Total 347 students 69 teachers
  • School A
  • 126 students (53 male 73 female)
  • 13 teachers (2 male 11 female)
  • School B
  • 125 students (58 male 67 female)
  • 28 teachers (10 male 18 female)
  • School C
  • 96 students (96 male)
  • 28 teachers (18 male 10 female)

23
Participants Racial Distribution
  • School A
  • Students 61 Caucasian, 9.5 Biracial, 7.9
    African-American, 7.1 Asian, 5.6 Latino(a),
    2.4 Middle Eastern, 2.4 Native American, and
    0.8 Eastern European
  • Teachers 92 Caucasian and 8 Biracial
  • School B
  • Students 92 Caucasian, 2.4 Biracial, 2.4
    African-American, 1.6 Latino(a), 0.8 Native
    American, and 0.8 Eastern European
  • Teachers 92.8 Caucasian, 3.6
    African-American, and 3.6 Eastern European
  • School C
  • Students 89 Caucasian, 4 Biracial, 4
    Latino(a), 2 African-American, and 1 Asian
  • Teachers 100 Caucasian

24
Bully/Victim Status across Schools
25
Bully/Victim Status
26
Bully/Victim Status by School
27
Student and Teacher Attitudes Towards Bullying
28
Measuring Attitudes Towards Bullying
  • A one-way analysis of variance was conducted to
    evaluate the relationship between position
    (student or teacher) and attitudes towards
    bullying.
  • There was a significant difference between
    student and teacher attitudes towards bullying
    across the entire sample and across schools, with
    students reporting more pro-bullying attitudes.
  • A one-way ANOVA was significant for all schools.
  • School A F (1, 137) 5.066, p lt .05
  • School B F (1, 151) 12.509, p lt .01
  • School C F (1, 122) 30.862, p lt .01

29
Support for Bullying
30
Bully/Victim Status Differences in Attitudes
Towards Bullying
31
Attitudes Towards Bullying Summary
  • Bullies reported the most pro-bullying attitudes,
    followed by bully-victims, not-involved students,
    bystanders, and victims.
  • Bullies reported significantly different
    attitudes towards bullying than victims,
    bystanders, and not-involved students.
  • Bully-victims reported significantly different
    attitudes towards bullying than bystanders and
    victims.

32
Attitudes Towards Bullying Summary (cont.)
  • Teachers were less supportive of bullying
    behaviors compared to students across schools.
  • Bullies and bully-victims (individuals who bully)
    reported the most supportive attitudes towards
    bullying, while victims and bystanders were the
    least supportive.

33
Perception
  • Perceptions will vary from person to person
    across the same situation.
  • We assign different meanings to what we perceive.
  • Why will individuals observing or experiencing
    the same situation perceive it differently?

34
The Power of Perception
35
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36
Therefore
  • Individuals in the same environment may have a
    different perception of the climate in that
    environment.
  • This perception is likely to be affected by
    current or past experiences within that
    environment.
  • This leads to some of the difficulty in defining
    and assessing school climate.

37
Student and Teacher Perceptions of School
Climate Across Schools
38
Bullying and Perceptions of School Environment
  • A one-way analysis of variance was conducted to
    evaluate the relationship between position
    (student and teacher) and perception of school
    climate.
  • The results were not consistent across schools.
  • School A The ANOVA was not significant, F (1,
    137) 14.902, p .479
  • School B The ANOVA was significant, F (1, 151)
    18.391, p lt .01
  • School C The ANOVA was significant, F (1, 122)
    8.953, p lt .01

39
Perception of School Climate
40
School Climate
  • At School A there was overlap in the student and
    teacher perceptions of school climate.
  • Possible reasons School A has participated in
    the Target Bullying study since 1999.
  • At Schools B and C, students reported
    significantly lower perceptions (more negative)
    of their school climate compared to teachers.

41
School Climate - Summary
  • Students not involved and bystanders tended to
    report more positive perceptions of school
    climate compared to those students involved in
    bullying (i.e., victims, bully-victims, and
    bullies).

42
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43
Global Summary
  • Attitudes
  • Educating students about bullying and modeling of
    pro-social behaviors are important components to
    include in prevention and intervention
    strategies.
  • Schools should take an active approach towards
    addressing bullying and peer victimization.

44
Global Summary (cont.)
  • School climate
  • It is important to define school climate and
    assess your school to determine the climate at
    that point in time.
  • Student perceptions of school climate can be an
    indicator of the effectiveness of school response
    to bullying.

45
Suggestions for Intervention
  • Interventions delivered at the individual,
    classroom and school levels need to be
    coordinated
  • Conduct a school-wide assessment of bullying and
    engage in data-based decision making.
  • Promote facts, not myths about bullying
  • Dispel beliefs about the outcome of aggressive
    behavior
  • Develop a student code of conduct
  • Individualize counseling services across subtypes
    of bully/victims
  • Target counseling services to address
    internalizing problems such as depression and
    anxiety

46
Suggestions for Intervention
  • Involve parents in the intervention process
  • (for example, have parents volunteer as hallway
    monitors)
  • Implement intervention strategies specific to
    bully/victim subtypes
  • Intervene quickly
  • Examine teacher responses to bullying
  • Create an open-door policy for all students
  • Take all reports seriously
  • Accountability and evaluation for everyone

47
Directions for Future Research
  • Limitations of this study
  • Psychometric properties of the Thoughts About
    Your School (TAS) are still being tested
  • Bully/victim status was based on self-report only
  • Small teacher sample
  • Future Research
  • Defining school climate in relation to bullying
  • How individual schools address bullying
  • Exploring student responses to bullying

48
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49
Conclusion
  • The goal of the Target Bullying
    Ecologically-Based Prevention Intervention for
    Schools Project is to use assessment data to
    create state-of-the art intervention techniques
    to address bullying and victimization in
    school-aged youth.
  • Research is the key to developing an
    empirically-guided program and to helping schools
    determine which programs to use.
  • One size does not fit all!

50
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates http//www.erlbaum.com
51
Target Bullying Ecologically-Based Prevention
Intervention for Schools
  • Susan M. Swearer, Ph.D.
  • School Psychology Program
  • 40 Teachers College Hall
  • Lincoln, NE, 68588-0345
  • (402) 472-1741
  • sswearer_at_unlserve.unl.edu
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