Free Essay Sample: Adolescents and Bullying

Bullying among teenager often go unreported and often it is ignored when reported due to lack of evidence and at times, lack of close follow-up by parents and teachers. Many teenagers are dismissed as it is labeled as a regular act for any growing teenager in the United States. Due to rising cases of suicide, acute injury, and mysterious murders, it is essential to study bullying and its trigger factors, and morose speak against the act. This research will, as a result, focus on examining bullying among school-going adolescents of age between 9-18 years. The study will cover native and non-native adolescents across the United States. The paper will also research any form of bullying be it traditional or cyberbullying

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According to Seldin & Yanez (2019), in the United States, data collected show that an average of 5.7 million teens, which is approximately 30% of adolescents reported having been bullied, involved in bullying escaping, or targeted with the intention of bullying. National data recently collected indicate that 13% of the students from grades 6 -10 have participated in bullying attacks, while 10% of the students nationally-wide are reported to have been bullied. Another number of 6% said that they were bullied but as payback, for they were past bullied themselves. Based on collected statistics, evidence shows that bullying declines with age, adolescents of 9-15 years report cases of bullying more than elder teenagers (Seldin & Yanez 2019).

According to Zhang, Wang, Zhang & Oudekerk, (2017), in 2013 -2015, teenagers age 12-18 were involved in violent attacks that resulted in death. 841100 students were reported as no fatal victims of bullying in school, and 545100 reported the same assaults to have happened away from school. Around the same period, 804 of students in 2015 said having incurred hate crime in school. 343 reported theft, while 327 reported minor assaults. Zhang, et al., (2017) purpose of their study is to examine school safety and crime with the goal of monitoring progress to keep the school system in check, ensuring the state security of students. Schools are supposed to learn safe heaven, but statistics show that student safety is not at 100 as student bullying continues to be reported year after another. However, with the implementation of disciplinary safety and security measure in schools, the bullying cases reduced with a small percentage as the school put in the policies were observed

According to studies by Baldry, Farrington, & Sorrentino (2017), cases reported of bulling are both from boys and girls. Statistics collected show that the act is often committed against boys more than girls are. Data collected by the American justice department 2013 show that 47% of boys report being bullied while 26 % of girls were reported. Boys, however, report extreme cases of bullying compared to girls. Boys often report incidents of direct bulling like being pushed over and physical violence. For the girls, reports show that often-reported bullying cases are indirect and less aggressive compared to that of boys. For example, girls commonly reported cases are stereotyping, sexual comments, and the spread of rumors.

Cyberbullying is another rising form of bullying. According to Baldry, Farrington, & Sorrentino (2017), school bullying and cyber-bullying on the bases of gender showed different results. Girls bullied at school were not overlapping with those that were bullied online. However, the boys bullied in school showed an overlap in online bullying. The patterns show that boys bullied in school were bullied online, unlike girls who proved these two platforms are used separately to bully girls. According to Pontes, Ayres, Lewandowski & Pontes (2018), cyberbullying data was collected in 2014-2015, and statistic shows that 16 % of females of school-going age 12-18 reported to being online bullied. The boys who said of cyber bulling were fewer with a recording of 6%. Although the number of men reporting cyberbullying declines every year, the number of woman victim in cyberbullying continues to increase. Regardless of factors such as race and ethnicity as of 2015, a drop of 16 % was recorded among boys but increased among female students by 17% the increased rates is a result of increased cyberbullying among girls. As a solution to the increased bullying among female students, a campaign intended at reducing bullying victimization by 2020 was launch by the Healthy People 2020. The campaign also proposes to raise awareness on rising girls bullying victimization.

Bullying is often an act of harm through violence, verbal abuse, derogatory remarks aimed to stereotype because of race and ethnicity, threats, sexual comments, stealing, use of rumors, rejection and exemption from certain events example sports among other social areas with the malicious intention of causing pain and dominance. Bulling is tormenting to learners in varying ways and can translate to extreme deviance behaviors such as substance abuse, shooting, among other things. It is, therefore, advisable for schools to be closely monitored and strict policies put in place to reprimand students who fail to adhere to school rules. The government should also keep close data records on school safety. Schools should be safe for all people despite age, ethnicity, and gender (Zhang, et al., 2017). Application of strict policy that involves extreme repercussions such expulsion can be applied to bring safety in schools.

A tread in gender and bullying has been identified, as the men are more bullied than the girls are. Such information collected can be used to educate on the effect of bullying. The boys need to be intensely educated on the impact of bullying as they have proved to be most volatile during times of bullying. Although girls are rarely physically injured, often, they are bullied emotionally and indirectly, leaving no or minimal evidence to show when they report. Most bullied girls, therefore, often are likely to incur psychological breakdowns, leading to suicidal thoughts. It is, therefore, essential to reach each gender during anti-bully campaigns by allowing every student to communicate any form of bullying, whether direct or indirect freely.

There are multiple ways of bullying, but with the rise of technology, cyberbullying has come into play. Many students are trolled online by unknown people and threatened. As a new type of bullying yet to be exhaustive, researched studies have proved that cyberbullying is common among school-going teens and especially girls. Although it happens online in extreme cases, threats done online are perpetuated in real-life. Cyberbullying is threatening, as it is not easy to identify hidden accounts of perpetrators. For anti-bully campaigners and awareness creators need to consider cyberbullying as a rising threat to students and especially girls.

References

Baldry, A. C., Farrington, D. P., & Sorrentino, A. (2017). School bullying and cyberbullying among boys and girls: Roles and overlap. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 26(9), 937-951.

Seldin, M., & Yanez, C. (2019). Student Reports of Bullying: Results from the 2017 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey. Web Tables. NCES 2019-054. National Center for Education Statistics.

Zhang, A., Wang, K., Zhang, J., & Oudekerk, B. A. (2017). Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2016. NCES 2017-064/NCJ 250650. National Center for Education Statistics.

Pontes, N. M., Ayres, C. G., Lewandowski, C., & Pontes, M. C. (2018). Trends in bullying victimization by gender among US high school students. Research in nursing & health, 41(3), 243-251.