Combatting bullying in schools

by Tracey Burns and Andrew Macintyre
Directorate for Education and Skills

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me". So goes the English nursery rhyme taught to children to console them if they have been called names, or teased by their friends or classmates. But no matter how often you repeat it as a child, it doesn’t really make you feel better. Why? Because it’s not true.

Being called names does hurt. A lot. So does being picked on, being pushed around, being excluded from groups – in short, being bullied. Bullying is not new – Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, wrote about it in 1847 and Tom Brown’s School Days (1857) brought the issue widespread attention. It has been the subject of countless  teenage coming of age books. And it regularly makes national headlines with stories of teens being pushed into desperate situations, even suicide, as a result of relentless bullying.

While bullying has been around for a long time, it has recently taken on a new form: cyber bullying. Cyber bullying includes many different forms of online bullying such as sending threatening emails, copying personal conversations and sending them to others, creating derogatory websites about a person or humiliating them repeatedly on social networks. A recent Trends Shaping Education Spotlight looked at this issue and found that estimates of the prevalence of cyber bullying vary widely but an EU-wide study indicates that on average, 6% to 9% of 16-year-olds report being bullied online.

So what can be done? First, it is important to emphasise that although cyber bullying is often represented in the media as something new, it is an extension of traditional face to face bullying. Certainly there are differences – for example, it can be especially hurtful because it can be witnessed by a much larger audience than face-to-face bullying, such as when pictures of a humiliating event or abuse are circulated and recirculated among an entire school or village. Cyber bullying is also not confined to school hours and can happen anywhere, anytime.

However these differences should not blind us to the similarities with face-to-face bullying in the damage it can cause. Bullying, in all of its forms, is no laughing matter. Bullies, motivated to enhance their status among their peers, bully in front of witnesses, whose approval (or at least tacit silence) is crucial. They tend to choose their victims from those who sit in the bottom line of the social ledger, those least able to fight back. And it works, both to raise the popularity of the bully and to hurt the victim: the research to date shows that victims of bullying do worse at school, tend to have lower self-esteem, and are more likely to attempt suicide – both during childhood and later on in life.

There is one interesting finding that also emerges from the research: the bully and victim roles can be interchangeable and related. Of the young internet users surveyed in the EU Kids Online Survey quoted above, only 4% of those who reported not bullying others had been the victim of cyber bullying themselves. For self-confessed online bullies, 47% reported being bullied in turn.

This finding is key. It shatters the myth that the bully is always an evil, swaggering strongman (or woman) who ruthlessly attacks the weaker, more vulnerable peer, so popular in comic books and superhero films. While this may be true in many circumstances, it is not uncommon that those who bully are also bullied, and vice versa. This is a useful reminder for us that the dynamics of human behaviour are complex, and not given to easy solutions. So what can be done?

Luckily, we know quite a bit about what can be done to fight bullying, both face-to-face and online. A recent systematic review of the literature has demonstrated that school-based anti-bullying programmes are often effective. The most successful interventions were in-depth work in parent trainings, improved playground supervision, use of disciplinary methods (both punitive and non-punitive), and work on classroom management and in teacher training. Programmes were also more effective when addressed to older children (age 11 or more). However, and this is important - one type of programme was associated with an increase in victimisation, and that was work with peers, for example peer mediation and peer mentoring.

These results and work on bullying more generally give policy makers a number of good options for addressing the issue in their schools and systems. Parents and teachers can and should intervene in suspect incidents. In all aspects of bullying an important role is played by the bystanders whom, by saying nothing, silently condone the practice. Schools can therefore take action both by raising awareness and by educating students and parents about their role and responsibility in its prevention. As Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace prize winner and South African inspiration put it: If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Links:
Trends Shaping Education
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI)
Related blog posts:
2much 2handle? Schools, social networks, and cyber bullying
Making bullying prevention a priority in Finnish schools
Photo credit: Schoolyard bullies, boy walks away with head down / @Shutterstock

2much 2handle? Schools, social networks, and cyber bullying

by Tracey Burns
Analyst and Project Leader,  Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

“I’m really worried but I don’t know how to react” my friend told me over coffee the other day. Her daughter, 11, had told her that she was being bullied online, but would not say by whom.

“What can I do? And how do I know if it’s serious or not?”

A just released OECD publication looks at how rapid technological development has changed the way we interact with each other and our communities. Despite the enormous potential of the Internet to reshape our world, there is a downside to infinite connectivity. Internet fraud, privacy concerns and identity theft are all part of the online world. For parents and children, worries about cyber bullying and protecting children from explicit content and online predators are crucial.

Cyber bullying occurs when a child, preteen or teen is threatened, harassed, or embarrassed by another young person using the Internet. A number of high–profile tragedies, for example teens who committed suicide as a result of cyber bullying, have brought this topic to the top of policy, education, and parental agendas. However the extent of cyber bullying is hard to estimate, varying from more than 10% of surveyed internet users aged 9 16 years in Australia, Estonia, Denmark, Sweden and the Russian Federation to between 2- 3%, in Italy, Portugal and Turkey. While cyber bullying is worrisome, bullying offline is still reported to be more common.

Interestingly, the bully and victim roles are often interchangeable and related: those who admitted bullying others were more likely to report being bullied themselves, both online and offline. Guides to protecting Internet users make it clear that the best preventive strategies involve awareness, constant vigilance, and keeping an open dialogue about children’s concerns and online lives. For education, this poses a series of tough questions. What responsibilities do educators have in monitoring student’s time online during school hours? How can different parental standards of safety be accommodated?

The advent of cyber bullying is just one example of technological changes sweeping OECD countries. Trends Shaping Education 2013 looks at 14 of these trends and their possible impact on education, including:

• Social networking: Founded in 2004, Facebook had over 1 billion active users by September 2012. Should schools see social network sites as an opportunity to extend the learning process/experience beyond the classroom?
• Increasing diversity of local content: Since the mid 2000s the diversity of languages on the Internet has increased dramatically. There are now over 250 languages online, with English, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish comprising the top five. Does local diversity of Internet content lead to better or worse quality of information available for students?
• The evolution of the Internet: In January 2009, there were 15 000 downloadable applications, or “apps” available. By September 2012, this figure had grown to over 1.5 million. Is there a market for educational apps to improve learning in the classroom and extend it beyond?

The transformation of the Internet is felt throughout the entire world, including the poorest regions. Trends Shaping Education 2013 provides a powerful snapshot of these trends and links these data to the evolution of our classrooms and schools. How can educators develop their students’ critical capacity to use and contribute to the wealth of information available at the click of a button? What kind of quality control should we expect from e-learning? How can teachers make the best use of ICTs for teaching and learning?

These are just some of the questions we must ask ourselves when planning for the medium and long term of technology in our education systems. Our world is changing. The question is: are our schools evolving too?

Links:
Trends Shaping Education 2013

This is the second of a series of blogs issued for the release of Trends Shaping Education 2013. You can find the first one here:
The weight of nations: the shape of things to come?

Photo credit: Cyber bullying concept/ Shutterstock.com