Bullying in American schools has increased to what some have considered an epidemic and is a major problem among youth. Bullied youth experience poorer mental health and lower school performance, in comparison to those who are not bullied, and the growth of bullying has raised concerns from parents, schools, policy makers, and human-services professionals interested in prevention and intervention of bullying behaviors. The purpose of this study was to explore how parents whose children experienced school bullying perceived school administrators, teachers, antibullying school policies or programs, and their family's dynamics, to better understand the parents' internal experiences. The theoretical framework for this study was the symbolic interactionism theory, which posits that individuals develop subject meanings of themselves and their world, based on their experiences. A phenomenological study design was employed, using purposeful semistructured interviews of 7 parents of different schools, all of whom had witnessed bullying in their children's lives. Data were open coded and analyzed for emergent themes. The study showed that these 7 parents were not satisfied with their respective school's approach to handling bullying, especially when their home environments were adversely impacted. One recommendation that stemmed from these findings was to establish sanctions for schools failing to adhere to bullying policies. This study may provoke positive social change in the area of school safety and in areas concerning improved understanding and communication among parents, teachers, school administrators, and other professionals. Along with this notion, students may have the opportunity to thrive in a more secure atmosphere, which may lead to positive social and emotional achievements that may promote higher societal achievements.

Bullying incorporates a range of behaviours such as name-calling, physical assaults, social exclusion and verbal and physical intimidation. Engaging in and being the target of bullying is a significant risk factor for future criminal behaviour and poor mental health, making bullying a significant threat to an individual’s long-term psychological and personal development. The present investigation had three aims: (1) to create robust psychometric instruments to reliably measure bullying, bystander roles, and related constructs in adolescents: (2) to explicate the psychosocial determinants of bullying, identify characteristics which differentiate bullies and their targets, and investigate the role of other motivators in the incidence/maintenance of bullying and being bullied: and (3) to assess the effectiveness of a new whole-school anti-bullying intervention on reducing bullying incidents and enhancing pro-social attitudes and behaviour. Participants were a total of 5204 secondary school students (2277 males and 2929 females) in Years 7 to 11 and 256 teachers from six secondary non-government schools in NSW, Australia. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), reliability analysis and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) of factorial invariance were conducted to assess the psychometric properties of the instruments used in this study. Results demonstrated that the measures developed had sound psychometric properties. Boys were found to bully and be bullied more than girls across verbal, social and physical forms of bullying. The findings have important implications for theory, research and practice. This study has yielded several measures to further advance theory and research in bullying: the identification of a reciprocal effects model that explains the relation between psychological traits such as self-concept, bullying and being bullied advanced understandings about the casual effect of bullying on negative psychological outcomes, thus highlighting the importance of intervention: and an effective anti-bullying intervention for secondary school students. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>I have conducted a study and examined the significance and extent of bullying. I will also examine whether any students in grade eight have been victims of bullying during the past year and where bullying was carried out in school X. The second objective is to explore what students think about the concept of "taunting". I have used various theories of researchers to get an understanding of what bullying is, where it occurs, causes, and suggestions for measures. To get an answer on the purpose and issue a quantitative method was used in the form of a survey. Target group for the survey consisted of students from grade eight schools in X which is located in a suburb of Stockholm. Two classes of grade eight in School X carried out the survey during the same day.</p><p>Results showed that bullying occurs at X school, but that the proportion of boys has been more subjected to bullying than girls. The majority of the students in the both classes believed that most cases of bullying occur in school hallways, playground and cafeteria. It may be one reason why school X does not have guards or other members of staff. The majority of students also considered in the survey that the concept of "taunting" is to call each other by words of “genitalia". I think that the use of foul language has become common in today's schools. </p><p> </p>

Bullying is a common problem among children and adolescents in which the consequences can be severe. Bullying is associated with a variety of negative outcomes and can lead to a variety of mental and physical health problems. The purpose of this study was to examine forms of bullying behaviors that were most predictive of student-reported bullying and the frequency of student-reported bullying in response to a variety of bullying behaviors. In this study, an archival dataset was utilized. Data collected in the fall of 2012 came from 8387 6th through 12th grade students who attended 124 public middle and high schools in Anne Arundel County Public Schools, Maryland. The web-based bullying survey, designed as a component of a district-wide bullying prevention initiative, was intended to assess the prevalence, type, and social norms associated with bullying and school violence.&lt;br&gt;For the first research question, logistic regression analyses indicated that teasing and name-calling were the most frequent forms of bullying and were the two primary predictors of student-reported bullying. Social and/or relational forms of bullying were overall the most frequently reported forms of bullying. In contrast, physical or direct forms of bullying and cyberbullying were the least frequent forms of bullying reported.&lt;br&gt;For the second research question, a series of chi-square analyses indicated significant differences for all types of bullying behavior and whether or not student reported being bullied. Specifically, compared to student who did not report being bullied in the past month, those students who did report being bullied within the last month were more likely to report (a) being called names, (b) being threatened, (c) being teased or picked on, (d) being pushed or shoved, (e) having emails or messages sent to others about them, (f) having rumors or lied spread about them, (g) being ignored or left on purpose, (h) having sexual comments or gestures made toward them; and (i) having their property stolen. Based on the results of this current study, several different proposals for future research can be proposed, including (a) examination of the changes in bullying behaviors and reporting of bullying longitudinally, from elementary to high school and (b) comparisons between schools with and without bullying prevention programs in regard to type and frequency of student bullying behaviors and student reporting of bullying. / School of Education; / School Psychology / PhD; / Dissertation;

Studien syftar till att leda till en bättre förståelse för utsattas erfarenheter av mobbning och att öka kunskapen om vad som kan göras för att motverka mobbning samt hur de utsatta kan hjälpas och stöttas. I studien har fyra kvinnor och fyra män deltagit, som alla har upplevt mobbning under skolgången, men som inte längre är utsatta. Metoden som använts är en innehålls analys. Resultatet av intervjuerna tyder på att det upplevda stödet från skola och hem inte var tillräckligt. Att mobbningen pågick under en längre period utan ingripande från vuxna i omgivningen. Samtliga deltagare upplevde mobbningen som jobbig då den pågick men är i efterhand tacksamma för den erfarenhet det har givit. I studien har vi dragit slutsatsen att skolans åtgärder fungerat i praktiken, men satts in försent. Det är viktigt att öka medvetenheten hos både skola och familjer för olika tecken på mobbning samt hantering av den.

This study attempts to explore how schools’ handles and prevents cyber-bullying among pupils. The purpose in this study was to investigate how the school staffs work in secondary schools with grades sixth to ninth. How do the schools discover, prevent and stop cyber-bullying? Do the schools’ have any experiences of cyber-bullying? How do the schools work with anti-bullying concepts – have the new phenomenon cyber-bullying affected and changed the schools´ anti-bullying work in connection with the guidelines and in relation to the "new technology"? This study attempts to examine how this is handled within several secondary schools with three different municipalities. The theoretical starting-points have been an inductive theory which later has resulted in four other theoretical models, Meyrowitz two media-models which are describing social environments and several knowledge theories with a sociology perspective. In this study, the methods have been: conversational interviews with school staff –teachers and counselors. The analysis of the empirical material has been primarily content analysis with categorization of sentences which was mainly guided by empirics. The results shows that the schools does not have much experiences of cyber-bullying, they discovers, prevents and stops the phenomenon with same guidelines like the "regular" bullying. The major obstacle in the study showed a lack of resources, mainly among the teachers, such as time pressure and insufficient education on the subject. There also seems to be a lack of collaboration with agents outside the schools, primarily the social services, because the school does not feel that this type of cooperation works. The study provides several issues and several perspectives as a starting point for further research, such as experiences of cyber-bullying at school among pupils and parents.

Do children, who are supporter of comradeship, think that working to prevent cyber bullying may be a task for them? This study describes, from a child’s perspective, how a supporter of comradeship can be supportive in the preventive work against cyber bullying. This study will also define the phenomena bulling and cyber bullying, the difference between them and where they can be seen. I will also describe the supporters of comradeship are elected, the information they get from school and how adults at school help them to plan their work. The schoolconsider, of course, the Swedish school law towards (against) bulling and insulting behavior and the school is also visited by inspectors from the Swedish National Agency for Education. The idea to do this study came arise, from a lesson when we discussed, with the pupils, a problem that had happened the day before, after school. It was a problem that was difficult to solve and it was an interesting problem to discuss. I have been interviewing the supporters in group and in pairs. The supporters at the school think that cyber bullying might be a task for them to work with in a preventive way as well as the work to prevent bulling at the schoolyard still is important.

I have conducted a study and examined the significance and extent of bullying. I will also examine whether any students in grade eight have been victims of bullying during the past year and where bullying was carried out in school X. The second objective is to explore what students think about the concept of "taunting". I have used various theories of researchers to get an understanding of what bullying is, where it occurs, causes, and suggestions for measures. To get an answer on the purpose and issue a quantitative method was used in the form of a survey. Target group for the survey consisted of students from grade eight schools in X which is located in a suburb of Stockholm. Two classes of grade eight in School X carried out the survey during the same day. Results showed that bullying occurs at X school, but that the proportion of boys has been more subjected to bullying than girls. The majority of the students in the both classes believed that most cases of bullying occur in school hallways, playground and cafeteria. It may be one reason why school X does not have guards or other members of staff. The majority of students also considered in the survey that the concept of "taunting" is to call each other by words of “genitalia". I think that the use of foul language has become common in today's schools.

Aim: This study investigated the nature and extent of the relationship between bullying and trauma among male adolescent learners. Trauma was operationalised through the constructs of posttraumatic stress, anxiety, depression, dissociation and anger. In addition the study aimed to determine the prevalence and forms of bullying with reference to the different bullying roles (the bully, the victim, the bully-victim and the bystander). Method: In this quantitative study, two objective measures were administered (viz., the Olweus Bullying/Victimisation Scale and the Trauma Symptom Checklist for children) to a saturation sample of male adolescent learners between the ages of 12 and 17, from a purposively selected South African male-only high school (N=509). Findings and Conclusions: Statistical analysis (correlational analyis, MANOVA, and Binary-Logistic Regression analysis) produced evidence to suggest that there is a statistically significant relationship between bullying and trauma, and this was strongest for the victim role. The relationship between bullying and trauma was dependent on the frequency of bullying; as the frequency of being bullied increased so too did the mean scores of all the five trauma subscales. Depression demonstrated the highest correlation with the victim role, followed by Posttraumatic stress. In addition, 22.4% of learners could be clinically and subclinically diagnosed with posttraumatic stress and 21.0% with dissociation. The study suggests that each learner has a subjective experience of bullying, and accordingly displays different symptom profiles. Overall, the findings corroborate the argument that repetitive stressful events (such as bullying) are predictive of symptom-clusters of ongoing trauma. The subjective experience of bullying was also evident in the prevalence rates of bullying; as these were evidently dependent on how it was defined and understood by learners. While only 32.1% of learners admitted to being bullied; 60.2% of this same sample admitted experiencing at least one form of bullying listed in the questionnaire; and similarly, while only 29.8% of learners admitted to bullying other learners; 49.0% admitted participating in at least one form of bullying listed in the questionnaire. Chronic bullying demonstrated greater levels of trauma for all 5 subscales; 19.7% of learners had experienced weekly (or chronic) bullying and 12.3% had participated in chronic bullying. A range of policy, school-specific and research recommendations are offered based on the findings of the study. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

Arbetsplatsmobbning har omfattande konsekvenser för individer i arbetslivet och samhället. Observatören har en viktig roll i arbetet mot mobbning, då dennes ingripande kan influera andra att göra detsamma. Denna studie undersökte om observatörens kön, locus of control och erfarenhet av observerad mobbning har en påverkan på intentionen att ingripa vid en mobbningssituation. Detta prövades utifrån sex hypoteser och frågeställningen hur relationen ser ut mellan ovangivna variabler i förhållandet till intentionen att ingripa vid mobbning. 165 individer i arbetslivet, varav 114 kvinnor, besvarade en enkät vilken innehöll Rotters The internal-external scale, en justerad Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised och ett instrument inspirerat av Hektner och Swensons påstående om intentionen att ingripa. Materialet anlyserades med hjälp av tvåvägs-ANOVA och Pearsons korrelationskoefficient. Studiens resultat var att erfarenhet av observerad mobbning, både enskilt och i kombination med kön och locus of control, påverkar intentionen att ingripa. Kön och locus of control visade inte på signifikanta huvudeffekter.