Bullying+in+American+Schools


 * Kiah, Briana, Maddy, Mariah**

Description of Problem or Issue

 * How does bullying in the 21st century affect the students in American schools?**



II. Research Summary
Kiah's Research Showed: Bullying is defined as any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Cyberbullying is also defined as electronic aggression. Bullying is something that is extremely common within American schools. Policies are constantly being made in order to help prevent bullying and make school a more comfortable, safe, and healthier environment. In two scholarly articles, two case studies are referenced where one deals with the validity of self-reports of bullying. Since there are so many reports and many different perspectives within an incident, it is important to make sure that all of those views are addressed and the reports are valid. The other case study that is referenced focuses on the importance of a teacher’s role in bullying and whether or not they can use that role effectively or not.

Briana’s research showed:  The characteristics of a bully and how the characteristics make a bully stand out from a victim. Researchers from University of Chicago show that aggressive youth like to inflict pain on others to let go of their own frustration. They observed their reactions to different clips to study their mind and found out that it triggered the part of the brain of reward and pleasure. Another article talks about the prevention of bullying and how the outcomes mostly lead to suicide. It gives stories of the suicides and how certain aspects of the law protect those that are the victims and can enforce the law on the bullies. An article goes in depth with different forms of bullying such as indirect, direct; also known as verbal and physical, and now a new one in recent years through communication technology (cyberbullying). It introduced a new theory on “bully- victims and how they tend to be socially unskilled, rejected by peers, and impulsive rather than manipulative. Many different surveys are presented in testing how bullying affects the school as a whole. Mariah's research showed: The characteristics of a victim and how these can be better understood to take steps towards ending bullying in schools. It is true that many victims display characteristics in which most people expect from a target of bullying such as antisocial behaviors, and/or physical deformities or disabilities, but it also true that some victims are "hidden in plain sight" such as children ranked high in their schools social status or bully-victims. It helped look at bullying from different standpoints rather than just characterizing children as a bully or a victim and by understanding the victims responses as another way to prevent bullying rather than just 'fixing' the bullies. Many of the articles conclude with ways in which bullying can be prevented by helping the victims deal with troubling social interactions. One author suggested that by studying a child's social interactions at an early age and teaching them healthy ways to deal with relationship conflicts can later help them deal with bullying experiences.  Maddy's research showed:  Cyber bullying is a growing problem in the 21st century. Of course it is important to educate students on the effects and implications of cyber bullying but, the research shows that it is equally important for teachers and parents to be educated. Teachers and especially parents need to be connected to their child's online world. The information in //CQ researcher// makes it clear that adults need to understand the social online world in order to understand cyber bullying fully. The more educated parents are about their children's online social world, the better guidance they can provide for their children when it comes to cyber bullying. In //The New York Times// Dr. Elizabeth Englander also mentions the importance of educating teachers and administrators so students have proper guidance when cyber bullying may occur. Teachers and administrators should also be aware of what is going on in social media so they can fully understand the serious effects of cyber bullying. As we saw in Hinduja and Patchin's study, cyber bullying increases thoughts of suicide ideations. The public needs to be aware of this research and there needs to be prevention and intervention plans for cyber bullying so students don’t need to resort to desperate measures to escape.

II. Group Project Overview
Kiah will be introducing our topic and group with an overview of what each of us will teach in our presentation. She will present case studies with self reports ending it with the importance of bullying that will flow into the next topic which is Briana covering bullies and their characteristics. First she will engage the audience a bit then state the scientific definition of what a bully is. Then, she will talk about the forms of bullying and scenarios that happen in every day life; mentioning a bully victim and what it is. She will then use her last article to inform the audience on surveys that schools use to test the impact bullying has on a school as a whole. This last topic will flow nicely into the introduction of Mariah's sub question being what are the characteristics of a victim. she'll use a breif summary of what I talked about to explain what makes someone a target and their characteristics they entail. She'll explain the risks it has on the victim such as suicide, depression etc. and what happens to the victims short term versus long term. This topic produces the question "can we fix the victims" and how some expressed behavior influence the chance of a child becoming a target in later years. We will tie up our presentation with Madisons topic; cyber-bullying and how its becoming a major issue in recent generations. She will educate the audience on how to educate teachers or administrators when cyberbullying takes place and how it should be approached. There are many studies that can be presented that relates to suicide and cyber-bullying. This will lead into our conclusion that kiah will conduct that demonstrates that bullying should be stopped and that police can and will get involved because this issue has ended in deaths. If it isn't treated now the overcasting cycle will never end.

IV. Research Questions and Reference Summaries
Questions :
 * 1. What constitutes bullying in American schools today?-Kiah**
 * 2. What are some of the characteristics of bullies?- Briana**
 * 3. What are some of the characteristics of victims?-Mariah**
 * 4. How has social media changed the phenomenon of bullying in recent years?-Maddy**