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Students on bullying: Important study

March 4, 2010 By Anne 16 Comments

Having someone, especially a peer, really listen and be there for them seems to help bullying victims more than anything, according to students themselves. A new study of nearly 12,000 US students in grades 5-12 offers important insights into bullying victims’ own views on what causes bullying, how it affects them, and what does and doesn’t work in dealing with it. The students, surveyed by the Youth Voice Project, represent 25 schools in 12 states across the US.

The Project’s authors, Stan Davis and Charisse Nixon, PhD, write that about a fifth of respondents (22%) reported regular victimization (two or more times a month), and that victimization was broken down this way: Of those 22%, 46% characterized the harassment as mild (“bothered me only a little”); 36% moderate (“bothered me quite a bit”); 11% severe (“I had or have trouble eating, sleeping, or enjoying myself because of what happened to me”); and 7% very severe (“I felt or feel unsafe and threatened because of what happened to me”). So the study extrapolated that 13% of the US’s student population, or about 7 million students, are experiencing moderate-to-very-severe mistreatment by peers.

Who’s being victimized: Middle school needs particular attention, since “the majority of traumatized students are in grades 6-8.” Other characteristics: 54% are female, 42% male; about 6% of “traumatized students” (being moderately-to-very-severely mistreated) reported receiving special education assistance, and 10% “reported having some form of a physical disability.” Ethnicity: The majority of “traumatized students” (moderate-to-very severe) described themselves as White, followed by Hispanic American and then Multi-Racial; 32% reported eligibility for free or reduced lunch; 9% of them had immigrated to the US within the past two years.

What bullies focus on: Look at what the results say about the importance of teaching tolerance, empathy, perspective-taking: “Looks” was the focus of 55% of moderate-to-very-severe mistreatment and “Body Shape” of 37%. The next highest focus was “Race,” at 16%; “Sexual Orientation” and “Family Income” came next at 14% and 13%, respectively.

Make it safe to report: A higher percentage than I usually see (42%) say they report their moderate-to-very-severe mistreatment to an adult at school, but that’s still less than half – and reporting to adults helps only about a third of the time (34%). So the authors write that it’s “important to identify safe ways for students to communicate with adults at school about their negative peer interactions.”

What helps most: Being heard and acknowledged seems to help victims more than most responses by both adults and peers. When adults are working with them, the top three responses “likely to lead to things getting better for the [targeted] student than to things getting worse” were “listened to me,” “gave me advice,” and “checked in with me afterwards to see if the behavior stopped.” Coming in at a noticeably distant 4th, interestingly, was “kept up increased adult supervision for some time.” As for responses from peers (including friends), the top three were “Spent time with me,” “Talked to me,” and “Helped me get away.” The authors add that “positive peer actions were strikingly more likely to be rated more helpful than were positive self actions or positive adult actions.”

There are so many more really substantive insights in this report (and future ones Davis and Nixon are planning) that I truly recommend that you read it. But here are three key takeaways:

1. What victims are often advised – e.g., “tell the person how you feel,” “walk away,” “tell the person to stop,” “pretend it doesn’t bother you” – “made things worse much more often than they made things better.”
2. The effectiveness of adult interventions depends a lot “on context, school culture, climate, as well as the way in which each intervention is carried out.”
3. “Our students report that asking for and getting emotional support and a sense of connection has helped them the most among all the strategies we compared.”

Related links

  • “Clicks & cliques: Really meaty advice for parents on cyberbullying”
  • “Clicks, cliques & cyberbullying, Part 2: Whole-school response is key”
  • “Cyberbullying & bullying-related suicides: 1 way to help our digital-age kids”: What many bullying and cyberbullying cases seem to have in common is “the 24/7, non-stop nature of the harassment the teens faced – the tech-enabled constant drama of school life turning into 24/7 cruelty…. [They] indicate an urgent need for all of us to help our children come up for air, to maintain some perspective about the ‘alternate reality’ of school life, especially in the middle-school years.”
  • “Social norming: So key to online safety”
  • “Bystanders can help when bullying happens”
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Filed Under: bullying, cyberbullying, Risk & Safety, School & Tech, school policy, victimization Tagged With: Charisse Nixon, Stan Davis, Youth Voice Project

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Natalie says

    March 4, 2010 at 11:49 pm

    Thank you for posting this very important study. I especially like the stats on what "helped" as far as adult interaction with these cyberbullying victims. Your readers may be interested in a recent book full of facts, cases and tips concerning cyberbullying and written specifically for teens. The book is Teen Cyberbullying Investigated written by Judge Tom Jacobs a retired juvenile judge. For more, see http://www.freespirit.com/catalog/item_detail.cfm?ITEM_ID=700

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Facebook & Social Emotional Learning — Inversoft says:
    May 23, 2013 at 9:37 pm

    […] most likely turn to older teenagers.” That’s borne out in academic research too (e.g., see this). But social reporting allows them to report to peers or adults (whether or not they’re Facebook […]

    Reply
  2. Cyberbullying: Can schools intervene? - Connect Safely says:
    April 29, 2013 at 9:21 pm

    […] adult intervention (so “school intervention” is far from a guaranteed solution). [See this post for more Youth Voice Project findings.]* A year ago, ConnectSafely co-director Larry Magid explored […]

    Reply
  3. Fixing hate online and offline: All of us needed - Connect Safely says:
    April 29, 2013 at 9:21 pm

    […] adult intervention (so “school intervention” is far from a guaranteed solution). [See this post for more on the Youth Voice Project.] * ReachOut.com offers help for teens from SAMHSA (the federal […]

    Reply
  4. Formspring: What's really going on? - Connect Safely says:
    April 21, 2013 at 5:40 am

    […] out,” but even if it is, probably not without creating some scars. Here, importantly, are students’ own views on, if not Formspring, bullying in general. Adults definitely have more questions than answers. […]

    Reply
  5. New state anti-bullying law challenges schools | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    September 2, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    […] Students’ views on bullying […]

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  6. myfamnews.com | Cyberbullying: What I’ve learned so far says:
    December 6, 2010 at 6:58 am

    […] Being heard, really being listened to by someone supportive, ideally a peer (according to the Youth Voice Project), and certainly in an ongoing way by parents clearly builds resilience (look under “The […]

    Reply
  7. Cyberbullying: What I’ve learned so far | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    November 26, 2010 at 10:22 pm

    […] Being heard, really being listened to by someone supportive, ideally a peer (according to the Youth Voice Project), and certainly in an ongoing way by parents clearly builds resilience (look under “The […]

    Reply
  8. The freedom to *not* fit in | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    October 25, 2010 at 9:15 pm

    […] “Students on bullying: Important study“ // Share| Permalink Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was posted on Saturday, October 23, 2010, at 10:46 am by Anne. Filed in cyberbullying and tagged bullying, cyberbullying, LGBT, President Obama, school policy, students. […]

    Reply
  9. Cyberbullying: Can schools intervene? | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    October 3, 2010 at 4:58 pm

    […] adult intervention (so “school intervention” is far from a guaranteed solution). [See this post for more Youth Voice Project […]

    Reply
  10. Fixing hate online and offline: All hands on deck! | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    October 3, 2010 at 4:50 pm

    […] adult intervention (so “school intervention” is far from a guaranteed solution). [See this post for more on the Youth Voice […]

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  11. Watching students relate to a president | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    September 17, 2010 at 3:01 pm

    […] audience, on their best behavior, as if they were present at the event in person.” [See also "Students on bullying: Important Study" about what students say about who's being victimized and why.] // Share| Permalink Post a […]

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  12. Fresh takes on ‘cyberbullying’ & how to deal with it | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    September 10, 2010 at 6:33 pm

    […] past posts here at NFN: “Phoebe Prince story: Much more than meets the eye”; “Students on bullying: Important study”; “Schools’ cyberbullying quandary”; “Really sound cyberbullying advice for […]

    Reply
  13. Schools’ cyberbullying quandary | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    July 6, 2010 at 7:19 pm

    […] two other researchers, Stan Davis and Charisse Nixon, found in their Youth Voice Project survey of students all over the US that what students find most […]

    Reply
  14. Formspring: What’s really going on? | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    May 6, 2010 at 7:14 pm

    […] out,” but even if it is, probably not without creating some scars. Here, importantly, are students’ own views on, if not Formspring, bullying in general. Adults definitely have more questions than answers. […]

    Reply
  15. Principal’s anti-Facebook plan: Is banning Web sites the fix? | NetFamilyNews.org says:
    May 4, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    […] “Students no bullying: Important study” […]

    Reply

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