Reducing bullying in schools - Essay Example

? HOW AND TO WHAT EXTENT BULLYING CAN BE REDUCED IN SCHOOLS? School is a place where children are vulnerable to bullying. Concerning this, the work at hand generally presents how and to what extent bullying can be reduced in schools. In this regard, a description of the different forms and intervention implemented in schools to address psychological needs is presented. In addition, this paper provides the background to understand some of the social, cognitive, and emotional processes involved in bullying. Furthermore, this paper also critically evaluates literature on strategies to reduce or prevent bullying in schools. It was found that school is an institution that has a remarkable impact on controlling bullying because as discussed, it is primarily a place where students will learn to socialize, interact with others and use their cognitive ability and expose their emotional level. This therefore presents us the point that by being aggressive in initiating efforts for the reduction of bullying, schools can be the best place to eliminate bullying tendency of the students. This will therefore lead to the initiation of strategies that will not only involve the school in general, but including the parents as substantially discussed in this paper. Keywords: bullying, school, students, behavior School is a place where children are vulnerable to bullying. This can be the best place where a group of children or individuals will congregate and connive to bully someone. Bullying takes many forms and it is easy to spot them because the intention is to intimidate or to make fun of the victim. Bullying is everywhere, but it is common to take place in areas where there are people who can create a group and will have the chance to make fun of others. In the online world, bullying takes many forms too, but the ultimate goal in most of the time especially for the young people or individuals is just to achieve good times or inflict troubles on others. However, it is clear that somehow, the school is a place where young people learn many things in life too. So it is important to take into account that this academic institution has the great contribution to mold the behavior of the person in the future. Teachers for instance may have the opportunity to discipline and correct the students’ actuations if necessary. In this case, every academic institution has to carry out its vision and mission by which the actual policy development is supported and founded. The work at hand generally presents how and to what extent bullying can be reduced in schools. In this regard, a description of the different forms and intervention implemented in schools to address psychological needs is presented. In addition, this paper provides the background to understand some of the social, cognitive, and emotional processes involved in bullying. Furthermore, this paper also critically evaluates literature on strategies to reduce or prevent bullying in schools. Forms of prevention Counseling is one activity in school offered to provide the essential guidance for the students. It provides the opportunity to influence the future behavior or psychological foundation of the students in the future (Birol & Gomecli, 2010; Saadat, Ghasemzadeh & Mazaheri, 2011). Counseling has been remarkable for its ability to sustain the elemental foundation for the appropriate approach that the student will take in order to be properly guided at school. The guidance counselor for instance will have the opportunity to provide the appropriate insight or input for the students and to initiate the check and balance especially when there is a great concerned about the behavior. Thus, if counseling will have a positive impact on the students’ future behavior and as bullying is a behavior itself, then this prevention program is necessary for inclusion to form the right behavior. Another important approach is to establish the right culture at school. School is not just an academic institution, but it also has the essential power to establish a specific culture for the students to carry among themselves. School will always have the opportunity and even privilege to impart the right ideals that students will have to carry among themselves. In fact, the values education and the relevant teachings will always have a positive impact on the students’ lives and how they engage themselves with others or generally conduct themselves (Lovat, Clement, Dally & Toomey, 2011; Thornberg & Og uz, 2013). After all, students have the need to conduct the appropriate behavior that is something acceptable in the society. In other words, setting the appropriate culture will provide the opportunity for establishing the opportunity to cater to the students’ varying psychological needs. Schools will always have the great responsibility in providing these needs. On the other hand, school will always have the opportunity to establish policy that will ask to engage the parents or other relevant individuals in the learning process and behavioral formation. In this way, students will not just be properly guided on what to do, but will be provided with the necessary discipline needed in order to establish essential results like the appropriate behaviors that they are expected to show in school. Social, cognitive, and emotional processes involved in bullying Study shows that those students with low emotional intelligence are more likely to be involved in bullying, which means they are either the bullies or being bullied (Lomas, Stough, Hansen & Downey, 2012). In addition, the study also reveals that those with poor cognitive ability are vulnerable to bullying. To sum it up, individuals with low cognitive and emotional response are susceptible to be part of a poor social interaction. If this is the case, then bullying has its root cause somewhere at the cognitive and emotional level by which are considered as the two essential areas that will determine the health of the person’s social life. In psychology, a person’s cognitive ability and emotional level influence the human behavior (Feldman, 2003). Thus, it is implied that in order to reduce or prevent bullying, the entire process must have to be started somewhere at the cognitive and emotional level. This means that bullying must essentially start at the individual’s emotional level and cognitive ability. However, there are also some theories claiming that the environment has the great influence on the human behavior (Feldman, 2003). This means that the actual social interaction will have the impact on the human behavior, because it can trigger the cognitive and emotional responses. This could mean that bullying may turn out to be as an influence of what is going on in the environment. Peer pressure for instance will encourage a person to be part of the actual bullying activity. In either of the above processes, it is important to consider that the behavior is the most important indicator of the existence of bullying. Literature on strategies to prevent or reduce bullying in schools In general, bullying intervention program is necessary in order to alleviate or put bullying to a halt primarily in schools. A certain study published the success of a bullying intervention system in high school after a two-year school-wide follow up. The primary goal of the study’s follow up is to know if there was a reduction in bullying or victimization, increase disclosure, increase intervention efforts and reduce student aggression (Allen, 2010). All of these except the reduction in victimization decreased, which means that at some point, the whole-school systematic approach to bullying may have possible success. What is clear in the study is that the school may initiate a move that will enable disclosure. This means that there is a need to initiate a strategy that will encourage the students to disclose whatever forms of bullying may potentially exist. This will always remind everyone that there is no good about bullying because of the presence of tasking for instance for each student to be part of the disclosure program. This is eventually a form of mind setting or setting a culture that will stand against the presence of bullying. On the other hand, schools will have to provide more efforts for intervention. There are varying strategies that will be most probably employed in here. Efforts for intervention may require the schools for parents to pay more in return of an added service for bullying intervention program. The amount raised will have to be allocated for various trainings involving parents and the students, like exposing them to seminars and symposiums with speakers who are experts on the topic. There is a potential feasible response to this program as revealed to the willingness to pay to reduce school bullying (Persson & Svensson, 2013). Perhaps there are other related essential programs like this by which the main point is to reduce or totally eradicate bullying in school. What is most important is the presence of significant effort that will lead to the initiation of strategies against bullying in school. As already discussed, student aggression has relevant impact on bullying. Based on a study, bullies reported more physical aggression (Craig, 1998). A study suggests that aggression may be a relevant result of poor or negative parenting (Walker, Bean & Hsieh, 2011). The above studies significantly recommended establishing strategies to reduce the level of student aggression and improve parenting skills. In either of these, schools will always have the opportunity to be an integral component. Conclusion In a nutshell, the work at hand just presented the forms of prevention commonly available for bullying. It also included the social, cognitive and emotional processing involved in bullying, and as shown, these three factors have important link from the psychological perspective. Finally, some relevant literature on strategies to prevent or reduce bullying in school is included. The work at hand reveals that school is an institution that has a remarkable impact on controlling bullying because as discussed, it is primarily a place where students will learn to socialize, interact with others and use their cognitive ability and expose their emotional level. This therefore presents us the point that by being aggressive in initiating efforts for the reduction of bullying, schools can be the best place to eliminate bullying tendency of the students. This will therefore lead to the initiation of strategies that will not only involve the school in general, but including the parents as substantially discussed in this paper. References Allen, K. P. (2010). A bullying system in high school: A two-year school-wide follow-up. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 55(3), 83-92. Birol, C., & Gomecli, E. (2010). Effect of the counseling course on the attitude of the students of pre-school teaching towards the children’s masturbation behaviour. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 5, 2366-2371. Craig, W. M. (1998). The relationship among bullying, victimization, depression, anxiety, and aggression in elementary school children. Personality and Individual Differences, 24(1), 123-130. Feldman, R. S. (2003). Essentials of understanding psychology (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Lomas, J., Stough, C., Hansen, K., & Downey, L. A. (2012). Brief report: Emotional intelligence, victimization and bullying in adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 35(1), 207-211. Lovat, T., Clement, N., Dally, K., & Toomey, R. (2011). The impact of values education on school ambience and academic diligence. International Journal of Educational Research, 50(3), 166-170. Persson, M., & Svensson, M. (2013). The willingness to pay to reduce school bullying. Economics of Education Review, 35, 1-11. Saadat, M., Ghasemzadeh, A., & Mazaheri, E. (2011). How does systematic motivational counseling affect the students’ academic achievement motivation? Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 29, 261-265. Thornberg, R., & Og uz, E. (2013). Teachers’ views on values education: A qualitative study in Sweden and Turkey. International Journal of Educational Research, 59(2013), 49-56. Walker, L. M. P., Bean, R. A., & Hsieh, A. L. (2011). The role of parenting and personal characteristics on deviant peer association among European American and Latino adolescents. Children and Youth Services Review, 33(10), 2034-2042. Read More