The Effects of School Bullying on Middle School Students Attendance - Dissertation Example

The effects of school bullying on middle school students’ attendance This paper intends to review the literature regarding the effects of school bullying on middle school students’ attendance. An individual is said to be bullied when he finds it difficult to protect himself from repeated negative actions from another person or a group of persons (Marshall, 1993). These negative actions may include shouting, mimicking, calling names, threatening, written abuse, forcing to do nasty things, and much more, compelling the victim to get isolated, humiliated and singled out in crowd. School bullying involves students bullying their fellow students and one of the effects is decreased attendance of those being bullied (Education and Skills Committee, 2007, p.129). Smith and Sharp assert that studies concerning teacher opinion show that school bullying involves “5-10 per cent of children as being bullied and about 5 per cent of children as bullying others” (1994, p. 5). They state that bullying is generally hidden from the school authorities because the bullied students and their peers hesitate in informing their teachers about the bully and start disappearing from school which lowers their attendance (Jimerson & Furlong, 2006, p.310). Bullying students are normally very sociable and bold without any idea of shame or guilt; whereas, the bullied ones are already very shy and unsure which makes the overall idea of going to school and attending classes disagreeable. A bullied student may suffer from hypertension, freight, loneliness, anxiety, depression, low self-worth, low grades and suicidal attempts. The National Association of School Psychologists (as cited in Shore, p. 5) estimates that “160,000 children miss school every day for fear of being bullied”. Besides bullied students, bullying creates bad effects on the observers of bullying as well. Since, bullying creates a fearful environment in schools, students who watch someone being bullied may tend to turn away from their classes, feel guilty for not stopping it or may even be tempted to participate and support the bullying students. In short, bullying inflicts long lasting adverse effects on the victim and should be considered seriously by school authorities so that necessary interventions are made (Dixon & Smith, 2011, p.34), because according to Smith and Sharp (1994, p.64), when successful interventions and policies are designed to counter school bullying, it improves “pupil achievement and attendance over time.” Samdal et al. (1997) studied how the middle school students’ judgment and perception of school affected their academic performance, attendance and school satisfaction. They found that middle school students were always less satisfied with their school environment as compared to younger or primary school students. According to them, “The most important predictors of students' satisfaction with school are students' feeling that they are treated fairly, that they feel safe and that they believe that teachers are supportive” (p.383). They concluded that unfair treatment like bullying decreased student satisfaction and eventually their attendance. They stated that the need is to give more attention to peer-to-peer and student-teacher relationship rather than focusing more on completing the curricular requirements. Doing so would help in putting a barrier to bullying, school violence, and nonattendance. Smith et al. (2004) studied the behavioral patterns shown by 406 different middle school victimized students of bullying and concluded that continuing victims “more often missed school” (p.565) than escaped victims. Newsome (2004) studied group interventions to reduce middle school students’ academic underachievement and school non-attendance resulting from bully. 26 students were given the treatment and 26 were not. He found that although those students who were given treatment improved their grades, however there was no difference or improvement in non-attendance in both the groups. This showed that bully had serious effects on students’ psychology which made them turn away from their lessons. Glew et al. (2005) studied how students experienced bullying and what effects bullying had on their attendance record. The research was a cross-sectional study using school data from 2001 to 2002, in West Coast public school district. He found that attendance was the primary predictor of a child being bullied and that there was a dire need for anti-bullying implementable strategies. A similar research has been conducted by Benbenishty et al. (2002) who examined the effects of bullying on school attendance in middle school Jewish and Arab students. Fear of attending school was an independent variable in their research. They also found that the fear of attending school due to bullying resulted in students’ absenteeism and truancy. However, they found that there was a slight difference in the reactions of males and females. Rigby (1998) also asserts that boys, when bullied, tend to detach themselves from social gatherings and become reserved. He conducted his research on 819 Australian students attending coeducational high school, and found that bullying constantly inflicted bad effects on boys’ health which made them wanting to turn away from school lessons which resulted in an increase in truancy. It becomes important for parents to get to know the reason for this isolation as they confuse it with teenage behavior. Bullied males stick to their rooms and keep silent most of the time. “The less time that young people spend at school the more impact it will have on their learning” (Education and Skills Committee, 2007, p.130). They may also become aggressive at times out of frustration and to take out this aggression they may act dominant at home. They may try to hurt themselves physically. Research has shown that when boys react in a non-aggressive manner, they tend to stop bullying; whereas, if they fight back aggressively, that increases bullying. McGrath (2006, p.17) also asserts that among other physical and emotional effects that bullying might create, the academic effects are markedly great which include increased truancy, absence whose cause is generally stress, reduced participation in school activities, and poor grades because of reduced concentration. The fact is also supported by Macklem (2003, p.70) who affirms that bully victimization and school attendance are strongly interrelated. He has mentioned a study which revealed that “fifteen percent of children who were frequently absent said that bullying was the reason for not attending the school” (p.70). Verbal or physical bullying tends to make the child feel lonely thus making him want to stay at home. Espelage and Swearer (2004, p.200) studied school-climate predictors and found in their study that attendance increased with a decrease in school problems reported by students, and decreased when the school atmosphere became uncomfortable for them such as when they experienced bullying. McCarthy (2001, p.7), while stating the effects of bullying on school performance, asserts that students who experience bullying tend to absent themselves from schools at least once a week. This absenteeism that results from fear and depression has significant disastrous effects on their learning. Astor et al. (2002) conducted another research to study the middle school students’ judgment of school violence. They conducted their study on 3,518 high school students. They found that “student fear of attending school due to violence was directly related to experiences of personal victimization by students and school staff” (p.716). According to them, students judged their school environment through “school climate, observed risk behaviors, and personal victimization” in the form of bullying. Kearney (2008) stated in his research that school absenteeism in middle school students is a serious social and public health issue that needs to be seriously considered by mental health professionals and school authorities. He asserted that unexcused absenteeism from school predicts that the students is being bullied or victimized which results in major psychiatric disorders. He affirmed that there is a need to “understand the parameters of school absenteeism” (p.451) so that proper strategies and policies may be designed and implemented to eliminate this social problem. 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Profiles of non-victims, escaped victims, continuing victims and new victims of school bullying. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 74.4, pp.565-581. Read More