NCJ Number
197189
Date Published
2002
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This video, which uses a lecture format interspersed with illustrative dramas, instructs parents and teachers in the nature, impacts, causes, and remedies for bullying in schools.
Abstract
Two lecturers, who work with the Tarrant County (Texas) Family Violence Prevention Project, provide instructive information to a small group of parents and teachers regarding the dynamics and prevention of bullying. After defining bullying and presenting data on its prevalence, the lecture discusses why bullying is a public health concern. Bullying is a behavior that escalates into subsequent domestic violence and criminal behavior. Bullying not only makes school a threatening and frightening place, it can interfere with the victim's right to learn. The causes of bullying behavior are noted to originate in the home, where the modeling of aggressive and controlling behavior occurs. Children who are bullied by their parents and/or older siblings in the home are likely to become bullies of younger and smaller children at school. Bullying may be physical, verbal, or relational. Physical bullies, who are usually boys, will hit, trip, and vandalize the property of their victims. Verbal bullies will use words to humiliate, embarrass, threaten, and demean their victims; relational bullies will attempt to isolate their victims by excluding them from groups and encouraging other students not to establish friendships with them. Recommendations for preventing and intervening in bullying include instructing parents, teachers, and students in the nature and negative effects of bullying and what to do should bullying occur at school. Schools should establish rules that prohibit bullying, with detailed descriptions of bullying circulated among the students. Violations of these rules should result in discipline. Mechanisms for reporting bullying, either by victims or witnesses, should also be established and publicized among students and school staff.