Home Relationships and Bullying

            Today I will continue my examination of Maria el Mar Badia Martin’s academic journal article, “The causes and nature of bullying and social exclusion in schools”. On this occasion I will highlight and discuss some bullying “research findings” found within the article. First I will discuss research studies that focus on bullying victims and their relationships with their siblings. Afterwards, I will discuss research studies that focus on the relationship between bullying that occurs at home, and bullying that occurs at school.

1)                  A research study conducted by Louise Bowers, Peter K. Smith, and Valerie Binney found that “bullies at school […] reported negative relationships with their siblings, whom they viewed as more powerful than themselves.” On the other hand, “victims of bullying reported often positive, even enmeshed, relationships with their siblings”.

This research finding is interesting, because one would think that children who have good social relationships with their siblings would have an easier time forming and managing their relationships with their peers. However, this is not the case. Instead, the study seems to suggest that seemingly perfect sibling relationships are actually handicapping some children. Perhaps, these children are unaccustomed in dealing with adversity, and thus are more vulnerable to become victims of school bullying.

2)               In another study conducted by Renae D. Duncan, it was found that out of 375 seventh and eighth graders, 22% reported that they were “often hit or pushed around by their siblings”, 8.1% reported that they were “often beaten by a sibling”, and 40% “admitted to bullying their brothers or sisters”. In addition, Duncan’s study revealed that children who identified themselves as bully/victims at school “were also most frequently involved in bullying behavior at home.” In fact, “60% of peer bully/victims reported being bullied by their brothers or sisters.”

The aforementioned research findings are interesting because they suggest that bullying behaviors do not necessarily originate at school. In fact, Duncan’s study suggests that on several occasions the relationships between bullies and their victims are not direct, that is, there are no seemingly logical reasons to explain the bullying behaviors. Instead, school bullying sometimes seems to be a form of mimicking or retaliating the bullying that occurs at home.

When all the aforementioned research findings are taken in account, they seem to suggest that there is a connection between bullying and home social relationships. Perhaps, home relationships are areas that should be focused on when designing a plan to reduce bullying. Overall, it seems that parents are failing to notice and address the bullying that is occurring within their homes.