Paper Topic: School Bullying

            As I browsed the internet and conducted some research in order to narrow down my paper topic I made an important realization. I was aware that “school violence” is a very broad topic. However, I did not realize that the subgroups under school violence, such as: bullying, cyber-bulling, hate crimes, gang-related crimes, sexual harassment/assault, verbal abuse, and school shootings, are also very broad categories within themselves. As a result, I have decided to focus only on school bullying. Then if time permits I will try to make some connections with other types of school violence.  Within my paper I will focus on the causes of bullying, the effects of bullying, and possible intervention strategies for bullying.

            “The causes and nature of bullying and social exclusion in schools”, by Maria el Mar Badia Martin, was the article that made me realize how broad “school bullying” is as a topic. As Badia Martin states, “bullying is not easy to define.” Hitting, kicking, teasing, threatening, discriminating, marginalizing, assaulting, abusing, and taunting are just some of the actions that fall under the category of bullying. However, what all bullying situations seem to share in common is a victim. Badia Martin points out that the effects caused upon the victim by bullying should not be underestimated, especially in terms of fear instilled upon the victim. Where there is a victim, there is usually a perpetrator. In the case of bullying, the amount of perpetrators can vary from a single person to a large group of people. As can be seen, many different things must be taken into account when analyzing bullying. Without a doubt “school bullying” is a rich topic and much more is left to be discussed.   During the upcoming blogs I will review more articles and journals, and will present key and interesting facts, including more facts from Badia Martin’s aforementioned article.