THE IMPACT OF BULLYING IN SCHOOL ON THE ADDOLESCENT’S SENSE OF SELF

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Bullying is an unwanted aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids, who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose. (http://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/definition/index.html)

The number of children seeking help for racist bullying increased sharply last year, as a campaigners warn that the heated public debate about immigration is souring race relations in the classroom. More than 1,400 children and young people contacted ChildLine for counseling about racist bullying in 2013, up 69 percent on the pervious 12 months. According to James Kingett, who comes from the charity called Show Racism The Red Card (SRTRC), “We work with around 50,000 young people every year and issues around Islamphobia have been very prevalent over the past 12 to 18 months. That idea that all Muslims are terrorists or bombers is a particular problem. We’re getting that from kids with no Muslim classmates through to those in diverse schools with many Muslims.” (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/racist-bullying-farright-agenda-on-immigration-being-taken-into-classrooms-9045148.html)

ChildLine also saw a rise in concerns about self-harming, while depression and difficult family relationships were the top reasons for seeking help. ChildLine’s founder Esther Rantzen said too many of the nation’s children seemed to be struggling and in despair. During 2012-13, ChildLine counseled 278,886 children and teenagers. The charity also handled 10, 961 cases where a young person raised concerns about another child. For the first time in the charity’s 28-year history, more counseling took place online (59%), than by telephone (41%). (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25639839)

Bullying is thought to be one of the most prevalent types of school violence. Students assume roles, including bully, victim. Bully/victim, and bystander. Estimates in early 2000s suggest the nearly 30% of American students are involved in bullying in one of these capacities. (Nansel et al., 2001). Specifically, findings from this nationally representative sameple indicated that among sixth through tenth grade, 13% had bullied others (bullies), 11% had bee bullied (victims), and 6% had both bullied others and been bullied (bully-victims). (http://www.education.com/reference/article/bullies-and-victims/)

In spite of going through a tough time when being bullied, there is always an advantage of being bullied. Bullying can cause so much to a person and it is something that everyone faces, even the bullies’ them-selves. There are types of bullying: Physical Bullying, Verbal Bullying and Cyber-Bullying, it is said Physical Bullying, it may involve the spitting, shoving, kicking or even punching. Verbal Bullying incorporates the use of words to carry out an act of bullying; the verbal assault might focus on an individual’s appearance, lifestyle choices, intellect, skin color and even ethnicity. On the other hand, Cyber-bullying is the most popular types of bullying in the modern world, it can be described as any form of bullying that incorporates the use of technology.

There are times where people bully just for fun and they think it is one of the most okay things to do to a person. There are some advantages to bullying, it will someone a better and stronger person, it will also make someone wiser as well. Those are the findings of a new study that was conducted by scientists at York University and Queens University. The researchers looked at 871 students (466 girls and 405 boys) for seven years from ages 10 to 18. Each year, they asked the children questions that their involvement in bullying other positive and negative behaviors. Bullying is a behavior that most children engage in at some point during their school years, according to the study. Almost a tenth (9.9 percent) of the students said they engaged consistently high levels of bullying from elementary school but dropped to almost no bullying by the end of high school. Some 35.1 percent of the children said they bullied peers at moderate levels, and 41.6 percent almost never reported bullying across the adolescent year. (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080325083300.htm)

Instead of just staring at people bullying others, make sure to help because you might not know you actually just saved someone’s life.

A.    Statement of the Problem

This study aims to answer the following questions:

1.     What is going to happen to the victims after leaving the school they are in?

2.     Why are people being bullied?

B.    Significance of the Study

College Students who were once bullied. This research paper would be able to help students because since they experienced being bullied once, whether it be during elementary or school, the college students would be able to help the others who are still being bullied. In fact, the researcher hopes that in giving more emphasis to bullying, more students will be more aware that bullying isn’t the right thing to do.

Professors. If a teacher or professor observes bullying in a classroom, he or she needs to immediately intervene to stop it, record the incident and inform the school authority, also they would be able to be the mediator between the victim and the bully.

Bystanders. There are times where they are the witnesses to the bully doing something to his or her victim and don’t do anything about, they just stand there and think it is nothing. The researcher thinks that the bystanders will benefit because they will become more aware on what it is happening.

Future Researchers. This study is complicated for the future researchers to make similar studies because not only does bullying happen in other countries, but it also happens locally. Filipinos also face bullying in so many ways, especially if they are abroad and if they are women because foreigners think that Filipino women are only fit to be household helpers when they have so much potential to show and the researcher believes that that if future studies are to be made, the researcher thinks that the future researchers will use and add more references to put additional information to their study.

C.   Scope and Delimitation

This study focuses on the impact of bullying on an individual. Bullying is considered to be one the reasons why people commit suicide or decide to take their lives because of it.

The study will no longer go deeper into the family problems also into the other side effects of bullying. This is also to give emphasis to the problems of the bully on why they are bullying people. Moreover, the researcher believes that there has to be reason why the bullies do what they do to the victims. Therefore, this study would be important to people who stand up against bullying.

D.   Materials and Methods

The researcher got her resources from the Internet and her personal experiences. The researcher also got her references from her friends and family who have experienced bullying as well. For bullies, when they bully someone who they know is very weak and couldn’t defend them, it is the funniest thing to happen.

The researcher analyzed that her topics are related to each other and the topics could be the product of another topic. There are so many causes of bullying and there are times where that is the reason why bullies take it out on the victims who didn’t even do anything wrong to them.

E.    Definition of Terms

·      Bystanders – those who watch bullying happen or hear about it.

·      Bully-victim – represent a small percentage of bullies who have been bullied themselves. Bully-victims are often physically stronger than their own victims.

·      Self-harming – includes self-injury and self-poisoning and is defined as the intentional, direct injuring of body tissue most often done without suicidal intentions.

·      Eating disorders – any range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits.