THE IMPACT OF BULLYING IN SCHOOL ON THE ADOLESCENT’S SENSE OF SELF (revised)

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

A.    Background of the Study
Bullying is a common problem. One factor that allows for he bullying epidemic is the fact that it is generally accepted as “part of growing up.” Unfortunately, bullying has lingering negative psychological effects for those who are bullied and the bullies themselves. Not a lot of people understand what exactly bullying is. Bullying can range from name-calling to physical abuse. In other words, it is a spectrum.

The website stopbullying.gov says that bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from the group on purpose.

The site provides a general definition of bullying. It says, “Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real 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.” (http://www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/definition/index.html)

Bullying is thought to be one of the most prevalent types of school violence. The proliferation of cyber-bullying is growing concern, and it's effects are enormous. Therehave been reports of cyber-bullying leading to suicide, school violence, school failure and school avoidance. More than 40% of teens have been victims of taunts and threats via social networks web sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, Instant Messages, or text messages from cell phones. Furthermore, 1 in 8 reported scared enough to stay home from school due to these messages.

The website bbc.com says that the charity called ChildLine saw a rise in concerns about self-harm, while depression and difficult family relationship were the top reasons for seeking help. ChildLine's founder Esther Ranzten said too many of the nation's children seemed to be struggling and in despair.

ChildLine's founder, Esther Ranzten, said that, “Far too many of the nation's children seem to be struggling and in despair. It is so important that we support children to talk issues and look out for signs that they're not able to cope/ no matter how hard-pressed we are, we must commit to giving children time and space to talk about our lives.” (http://www.bbc.com/news/education-25639839)

Bullying victims encounter multiple issues. Bullied children face enormous obstacle of bulling being ever present. There are 30 percent of teens have been on the receiving end of bullying. Part of this has to do with bullying being part of the teenage nature – striving for power and control over others. Another part of this has to do with the multiple routes of bullying, including violence, rumor spreading, and cyber-bullying. Parents often mistakenly believe that moving their kid to another school district would stop the bullying problem, but bullying is everywhere.

The website education.com says that the delineation of these bully and bully-victim groups has direct implications for prevention and intervention efforts because these subgroups not display different patterns of aggression, but they also have different emotional and psychological profiles. It often involves an imbalance of strength and power between the bully and the target and is repetitive in nature. Children and adolescents may experience isolated acts of aggression, but children who have been bullied live with the ongoing fear of the recurring abuse from the bully, which is usually more damaged.

In the site there was U.S researcher named Dan Olweus, said that “A student is being bullied is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more students.” (http://www.education.com/reference/article/bullies-and-victims/)

There are different types of bullying. The term “bullying” is thrown around a bit excessively these days, and one thing we need to keep in mind is that nor every confrontation is an instance of “bullying.” Such examples of these power imbalances include multiple children ganging up on one, a child that is bigger and stronger than another, or even a child that is perceived as being more important due to his or her stature at the school. Bullying usually takes many forms and can involve physical attacks, emotional attacks and/or verbal attacks.

The website typesofbullying.org says that the three main categories of bullying are physical, verbal and cyber-bullying. The physical bullying is the most prevalent in academic institutions. This type of bullying may involve the spiting, shoving, kicking or even punching. Verbal bullying is the type where the bully uses words. The aggressor also known as the bully tries to verbally upset the victim through taunting and teasing. The verbal assault might focus on an individual’s appearance, lifestyle choices, intellect, skin color and even ethnicity. Last but not the least, cyber-bullying is the most popular type of bullying in the modern world, it is described as any form of bullying that incorporates the use of technology. Cyber-bullying is rampant on social networking sites and can be very difficult to know the real identity of a bully since most bullies do not use their real names.(typesofbullying.org)

Although most concerns regarding bullying are directed to the victim. He isn't the only one suffering from the culture of bullying. Scientists suggest that the harms of bullying are not exclusive to the bullied. The bully suffers a number of problems as well. In fact, research suggest that bullies have many problems to cause them to bully.

The information provided in this paper is important because it will help the reader recognise that there are two sides of the bullying equation and unless with the bully's issues as much as the bullying victim, the problem of bullying will persist in society. In addition, this paper will also give knowledge to the readers about why the bullies put their anger out on the victims. 

The purpose of this paper is to explain the motivation of the bully and to explain why the bully is just as likely to be suffering like his victims.

B. Statement of the Problem
This study aims to answer this question:

1.What motivates the bully and in what ways does the bully suffer?

C. Significance of the Study

College Students who were once bullied. This research paper would be able to help students because since they experience having being bullied once, whether during elementary or high 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 it, they just stand there and think it is nothing. The researcher thinks that they bystanders will benefit because they will become more aware on what 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 thing that Filipino women are fit to be household helpers when they have so much potential to show and the researcher believes that if the future studies are to be made, the researcher thinks that the future researcher will use and add more references to put additional information tot their studies.

D. Scope and Delimitation
This study focuses on the impact of bullying on an individual; also this study will focus on the reasons why bullies bully.

This 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 problem of the bully on why they are being bullying people. Moreover, the researcher believes that there has to be a s reason why the bullies so what they do to the victims. There fore, this study would be important to people who stand up against bullying.

E. 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 themselves, it is the funniest thing in the world to them.

The researcher analysed that her topics are related to each other and the topics could be a product of another topic. There are so many causes of bullying ad 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.

1. F. Definition of Terms

1. Bystanders– those who watch bullying happen or hear about it.
2. Bully-victim– represent a small percentage of bullies who have been bullied themselves. Bully-victims are often physically stronger then their own victims.
3. Self-harming– includes self-injury ad self-poisoning and is defined as the intentional direct injuring of body tissue most often done without suicidal intentions.
4. Eating disorders– any range of psychological disorders characterised by abnormal or disturbed eating habits.