Bullying Among Youth

Bullying Among Youth in School

Introduction

Bullying is a huge public health concern, especially seen in schools. A study published in 2008, found out that 29.9% of US youth between Grade 6 – 10, are involved in bullying; whether as a bully (13%), victims (10.6%) or both (6.3%) (Nansel et. al 2001). Bullying has many forms, direct or indirect. It can also be either emotional or physical harassments and aggression. Direct form includes physical aggression, teasing, name-calling, and threatening. Indirect form is more emotional; it includes spreading rumors, exclusion from groups and backstabbing. Bullies choose their victims based on specific characteristics, whether it is age, gender, academic level, or ethnicity. Bullying can results in psychiatric

Methods

The articles were found though Pubmed and ScienceDirect. In Pubmed, the term searched was “school bullying” using the following filters: Publication date: 5 years, Languages: English, Ages: Child (birth -18). 624 articles were found. The search term was then changed to; “school bullying prevalence” and results were narrowed to 245 results.

Pubmed directed me to ScienceDirect where the article “Adolescent peer aggression and its association with mental health and substance use in an Australian cohort” was available. On the panel to the right; there were recommended/related articles.

In ScienceDirect; the search term used was “School Bullying” in the search bar; filters were: Years: (2015-2010), Topic: ‘bullying’, Content type: journals; and had 97 results. The abstract of multiple articles were read, and the one chosen were based on relevance and if they answer the aims or not. A total of 36 articles were chosen and downloaded; however, only 12 were used.

Results

Although, 36 articles were found, only 12 articles were used since most of the articles were repeating the same information. The one used were the original articles that were referenced the most and the ones that answered the

Boys are more likely to be involved in direct forms of bullying; physical and verbal. Where as girls are more likely to be involved in indirect bullying; both as a victim and preditor (Wang et.al 2009). In the Wang study, sample size 7,182 students, 13.3% reported having bullied others physically, 37.4% verbally, 27.2 socially, and 8.3 electronically at least once in the past 2 months. On the other hands, 12.8% reported being a victim of physical bullying, 36.5% verbal, 41.0% social, and 9.8% electronic; at least once in the past 2 months. The most common form of bullying is verbal (name calling; teasing) and social isolation in both male and female