Statistics on School Bullying According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), bullying is a widespread problem that directly affects millions of school-aged children in American schools every year. Often, it is believed that bullying is just a normal part of growing up, but bullying is not just a coming of age ceremony for our youth. This unacceptable, intrusive behavior puts both the bully and the victim at risk for later abusive patterns. The Cost of Bullying The NIHCD has found that bullying is not an isolated event. Most often, youths who engage in bullying behavior are also engaging in other unacceptable and dangerous behaviors. According to a recent study: 1 out of 5 students surveyed admitted to being a bully, or doing some "Bullying." 60% of boys who were known to be bullies in the middle grades had been convicted of at least one criminal offense by the age of 24.
Students who bully are more likely to:
• get into frequent fights;
• be injured in a fight;
• steal, vandalize property;
• drink alcohol;
• smoke;
• be truant, drop out of school;
• get poorer grades;
• view school negatively
• carry a weapon
Young people who become violent before age 13 usually commit more crimes, and more serious crimes, for a longer time. Their pattern of violence rises through childhood and sometimes continues into adulthood.
While a survey of recent violent events in school settings shows that school violence in is neither more nor less common in the United States than in other large countries, the mortality rate for school-aged children due to violence is much higher in the United States. One suggested explanation is that in the Untied States, children have easier access to lethal weapons. Another possible theory cites the attitudes of American citizens towards violence. A World Health Organization study has reported that American youth are more likely to believe it's appropriate to kill to protect their property than were youth in Estonia, Finland, Romania, and Russia.
Statistics from the study cited above show that: 100,000 students in the United States have carried a gun to school. 28% of youths who carry weapons have witnessed violence at home. Among boys who said they had bullied others at least once a week in school, 52.2 percent had carried a weapon in the past month, 43.1 percent carried a weapon in school, 38.7 percent were involved in frequent fighting, and 45.7 percent reported having been injured in a fight.
Interestingly, children who report being bullied show similar, if slightly lower statistics. Of the boys who said they had been bullied in school every week, 36.4 percent had carried a weapon, 28.7 percent carried a weapon in school, 22.6 percent said they were involved in frequent fighting, and about 31.8 percent said they had been injured in a fight. Children who are bullied are more likely to have low self-esteem; they have higher rates of depression, loneliness, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. They are more likely to avoid attending school and have higher school absenteeism rates. Research on the health-related effects of bullying indicates that victims of frequent bullying are more likely to experience headaches, sleeping problems, and stomach ailments. Those who were bullied as children are more likely than their non-bullied peers to be depressed and have low self-esteem as adults.
Male vs. Female – It’s Not Just The Boys Until the last few years, bullying was considered to be mostly the province of boys – almost a rite of passage for young men. As the definition of bullying has been refined, however, it’s become clear to those who work with children and teens – as well as with adults – that girls engage in bullying behaviors as much as boys do. There is, however, a difference in the tactics that girls use to bully others. Where boys are more likely to use overt aggression, either as physical force or in threats and name-calling, girls engage in what Dr. Nikki Crick calls ‘relational bullying’.
Crick has studied the differences in the ways that girls and boys bullies for over a decade. She feels that girls bullying has been underreported because it’s more subtle and covert. When boys bully, it’s easy to see. If a boy hits, it’s an obvious act of aggression. How do you tell when a girl starts a rumor about another with the intent of destroying her credibility?
This, says Crick and a host of other researchers who have taken up the study of the more subtle forms of bullying, is typical of how girls bully each other. The tactics that girls use to bully each other – because the target of girls bullying is most often another girl – can be almost impossible to spot, especially by male teachers. The list of those tactics includes: Spreading rumors Snide remarks said within the hearing of the target Instant messages and SMS text messages to and about bullying targets Facial expressions Sarcasm Social exclusion Body language and posture
Boys, on the other hand, are more likely to use physical acts such as pushing, hitting and tripping others. They are also more likely to openly taunt another student and call them names.
Male and female bullies choose their targets differently as well. Boys are most likely to target a boy whom they don’t like. Girls, on the other hand, often bully their friends as much as they do ‘outsiders’. Boys target both other boys and girls fairly evenly. Girls tend to target other girls exclusively when they bully.
The reasons for bullying also differ along gender lines. In a survey conducted in Australia among middle school students, children were asked to identify reasons that they might bully another. Boys were more likely than girls to bully for fun, because others were doing it, to show how tough they are or to get money or things. Girls were more likely to bully another to get even with them or because ‘they annoyed me’. However, these differences were most marked among children between the ages of 8 and 12. By the time the children reach their teen years, the differences begin to even out, in much the same way that teen boys often become more subtle in their bullying.
Girls who admit to bullying also admit to
The Extent of Bullying Bullying in schools is far more widespread than most people believe. Further results from the same study show that 1 out of 4 students is bullied physically. The American Justice Department says that this month 1 out of every 4 kids will be abused by another youth. 77% of the responding students report having been bullied mentally, verbally, & physically. 14% of those who were bullied said they experienced severe (bad) reactions to the abuse. 282,000 students are physically attacked in secondary schools each month
- Every seven minutes, a child is being bullied in school.
Bullying affects more than the bullies and their direct victims. When bullying is overlooked, tolerated or condoned in a school, everyone who attends the school feels it. Students are more fearful about attending school, and less trusting of the adults in their lives to protect them from violence. Respondents to the national survey on school violence told researchers that Children who are bystanders to bullying can feel fearful ("Maybe I'll be targeted next!"), guilty ("I should do something to stop this, but I'm afraid to."), and distracted from school work. 70% of the students surveyed feel that violence has increased in their schools. 43% are fearful of being harassed in the bathroom As many as 160,000 children stay home from school each day out of fear of being bullied. In bullying incidents that were reported by students, an adult (teacher, staff or other adult) intervened 4% of the time. Peers intervened 11% of the time. In 85% of the bullying incidents reported, no one intervened on behalf of the victim.
That last statistic is chilling. In 85% of all bullying incidents that teens in this survey shared, no one stepped in to stop the bullying. If we are to prevent school violence and raise children who neither bully nor are bullied, it is vital that we, as teachers, parents and administrators, learn what bullying looks like, how it affects all the participants, and how to nip it in the bud before another generation joins the cycle of bullying and bullied.
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Bully Solutions
