Illinois School Board Journal
November/December 2007

Connie Goddard of Evanston, Illinois, a school historian with a particular interest in educational innovations generated in Illinois, has also written about education for numerous local and national publications.

A teenage girl's hands decorated with iridescent blue nail polish type a nasty text message into a cell phone: "sooooo ugly, shoes 2" and "every1 H8S her."

The bright pink cover of a Chicago Tribune Magazine last summer says it all about the most recent manifestation of an ancient phenomenon — bullying. The image represents two trends that present new challenges to school counselors, teachers and administrators — especially in middle and junior high schools: girls are doing more bullying than ever before and it's gone electronic.

In fact, an expert in cyberbullying — as the latter is now called — suggests that girls are particularly drawn to electronic meanness.

"It's possible," wrote Jessica Reaves, the Tribune article's author, that girls "are simply responding, superficially, to a less generous, faster-paced, more cutthroat society" by behaving more like — or worse than — boys.

Barbara Kalina, who taught seventh-grade in Batavia for three decades, says bullying among girls was getting "really bad" … particularly in the years just before her recent retirement. "With the Internet, it is girls more than boys who are doing the bullying," she said.

Girls who are being bullied "totally lose their focus," she added. "Boys are more physical and overt. It's a self-esteem thing."

Kalina, who serves as a board member for the Association of Illinois Middle-Level Schools, knows from experience what anthropologists know from research: males in most cultures (human or otherwise) bully others as a means of establishing a hierarchy. It's a rite of passage. Girls — or females of most any species — indulge in similar behavior as a means of attracting male attention, which is probably why "mean" girls tend to be those with more social power. They focus on how their victim looks, picking off easy potential competitors by demeaning them.

In her Tribune article, Reaves admitted to having been a bully herself in fourth grade. "[E]ach of us more insecure than the next" circled — like "carrion birds" — "our weakest member and picked the living daylights out of her." The memory now makes her blush with shame, but she ended her article by posing a good question: Is some of this behavior hard-wired into us?

Bullying "is a specific form of aggression and one that is used deliberately to secure resources," noted Anthony Pellegrini, a University of Minnesota psychologist, in his contribution to the recent book, Bullying in American Schools. It is a "way in which boys gain and maintain dominance status with peers," he wrote, and is particularly prevalent during adolescence, "a time when youngsters challenge adult roles and values as they search for and construct their own identities."

Dominance, Pellegrini wrote, is "renegotiated" as individuals make a transition from one social group to another, in this case from the more secure environment of the elementary school into larger secondary schools. Hence, bullying is most prevalent in middle schools, when students are experiencing rapid body changes, gaining interest in the opposite sex and adjusting roles they may have assumed when younger.

Bullying by boys is usually proactive and often physically aggressive, while bullying by girls is more often "relational" or indirect. "Mean girls" with cell phones are more likely to comment caustically about another girl's looks or dress; boys will harass or attack someone on the playground.

Pellegrini cited behaviorists who claim that Charles Darwin explained these phenomena as aspects of sexual selection. Males and females use different strategies in order to attract mates. Being larger and stronger, males use physical aggression to gain dominance among other males — usually for who gets to mate with the most appealing female. "High status relates to access to females," Pellegrini wrote.

Females, on the other hand, being physically smaller, "are more concerned with protecting themselves and their future offspring. Thus, they choose dominant mates and, when they are aggressive against their peers, do so indirectly," he wrote.

In the Tribune Magazine, Reaves ruefully acknowledged that genes may influence bullying behavior: "I've resigned myself to the fact that Mean Girls will never disappear completely. Social Darwinism, which is simply a fancy term for people walking all over each other, may be, for better or worse, intrinsic to the human condition."

Disheartening though it is that bullying may be a practice so deeply ingrained in our DNA that we are unable to modify it much, let alone eradicate it, school officials nevertheless feel a certain obligation to minimize — or at least monitor — its destructive impact. This became particularly apparent when a Secret Service report issued after the Columbine High School murders in 1999 noted that the perpetrators of that and other school slaughters felt they had been bullied when younger.

Cyberbullying and more direct aggression by girls may be grabbing recent headlines, but they also bring broader attention to the psychological damage bullying can do to children, particularly those not well protected by nurturing homes.

Gary Weilbacher, a school counselor who now teaches at Illinois State University, Normal, spends much of his time in schools with teacher candidates. He dates the current interest in bullying to 2000, the year after Columbine.

Weilbacher thinks bullying has taken on a new meaning: "When I was a kid, we had bullies," but they were regarded as just a normal part of growing up. "Kids used to fight their own battles." Now, given the rash of school shootings, "we may be less tolerant."

He also wonders whether the increase in bullying — or attention to it — is a reflection of how our society has become so much more regulated. "Kids today may not have an outlet to negotiate disputes among themselves," Weilbacher said. "They have become more dependent upon adults."

"School is supposed to be a healthy place, emotionally and socially," he added, but "the more impersonal the school environment, the more bullying you will see."

Thus, bullying is both a product of and a contributor to unsafe environments. And the current emphasis on testing may contribute to a sense of insecurity.

"Though we recognize the importance of emotional safety, there is so much pressure for academic performance, schools are anything but emotionally safe," Weilbacher said.

This contradiction is most apparent in schools where children need an emotionally secure environment because they lack one at home. "In schools that are successful, their concern with testing is minimal; their concern is with the kids," he said.

These various contradictions lead schools to an interesting conundrum. Bullying may be better understood and schools more committed to diminishing it, yet the environment may be encouraging it, both directly and indirectly.

Recent research suggests that teachers and administrators feel they can control the amount of bullying that goes on in their school, but the Internet makes it more difficult to monitor. Widely available electronics also make both bullying and retaliation easier.

Yet one university-based ethicist claims that bullying can be used to teach about human rights issues. Another teacher and now student of educational philosophy wonders whether combating bullying might offer a means of transforming other power relationships in schools. So maybe brains can trump genes.

Until Norwegian researcher Daniel Olweus began studying bullying in the 1970s, neither researchers nor school officials paid it much attention. Then increases in the amount and severity of school violence in Europe and later in the U.S. persuaded many to take the subject more seriously.

The Secret Service study on Columbine spurred school districts to respond, according to Dorothy Espelage, an educational psychologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and co-editor of Bullying in American Schools. Some adopted a "zero tolerance" policy, in some cases running afoul of compulsory attendance laws. These policies were also overly rigid and difficult to enforce.

Now, Espelage warns, there's a new danger that untested anti-bullying programs will be adopted wholesale without considering whether they suit a particular district's needs. (See "Anti-bullying programs can be effective — but no one size fits all," below.)

A better policy would deal with the complexities of the issues involved, advised Topper Steinman, a long-time Champaign-based school counselor who now consults with school administrators statewide.

"Couple disturbing events that grab headlines with changes in family structure and social norms, and we have an explosive combination," he said. "We are too quick to advise students to 'just say no.' This is a very shallow strategy, and it is not being fair to the kids."

Instead, Steinman suggests creating a culture where students can believe in themselves and respect others. "Young people need to be equipped with strategies so they can respond without feeling violent," he said.

A 2007 survey of urban school climate published by the National School Boards Association found at least some good news. According to Brian Perkins, the Connecticut-based researcher who compiled the study, three-quarters of teachers surveyed felt they were able to discourage school bullying, even though a similar percentage felt that they were not able to stop it outright.

Middle-school administrators, on the other hand, appear to feel that their teachers are more efficacious in this regard than the teachers do: nearly 95 percent of administrators felt their teachers could stop someone from being a bully, but only 65 percent of middle-school teachers felt they could. Nevertheless, two-thirds of the teachers surveyed also reported that they address bullying behavior in their classrooms at least once a month.

If teachers find themselves having to address bullying and other forms of school violence more often now than in the past, other studies suggest that some aspects of bullying do not change, and that the tendencies in Western European schools are roughly similar to those found in the U.S.

A group of psychologists at Rowan University in New Jersey summarized several others as part of their study of self-reported bullying among college students. It notes, as does much of the research, that bullying is most prevalent in early adolescence and decreases as students work their way through secondary school. However, male students reported more physical bullying than did female students. Their study also reports — as do several others — that being bullied is associated with negative consequences to mental health, particularly anxiety and depression.

As to how many students contend that they have been bullied, figures vary. Espelage said a major large-scale U.S. study, conducted in 1998 and involving more than 15,000 students in grades six through 10, found that 30 percent of the students surveyed reported being involved directly with bullying. Of this, 13 percent reported being perpetrators, 11 percent victims and the rest as both. (That bullies report being victimized as well is a common finding and seems to apply to males more than to females.)

A more recent, far smaller-scale study of black and Hispanic sixth- through 12th-graders in an urban Texas district found the percentage of victims and victim-bullies was similar to the earlier study; however, only 7 percent of its subjects acknowledged bullying others. (For the most recent compilation of facts about bullying, visit the National Youth Violence Prevention Center Web site at www.safeyouth.org.)

Cyberbullying "is taking humiliation to a frightening new level," according to a recent article in Our Children magazine, published by the national Parent Teacher Association. Cyberbullying's anonymity is one reason; another is that what is said online can be protected as free speech.

Also, because most of it originates on home computers, school administrators resist getting involved. But, as a technology consultant has pointed out, "everyone leaves footprints in cyberspace."

Parents or teachers who find one of their children being taunted can trace the origin of Web pages, e-mails and instant messages through Internet service providers (ISPs) or special services such as www.whois.com.

Espelage, the U of I educational psychologist, said popular Web services such as FaceBook and MySpace attempt to monitor what students post. Both, along with other forms of electronic communication, also make retaliation easier, and they facilitate the assumption of a false identity — both by bullies and victims. Because these online, bedroom-based battles can carry over to school the next day, she suggests that school administrators get a MySpace account of their own.

"This is their life," Espelage noted of students. "This is where students are finding their identity, where they are terrorizing each other." And she worries that cyberbullying will "contribute to a whole generation of socially maladjusted adults."

School administrators, worried about how to respond to this threat, can consult materials prepared by Oregon-based lawyer Nancy Willard. Her Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use offers a variety of helpful information at www.csriu.org.

Figures she cites about the extent of cyberbullying are similar to those other studies have found — somewhere between 10 and 35 percent of all preteens and adolescents report having been bullied online — but some of her figures suggest differences, too.

For one, cyberbullies tend to be the members of the "in-crowd," rather than the socially maladjusted, as previously thought. She also claims an interesting, if not surprising, gender difference: though girls do more direct taunting online, boys' online violence tends to be through gaming, with fictional characters.

Willard noted that online communication can facilitate student harassment of school staff members, too. Students can, for example, cast aspersions on a teacher's sexuality or competence, without realizing that their comments are usually traceable.

Willard outlines legal issues school administrators face. When, for example, can a school search or seize student records and files? How does free speech apply to the Internet?

Her advice: "It is clearly necessary to distinguish between the mere expression of views, words, symbols or thoughts that some people, or even many people, find offensive and material that has created a hostile environment that is sufficiently serious to deny or limited a student's ability to participate in or benefit from an educational program or a situation that could cause substantial disorder, including violence."

As school counselor Steinman noted, our biological and social programming — along with our competitive culture — suggest we may not be able to eliminate the hierarchies we establish among ourselves. Though intensified by technology and the rather violent temper of our times, bullying seems part of our makeup.

Chicago-based writer and teacher Vivian Paley has observed that this hierarchical structure emerges as early as kindergarten: "Certain children will have the right to limit the social experiences of their classmates. … Long after hitting and name-calling have been outlawed by the teachers, a more damaging phenomenon is allowed to take root, spreading like a weed from grade to grade. Must it be so?"

Paley's comment introduced a recent article by Ronald Jacobson, a teacher and researcher at the University of Washington. In the article, published by Teachers College Record, he asks whether this highly undemocratic tendency among us might be altered. Could teachers and schools help the bully to no longer desire to bully?

Echoing school counselor Weilbacher's comments, he ponders whether specific types of relationships could be cultivated in schools to head off bullying before it begins. Though Jacobson contends that bullies' behavior results from "rational decision making," he also asks whether bullies and their victims lack the social skills necessary for peaceful coexistence. Further, might schools institute incentives that would encourage other students to apply social pressure that would diminish the bullying?

Jacobson's answers are complex, but they address Paley's question: "Must it be so?" Although he does not discuss its possible hard-wired nature, he wrote that in order to eradicate bullying, schools need to find ways to address issues of status and power, identity, security, competition and a host of others. Might it be possible to help students split their need for self-assertion from their need for recognition, so that they do not have to get the latter at the expense of others? Might, he concluded, schools help students thrive in ways that foster internalized security, thus lessening their need to dominate?

None of these are easy questions for harried administrators or overburdened teachers to answer. But they do suggest that bullying — along with a host of other social problems schools face — needs to be addressed by the culture at large.

Reaves' Tribune Magazine article pointed out that Chicago's Girl Scout organization has taken up combating meanness, electronic or otherwise, as its cause. If bulling indeed needs to be addressed by more than schools, then the program in Chicago may be onto something.

To that end, our neighbors in Canada might also have some lessons to offer. The cities of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have become as diverse as any in the United States. This, and a cultural tendency to stress couth rather than competition, may have led Canadian educators to rethink bullying in ways that Jacobson and Paley would applaud.

Among them is Joseph Kirman, an author of books on ethics in schools, who teaches at McGill University in Montreal. In an article published by the McGill Journal of Education in 2004, he argued that bullying is a human rights violation and thus should be part of the social studies curriculum. He proposed one that does just that. Though he does not say whether or not his plan has been successfully implemented, he does warn that any such curriculum can be a "double-edged sword."

If students are taught that bullying is wrong and a violation of others' human rights, he said, bullies must be quickly disciplined. Otherwise teachers and administrators will appear to be hypocrites and encourage students' further contempt for authority.

Many schools already feel that they are teetering on that "double-edged sword." Weilbacher, the former school counselor, noted that even if one respects its intentions, strict measures such as annual yearly progress are a means of bullying schools.

Also noting the contradictory imperatives schools face today, long-time counselor Steinman, with nearly four decades of work in schools to back up his observations, noted the inherent tension between steadily improving academic performance and creating an emotionally safe environment for students.

The two really call for different sorts of actions, he said, but on this and other issues, "if we don't ride these tracks parallel, we are in peril."

http://www.isafe.org/

Mark S. Chapell et al. "Bullying in Elementary School, High School, and College," Adolescence, Winter 2006

Dorothy L. Espelage and Susan M. Swearer, Bullying in American Schools: A Sociological Perspective on Prevention and Intervention, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004

Ronald Jacobson, "School Bullying and Current Educational Practice: Re-Imagining Theories of Educational Transformation," Teachers College Record, June 2007

Joseph M. Kirman, "Using the Theme of Bullying to Teach About Human Rights in the Social Studies," McGill Journal of Education, Fall 2004

Brian K. Perkins, Where We Teach: The Cube Survey of Urban School Climate, National School Boards Association, 2007

Melissa F. Peskin et al, "Bullying and Victimization among Black and Hispanic Adolescents," Adolescence, Fall 2006

Jessica Reaves, "Tough Cookies," Chicago Tribune Magazine, July 22, 2007

Illinois, a leader for over a century in many education-related issues, has taken an unusual initiative on a topic closely related to bullying. Four years ago, social and emotional learning joined math and language arts among standards required for all K-12 students. Illinois also was one of the first states to adopt an anti-bullying law.

Taken together, these initiatives commit school districts throughout the state to attend to bullying and other forms of interpersonal violence.

In response, several providers have offered programs that districts can use or adapt to their own purposes. One, Steps to Respect, has been welcomed enthusiastically by 11 districts in a test program funded by the state. Steve Graham, superintendent of Pontiac's elementary district, CCSD 429, says his district's experience has been a success.

The inclusive program asks all members of the school community to participate — cooks and bus drivers as well as teachers and parents. Among the program's virtues, in addition to being relatively easy for teachers to implement, is that its lessons are age appropriate and suggest a common language. To complement it, Pontiac has established a Pro-Youth Task Force composed not only of school officials, but of civic leaders and police officers.

Learning from the program was put to the test in late August when a backpack containing six unloaded guns was found at the high school that CCSD 429 students feed into. The situation was brought under control after a student notified authorities about the weapons.

"This can happen anywhere," Graham said after the incident. "Fortunately, we were well prepared to deal with it."

A community-wide approach also characterizes the less-structured program adopted by Catlin CUSD 5 schools, a small district west of Danville.

"There's a lot of research that says the more parents are involved with the schools, the higher your test scores," said superintendent Guy Banicki, so the district instituted several initiatives to encourage parent involvement. That led him and his district to consult with the University of Illinois at Chicago-based Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning — the organization that instigated the state's social and emotional learning standards.

After just two years, Banicki has seen a notable improvement in student behavior, particularly in the hallways and lunchroom. Why the success? "The main element is just people taking the time to talk to each other," he said, not just asking "How are you today?" but listening to the answer.

The experiences in Catlin and Pontiac suggest that responding to bullying or trying to diminish its intensity relies little on new techniques or technologies. Other programs available include "Don't Laugh at Me," promoted by singer Peter Yarrow, "Second Step" and "Bully Busters," plus one developed by Norwegian research pioneer Daniel Olweus and available in the U.S. through the Minnesota-based Hazelden Foundation.

But the rush to adopt anti-bullying programs has led Dorothy Espelage, an educational psychologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, to suggest caution. In a presentation made at the August meeting of the American Psychological Association, she noted that schools embraced the DARE anti-drug program more than a decade ago — but before research was done that seriously questioned its effectiveness.

She doesn't want to see effort wasted in combating bullying, and she expressed concern about U.S. Department of Justice's apparent endorsement of the Olweus program, which she says has not been sufficiently well tested in the United States. "We do not have a one-size-fits-all school system," she said, and our anti-bullying efforts need to reflect that.

Gary Weilbacher, a former school counselor now teaching at Illinois State University, also offers caution about off-the-shelf programs.

"There's a danger in believing that a canned program will solve all a school's problems," Weilbacher said. "It is probably more effective to tweak a program according to local context — and listen to the kids."

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