essay for bullying on the school

Essay on Bullying in Schools

School bullying can be defined as the situation in which one or more students (The Bullies) single out a child (victim) and intend in behavior intended to cause discomfort or harm the child. A bully will repeatedly target the same victim several times. Under all circumstances, bullies have an advantage over the victim as they possess more power. Compared to the victim, bullies usually have physically stronger with a large circle of friends or higher social standing. Bullying can inflict emotional distress, humiliation, and physical harm. More than 95% of learning institutions experience bullying globally. Bullying must be meet a specific rationale to be considered bullying. Such requirements include repetitiveness, recurrent imbalance of power, and provocation. Bullying can occur in schools, on campus, or the outskirts of school, but its setting must have been created within the school. Regardless of the position, all the stakeholders in a school context, such as parents, educators, children, and community members, are required to contribute to the prevention of bullying in schools. School bullying is increasingly becoming a social problem in modern society. Ideally, there are several types of school bullying attached to different causes. The effects of school bullying can be classified in psychological, economical, and academic dimensions.

Types of Bullying in Schools

The common types of bullying in a school setting include verbal, sexual, cyber, psychological, physical, and higher education bullying. Notably, victims in a learning context can experience bullying regardless of age. The aforementioned types of bullying are further classified as either direct or indirect bullying. Direct bullying is defined as an attack that is openly targeted to a victim. Direct bullying is either verbal or physical. Contrary, indirect bullying involves different forms of relational aggression that leads to social isolation through defaming one’s reputation and manipulating the conscience of others into falsehood. Indirect bullying is usually hard and subtle to detect in a school setting (Goodwin et al. 330). If undertaken by a group of bullies, direct and indirect bullying can be referred to as pack bullying. The different types of bullying can be defined either directly or indirectly relative to the implication to the victim.

Physical bullying occurs when there is unwanted physical contact between the victim and the bully. Physical contact can be hand to hand or tripping and throwing items at others that can cause physical harm. The second is emotional bullying. Emotional bullying can be defined as hurting others emotionally by negatively influencing their moods and psyche. The primary examples of emotional bullying include; belittling, spreading false information, and defamation. Verbal bullying can be defined as the usage of slanderous language or statements causing emotional distress to other people. Examples of verbal bullying include harassing, mocking, teasing, and threatening to cause harm. Finally, Cyberbullying is attached to the evolution of the internet and computers. The use of computers in bullying at schoolyards is on the surge. In most instances, schools experience difficulties in controlling cyberbullying as experiences are beyond the school fraternity.

The other common types of school bullying are sexual bullying and higher education bullying. Sexual bullying is either non-physical or physical, grounded on the gender or sexuality of the victim. In most instances, sexual bullying is undertaken by the male gender. The United States department of education reports an average of 60% of expulsions and suspensions from learning institutions attached to sexual bullying (Goodwin et al. 328). In most instances, the young ones are frames into tricks to share their nudes, after which there are forced to fulfill specific sexual demands at the expense of exposure. Higher education bullying occurs at the campus or college level. Around 95% of students have reported having been bullied at the college level. Higher education bullying results in depression and suicide in most cases.

Measures to Control Bullying

The main approaches in controlling bullying in school settings include the implementation of educative programs, creating a positive school climate, engaging parents, encouraging open communication and punishments. These techniques, however, vary depending on the learning level and the prevalence of bullying in the particular period. Education programs involve creating awareness to parents, students, and teachers regarding what constitutes bullying. Educative programs are instrumental in creating insight into the harmful nature of whichever kind of bullying. All the stakeholders within the school fraternity are enrolled in sessions of creating awareness on the signs of bullying and the most appropriate intervention criteria. The most common ways in educating on bullying include role-play, identification and reporting discussions, and other approaches to decline being involved in bullying. Nickerson(19) argued that educative programs are 62% effective in curbing the prevalence of bullying in learning institutions.

Secondly, schools can help in the prevention of bullying by promoting a positive school climate. Schools with a positive climate are presumed to have a healthy development, while the negative school climate results in a surge in bullying cases, unsafe feelings, victimization, and aggression. While the elements of positive school culture vary from norms relative to power, relationships, and feelings, it’s evident that a positive climate is a product of a conscious process that becomes self-reinforcing (Goodwin et al. 330). The main determinants of a positive climate include leadership and integrity in learning institutions. Therefore, the ability to have cognitive leaders is an advantage of coping with bullying in schools.

Third, schools should engage parents. Parents spend most of their time with children at the primary level. While there are many stakeholders involved in the lives of the children, parents play an essential role in understanding their behavior. Engaging parents in bullying scenarios means initiating communication on the progress of the children in terms of behavior and performance. Integration between parents and teachers is essential in providing consistent approaches that help yield a more productive and appropriate behavior (Nickerson 22). Parents can help their children recognize while being bullied by others. However, the approach is not viable in urban schools as parents experience difficulties establishing trust with schools.

Finally, schools should initiate open communication techniques. Open communication is essential in building rapport. Having open communication means that students can disclose their problems to teachers. Open communication helps the teachers gain more insight into existing bullies in the school (Nickerson 20). For instance, classroom meetings in grade 4 will enable teachers to obtain crucial information in enacting more controls to curb bullying in schools. Teachers are expected to listen carefully during the class meetings to avoid inflicting fear on the learners. Students should be assured of confidentiality and privacy of the information obtained as any disclosure might attract further bullying.

Effects of School Bullying 

The effect of school bullying can be categorized in psychological and academic dimensions. Bullying results in poor performance in school. More than 70% of learners subjected to bullying ends up recording a decline in academic performance. The results are more severe at a young age. Bullying would result in fading of interest and participation of learners in school activities as it results in unexplained injuries linked to affecting concentration (Menesini and Christina 246). The impact of bullying on educational performance is increasingly becoming imminent. Bullying installs fear in learners from attending school regularly, thus affecting their consistency and concentration in class. Based on this explanation, it’s evident that bullied students will experience difficulties in achieving their academic goals. Moreover, bullying is linked with an unsafe learning environment that creates a negative climate of fear and insecurities and the perception that teachers do not care about the welfare of learners, thus decline in quality of education.

Secondly, bullying is associated with psychological problems. While bullying to individuals helps them enhance their personality and perceptions as they grow, it’s presumed that bullying can risk an individual developing an antisocial personality disorder linked to committing crimes. Bullying leads to depression, anxiety, and psychosomatic symptoms, which often leads to alcohol and substance abuse by the victims at a later stage in their lives. It’s argued that victims of depression feel free and open to share their experience with others, unlike in bullying, where the victims would choose to shy talking about the feeling in fear of being bullied again. In the short run, bystanders of the bullying experience may develop the fear, guiltiness, and sadness, and if the experience persists, they might get psychologically drained (Sampson). Therefore, the victims of bullying experiences struggle with insomnia, suicidal thoughts, health problems, and depression. Bullying does affect not only the students but also their classmates and family. Feeling powerless, parents and immediate family members might fall victim to depression and emotional distress. Some parents would invest more time in protecting their children, thus affecting them psychologically and economically.

Causes of Bullying

There are numerous causes of school bullying attached to religion, socioeconomic status, race, and gender. Understanding the reasons why students chose to bully their classmates is significant to teachers in combating bullying. The National Center for Educational Statistics report established that 25% of Blacks, 22% of Caucasians, 17% of Hispanics, and 9% of Asian students were bullied in 2017 (Divecha). Some of the students that bully others have higher levels of courage and confidence and can respond aggressively if threatened by the behavior. Students at the college level get bullied on sexual matters. For instance, the subscribers to LGBTQA sexual orientation get bullied based on their decision as gay or lesbians. Moreover, bullying in schools is caused by other factors attached to families. Students from abuse and divorced families are likely to bully others due to jealousy, anger, and despair.

From the above discussion, it’s evident that school bullying in whichever capacity is detrimental to human dignity. School bullying is increasingly becoming a social problem in modern society. Ideally, there are several types of school bullying attached to different causes. The effects of school bullying can be classified in psychological, economical, and academic dimensions. The primary forms of school form such as verbal, sexual, cyber, psychological, physical, and higher education bullying are categorized into direct and indirect bullying. The intervention strategies to curb bullying should involve all the stakeholders, such as parents, teachers, and students. The main approaches in controlling bullying in school settings include implementing educative programs, creating a positive school climate, engaging parents, and encouraging open communication and punishments.

Works Cited

Divecha, Diana. “What Are the Best Ways to Prevent Bullying in Schools?”  Greater Good , https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_are_the_best_ways_to_prevent_bullyi ng_in_schools

Sampson, Rana. “Center for Problem-Oriented Policing.” Arizona State University,  https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/bullying-schools-0

Menesini, Ersilia, and Christina Salmivalli. “Bullying in schools: the state of knowledge and effective interventions.”  Psychology, health & medicine  22.sup1 (2017): 240-253.

Goodwin, John, et al. “Bullying in schools: an evaluation of the use of drama in bullying prevention.” Journal of Creativity in Mental Health 14.3 (2019): 329-342.

Nickerson, Amanda B. “Preventing and intervening with bullying in schools: A framework for evidence- based practice.”  School Mental Health  11.1 (2019): 15-28.

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Bullying Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on bullying.

Bullying refers to aggressive behavior so as to dominate the other person. It refers to the coercion of power over others so that one individual can dominate others. It is an act that is not one time, instead, it keeps on repeating over frequent intervals.  The person(s) who bullies others can be termed as bullies, who make fun of others due to several reasons. Bullying is a result of someone’s perception of the imbalance of power.

Types of bullying :

There can be various types of bullying, like:

• Physical bullying:  When the bullies try to physically hurt or torture someone, or even touch someone without his/her consent can be termed as physical bullying .
• Verbal bullying:  It is when a person taunts or teases the other person.
• Psychological bullying:  When a person or group of persons gossip about another person or exclude them from being part of the group, can be termed as psychological bullying.
• Cyber bullying:  When bullies make use of social media to insult or hurt someone. They may make comments bad and degrading comments on the person at the public forum and hence make the other person feel embarrassed. Bullies may also post personal information, pictures or videos on social media to deteriorate some one’s public image.

Read Essay on Cyber Bullying

Bullying can happen at any stage of life, such as school bullying, College bullying, Workplace bullying, Public Place bullying, etc. Many times not only the other persons but the family members or parents also unknowingly bully an individual by making constant discouraging remarks. Hence the victim gradually starts losing his/her self-esteem, and may also suffer from psychological disorders.

A UNESCO report says that 32% of students are bullied at schools worldwide. In our country as well, bullying is becoming quite common. Instead, bullying is becoming a major problem worldwide. It has been noted that physical bullying is prevalent amongst boys and psychological bullying is prevalent amongst girls.

Prevention strategies:

In the case of school bullying, parents and teachers can play an important role. They should try and notice the early symptoms of children/students such as behavioral change, lack of self-esteem, concentration deficit, etc. Early recognition of symptoms, prompt action and timely counseling can reduce the after-effects of bullying on the victim.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Anti-bullying laws :

One should be aware of the anti-bullying laws in India. Awareness about such laws may also create discouragement to the act of bullying amongst children and youngsters. Some information about anti-bullying laws is as follows:

• Laws in School: To put a notice on the notice board that if any student is found bullying other students then he/she can be rusticated. A committee should be formed which can have representatives from school, parents, legal, etc.
• Laws in Colleges: The government of India, in order to prevent ragging , has created guideline called “UGC regulations on curbing the menace of ragging in Higher Education Institutions,2009”.
• Cyber Bullying Laws: The victim can file a complaint under the Indian Penal Code .

Conclusion:

It is the duty of the parents to constantly preach their children about not bullying anyone and that it is wrong. Hence, if we, as a society need to grow and develop then we have to collectively work towards discouraging the act of bullying and hence make our children feel secure.

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What you need to know about school violence and bullying

Bullying in schools deprives millions of children and young people of their fundamental right to education. A recent UNESCO report revealed that more than 30% of the world's students have been victims of bullying, with devastating consequences on academic achievement, school dropout, and physical and mental health.

The world is marking the first International Day against Violence and Bullying at School Including Cyberbullying , on 5 November. Here is what you need to know about school violence and bullying.

What is school violence?

School violence refers to all forms of violence that takes place in and around schools and is experienced by students and perpetrated by other students, teachers and other school staff. This includes bullying and cyberbullying. Bullying is one of the most pervasive forms of school violence, affecting 1 in 3 young people.

What forms may school violence take?

Based on existing international surveys that collect data on violence in schools, UNESCO recognizes the following forms of school violence:

• Physical violence, which is any form of physical aggression with intention to hurt perpetrated by peers, teachers or school staff.
• Psychological violence as verbal and emotional abuse, which includes any forms of isolating, rejecting, ignoring, insults, spreading rumors, making up lies, name-calling, ridicule, humiliation and threats, and psychological punishment.
• Sexual violence, which includes intimidation of a sexual nature, sexual harassment, unwanted touching, sexual coercion and rape, and it is perpetrated by a teacher, school staff or a schoolmate or classmate.
• Physical bullying, including hitting, kicking and the destruction of property;
• Psychological bullying, such as teasing, insulting and threatening; or relational, through the spreading of rumours and exclusion from a group; and
• Sexual bullying, such as making fun of a victim with sexual jokes, comments or gestures, which may be defined as sexual ‘harassment’ in some countries.
• Cyberbullying is a form of psychological or sexual bullying that takes place online. Examples of cyberbullying include posting or sending messages, pictures or videos, aimed at harassing, threatening or targeting another person via a variety of media and social media platforms. Cyberbullying may also include spreading rumours, posting false information, hurtful messages, embarrassing comments or photos, or excluding someone from online networks or other communications.

Who perpetrates school violence?

School violence is perpetrated by students, teachers and other school staff. However, available evidence shows that violence perpetrated by peers is the most common.

What are the main reasons why children are bullied?

All children can be bullied, yet evidence shows that children who are perceived to be “different” in any way are more at risk. Key factors include physical appearance, ethnic, linguistic or cultural background, gender, including not conforming to gender norms and stereotypes; social status and disability.

What are the consequences of school violence?

Educational consequences: Being bullied undermines the sense of belonging at school and affects continued engagement in education. Children who are frequently bullied are more likely to feel like an outsider at school, and more likely to want to leave school after finishing secondary education. Children who are bullied have lower academic achievements than those who are not frequently bullied.

Health consequences: Children’s mental health and well-being can be adversely impacted by bullying. Bullying is associated with higher rates of feeling lonely and suicidal, higher rates of smoking, alcohol and cannabis use and lower rates of self-reported life satisfaction and health. School violence can also cause physical injuries and harm.

What are the linkages between school violence and bullying, school-related gender-based violence and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression?

School violence may be perpetrated as a result of gender norms and stereotypes and enforced by unequal power dynamics and is therefore referred to as school-related gender-based violence. It includes, in particular, a specific type of gender-based violence that is linked to the actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity or expression of victims, including homophobic and transphobic bullying. School-related gender-based violence is a significant part of school violence that requires specific efforts to address.

Does school-related gender-based violence refer to sexual violence against girls only?         

No. School-related gender-based violence refers to all forms of school violence that is based on or driven by gender norms and stereotypes, which also includes violence against and between boys.

Is school violence always gender-based?           

There are many factors that drive school violence. Gender is one of the significant drivers of violence but not all school violence is based on gender. Moreover, international surveys do not systematically collect data on the gendered nature of school violence, nor on violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. 

Based on the analysis of global data, there are no major differences in the prevalence of bullying for boys and girls. However, there are some differences between boys and girls in terms of the types of bullying they experience. Boys are much more exposed to physical bullying, and to physical violence in general, than girls. Girls are slightly more exposed to psychological bullying, particularly through cyberbullying. According to the same data, sexual bullying the same proportion of boys and girls. Data coming from different countries, however, shows that girls are increasingly exposed to sexual bullying online.

How does UNESCO help prevent and address school violence and bullying?

The best available evidence shows that responses to school violence and bullying that are effective should be comprehensive and include a combination of policies and interventions. Often this comprehensive response to school violence and bullying is referred to as a whole-school approach. Based on an extensive review of existing conceptual frameworks that describe that whole-school approach, UNESCO has identified nine key components of a response that goes beyond schools and could be better described as a whole-education system or whole-education approach.  These components are the following:

• Strong political leadership and robust legal and policy framework to address school violence and bullying;
• Training and support for teachers on school violence and bullying prevention and positive classroom management
• Curriculum, learning & teaching to promote, a caring (i.e. anti- school violence and bullying) school climate and students’ social and emotional skills
• A safe psychological and physical school and classroom environment
• Reporting mechanisms for students affected by school violence and bullying, together with support and referral services
• Involvement of all stakeholders in the school community including parents
• Student empowerment and participation
• Collaboration and partnerships between the education sector and a wide range of partners (other government sectors, NGOs, academia)
• Evidence: monitoring of school violence and bullying and evaluation of responses

More on UNESCO’s work to prevent and address school violence and bullying

Read UNESCO's publication Behind the numbers: Ending school violence and bullying

Photo: Eakachai Leesin/Shutterstock.com

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What are the best ways to prevent bullying in schools, a new study identifies the most effective approaches to bullying prevention..

All 50 U.S. states require schools to have a bullying prevention policy.

But a policy, alone, is not enough. Despite the requirement, there’s been a slight uptick in all forms of bullying during the last three years. Bullying can look like experienced basketball players systematically intimidating novice players off the court, kids repeatedly stigmatizing immigrant classmates for their cultural differences, or a middle-school girl suddenly being insulted and excluded by her group of friends.

Bullying occurs everywhere, even in the highest-performing schools, and it is hurtful to everyone involved, from the targets of bullying to the witnesses—and even to bullies themselves. October is National Bullying Prevention Month, so it’s a good time to ask ourselves: What are the best practices for preventing bullying in schools? That’s a question I explored with my colleague Marc Brackett from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, in a recent paper that reviewed dozens of studies of real-world bullying prevention efforts.

As we discovered, not all approaches to bullying prevention are equally effective. Most bullying prevention programs focus on raising awareness of the problem and administering consequences. But programs that rely on punishment and zero tolerance have not been shown to be effective in the U.S.; and they often disproportionately target students of color. Programs like peer mediation that place responsibility on the children to work out conflicts can increase bullying. (Adult victims of abuse are never asked to “work it out” with their tormentor, and children have an additional legal right to protections due to their developmental status.) Bystander intervention, even among adults, only works for some people—extroverts, empaths, and people with higher social status and moral engagement. Many approaches that educators adopt have not been evaluated through research; instead, educators tend to select programs based on what their colleagues use.

We found two research-tested approaches that show the most promise for reducing bullying (along with other forms of aggression and conflict). They are a positive school climate, and social and emotional learning.

Building a positive school climate

School climate can be difficult to define, though possible to measure . It is the “felt sense” of being in a school, which can arise from a greeting, the way a problem is resolved, or how people work together; it is a school’s “heart and soul,” its “quality and character.” Schools with a positive climate foster healthy development, while a negative school climate is associated with higher rates of student bullying, aggression, victimization, and feeling unsafe.

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The elements of a positive climate may vary, but may often include norms about feelings and relationships, power and how it is expressed, and media consumption. Social norm engineering is a conscious process that builds a positive culture among student peers and school adults that becomes self-reinforcing. Like a healthy immune system, a positive school climate promotes optimal health and reduces the chances of dysfunction or disease.

Leadership is key to a positive climate. Is bullying minimized as a “normal rite of childhood,” or is it recognized as the harmful peer abuse that it is? Do leaders understand that uninterrupted, severe bullying can confer lifelong negative consequences on targets of bullies, bullies, and witnesses? Are school leaders committed to promoting all children’s positive psychological health, or do they over-rely on punishing misbehavior? Can they discern between typical developmental processes that need guidance versus bullying that needs assertive intervention? Are educators empathic to their students, and do they value children’s feelings?

Next, are teachers prepared to deal with bullying? Students consistently report that teachers miss most incidents of bullying and fail to help students when asked. A majority of teachers report that they feel unprepared to deal with classroom bullying. Some teachers bully students themselves , or show a lack of empathy toward children who are bullied. Teachers report that they receive little guidance in “classroom management,” and sometimes default to the disciplinary strategies they learned in their own families growing up.

However, reforming school climate should involve all stakeholders—students and parents, as well as the administrators and teachers—so a school’s specific issues can be addressed, and the flavor of local cultures retained. School climate assessments can be completed periodically to track the impact of improvements.

Advancing social and emotional learning

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is well known, and involves teaching skills of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision making, and relationships management. (Full disclosure: Brackett and I are affiliated with the SEL program RULER .)

Evidence-based SEL approaches have been shown to deliver cost-effective, solid results. Numerous meta-analyses , research reviews , and individual studies of hundreds of thousands of K-12 students show that SEL improves emotional well-being, self-regulation, classroom relationships, and kind and helpful behavior among students. It reduces a range of problems like anxiety, emotional distress, and depression; reduces disruptive behaviors like conflicts, aggression, bullying, anger, and hostile attribution bias ; and it improves academic achievement, creativity, and leadership.

A study of 36 first-grade teachers showed that when teachers were more emotionally supportive of students, children were less aggressive and had greater behavioral self-control, compared to the use of behavior management, which did not improve student self-control. One meta-analysis showed that developing emotional competence was protective against becoming a victim of bullying; social competence and academic performance were protective against becoming a bully; and positive peer interactions were protective against becoming a bully-victim (one who has been bullied and bullies others). A series of longitudinal studies showed positive effects into midlife (e.g., fewer divorces, less unemployment) and even cross-generational effects of early SEL. Compared to a matched control group, the children of the adults who participated in the Perry Preschool Project had less criminal involvement and higher educational and employment achievement. A cost-benefit analysis of six SEL programs found them to be good investments, with $11 saved for every $1 spent.

Teachers also benefit from SEL. Those with emotional and social skills training have higher job satisfaction and less burnout, show more positive emotions toward their students, manage their classrooms better, and use more strategies that cultivate creativity, choice, and autonomy in their students. Teachers report that they want more SEL support to cultivate their own emotional and social skills, and to better understand their students’ feelings. But few teacher training programs focus on growing the teachers’ emotion regulation skills.

Bullying at different age levels

SEL approaches should be developmentally wise , since what is salient and possible for children changes at different ages.

For example, preschoolers are expelled from school at the highest rates of all, but the neurological hardware for their self-control is only just developing. Only then are the connections between the emotion circuitry and the more thinking regions of the prefrontal cortex beginning to be myelinated (insulated for faster connectivity), something that will take until the mid 20s to complete. An SEL program like PATHS or RULER that teaches young children language for feelings, and strategies for thinking before acting, can develop better self-regulation.

Online resources on bullying

Learn more about SEL programs .

Read your state’s legislation and policies on bullying .

Read your state’s legislation and policies on cyberbullying .

Schools can refer to this summary of legal issues on bullying .

Many states have laws that outlaw sexting, and most states outlaw revenge porn. Find out your state laws .

Discover tip sheets for preventing and responding to cyberbullying in middle and high school educators, parents, and teens.

Discover more tip sheets for parents and teens .

Sometimes, adults confuse normal developmental processes with bullying. For example, children begin to reorganize their friendships midway through elementary school, something that can naturally create hurt feelings and interpersonal conflict. It should not be misconstrued as bullying, though, which involves intentional, repeated aggression within an imbalance of power. Normal development also includes experimenting with power, and these normal dynamics should be guided safely toward developing a healthy sense of agency, rather than a hurtful exertion of power over someone else.

Finally, the onset of puberty marks the beginning of heightened sensitivity to social relationships, an especially important time to cultivate skills for kinder, gentler relationships. Unfortunately, this is the period when bullying spikes the highest. And while some strategies work well for younger children (for example, advising them to “tell a trusted adult”), this option may fail with teens, and the breakpoint seems to be around the eighth grade. Older teens require approaches that are less didactic and leverage their need for autonomy, while affirming their values and search for meaning. Physiologically, the brain changes during puberty confer a second chance for recalibrating their stress regulation system. That opportunity should be constructively seized.

Approaches should also take into account individual differences between children. Even SEL programs can stumble here, over-relying on just one or two emotion regulation strategies, like breathing or mindfulness. But children vary in their temperaments, sensitivities, strengths, and vulnerabilities. The best SEL approaches guide students toward discovering strategies that work best for them—strategies that are emotion- and context-specific, personalized, and culturally responsive. This approach requires unconventional flexibility on the part of the educators.

And, finally, approaches work best if they are not standalone pedagogies or from kits that end up in the classroom closet at the end of the year. In order to be effective, skills should become fully embedded across the curricula and the entire day, in all settings, and implemented by all adults—in other words, infiltrating the ecosystem. Only approaches used and taught as intended are successful.

Schools can’t do this alone

Families matter, too. Bullying in schools sometimes arises from harsh parenting practices or sibling bullying at home.

Even parents’ workplaces matter. Adults experience bullying in their workplaces at about the same rate as children in schools, and it’s even found among teachers and in senior living communities . In other words, bullying is not just a childhood problem; it is a pervasive human problem. And children are not buffered from the wider social world—bullying of children who belong to groups targeted in the national political discourse has spiked on playgrounds nationwide.

Ultimately, we need a substantial shift in our mindsets about the importance of children and their feelings. Children are more likely to thrive when we nurture their humanity, and offer them language and strategies and values to help them identify, express, and, thus, regulate their feelings. When parents, teachers, and administrators gain new awareness into the complex roots of bullying and adopt new strategies for addressing it, schools can lead the way. The kids are counting on us.

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About the Author

Diana Divecha

Diana Divecha, Ph.D. , is a developmental psychologist, an assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center and Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and on the advisory board of the Greater Good Science Center. Her blog is developmentalscience.com .

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What Is Bullying

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 .

In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:

• An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.
• Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.

Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.

Types of Bullying

Where and when bullying happens, frequency of bullying.

There are three types of bullying:

• Name-calling
• Inappropriate sexual comments
• Threatening to cause harm
• Leaving someone out on purpose
• Telling other children not to be friends with someone
• Spreading rumors about someone
• Embarrassing someone in public
• Hitting/kicking/pinching
• Tripping/pushing
• Taking or breaking someone’s things
• Making mean or rude hand gestures

Bullying can occur during or after school hours. While most reported bullying happens in the school building, a significant percentage also happens in places like on the playground or the bus. It can also happen travelling to or from school, in the youth’s neighborhood, or on the Internet .

There are two sources of federally collected data on youth bullying:

• The 2019  School Crime Supplement  to the National Crime Victimization Survey (National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice) indicates that, nationwide, about 22% of students ages 12–18 experienced bullying.
• The 2021  Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) indicates that, nationwide, 15.0% of students in grades 9–12 report being bullied on school property in the 12 months preceding the survey.

See also " Frequency of Cyberbullying ."

Student project: Teens are in a bullying epidemic. 'This is not okay.'

There is an epidemic in bullying among teens in the United States, including right here in Columbus.

In 2023, 40% of youth reported being bullied at school, according to a survey titled "Youth Right Now" from The Boys and Girls Club of America , which surveyed more than 130,000 kids and teens between the ages of 9-18. 

One out of every five students (20.2%) reported being bullied, according to a 2019 National Bullying Prevention Center survey . More male than female students reported that they were being physically bullied, at 6% vs. 4%.

Justin Adams, a 9th and 10th-grade counselor at Columbus Online Academy (COA), spoke on physical bullying.

"Being a boy, I know from experience how it is to be one. Being bullied and being a witness, I will say from what I've seen and read, boys being bullied is more of a physical nature," said Adams. "Where girls being bullied is more of a psychological manner. Harder to catch and harder to observe."

The Boys and Girls Club of America data showed that 41% of students reported being bullied at school and indicated that it would happen again. Of the students who reported being bullied, 13% were made fun of, 13% were subjected to rumors, 5% were pushed, shoved, tripped, and or spit on, and 5% were excluded from activities. 

According to the National Bullying Prevention Center , students reported that the bullying occurred in the following places:

• The hallway or stairwell (43%)
• Inside the classroom (42%)
• In the cafeteria (27%)
• Outside on school grounds (22%)
• Online or by text (15%)
• In the bathroom or locker room (12%)
• On the school bus (8%)

Alaysha Barrett, a 15-year-old 9th grader at COA, spoke about where her bullying took place at her previous school.

"The bullying happened mostly in elementary school, not so much in middle school," Barrett said. "The bullying took place whenever and wherever. It happened every week, every day, non-stop."

The top six reasons students say they got bullied, according to the National Bullying Prevention Center:

• Physical appearance
• Sexual orientation

Two-thirds of teens stepped in to defend, support or assist other students who were being bullied. 

Christian Angel, the principal of COA, talks about the importance of student voice.

"Having a space where students can share their voice, where they can be heard and honored, helps students stick up for others. Then, telling the bullies, 'Look, this is not okay. Why are you doing this?' might help stop the bullying," Angel said.

How many teens are cyberbullied?

One in five children from 9 to 12 years old have been cyberbullied, cyberbullied others, or seen cyberbullying, according to the Boys and Girls Club of America. Of students 12-18 who reported being bullied, 15% were cyberbullied.

Cyberbullying is the highest among middle school students, followed right behind by high school students and then primary school students.

The specific types of cyberbullying students commonly cited were hurtful comments (25%) and rumors (22%).

"Girls were more likely to say someone spread rumors about them online," according to the National Bullying Prevention Center. "Boys were more likely to say that someone threatened them."

Teens reported the following strategies to stop cyberbullying, according to the National Bullying Prevention Center:

• Blocking them (60.2%)
• Telling a parent (50.8%)
• Ignoring them (42.8%) 
• Reporting the website (29.8%)
• Taking a break from device (29.6%)

What are the effects of bullying?

Students who have been bullied are more likely to have depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic performance and drop out of school.

Students say that the bullying affected how they feel about themselves (27%), relationships with family or friends (19%), their school work (19%), and physical health (14%), according to the Boys and Girls Club of America.

"Suicide is the third cause of death among high-school-aged students ages 14-18 years old," according to the National Bullying Prevention Center. "In 2021, the suicide rate for this age group was 9.0 per 100,000 population."

Jaiya Kelley, a 16-year-old 10th grader at COA, talks about bullying and thoughts of suicide. 

"It definitely came close," she said. "I never did anything or stated anything, but there was a time when I did consider it a lot, like every day."

Why kids' lives are at stake 

When asked if she ever wanted to end her life due to bullying, Barrett said she had.

The data from the Boys and Girls Club of America showed she's not alone.

"A little over 14% of students considered suicide," the data shows. "7% attempted suicide."

If you or a friend is struggling with bullying or suicide, please call now. For the suicide hotline, call or text 988. For the bullying hotline, dial 988, then press 1 or text 838255. 

Trinity Forbes is a student at Columbus Online Academy. This piece was written for Columbus Journalists in Training, a program sponsored by the Columbus Dispatch and Society of Professional Journalists Central Ohio Pro-Chapter for Columbus City Schools students. Trinity was a member of team UJCKT.

School Bullies Earn More Money as Adults

Our culture is becoming less tolerant of bullying in the workplace..

Posted March 28, 2024 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

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A recent study by the University of Essex , which followed a cohort of British school children into their adulthood, found that "conduct problems, driven by aggression and impulsivity, are associated with positive outcomes in the labor market." In other words, the aggressive, impulsive kids ended up getting better jobs and earning more money than the others—including, of course, their victims.

This goes against our shared belief that there is a sort of karma governing our lives which eventually rewards victims and punishes aggressors. We see in countless films and other stories that the school bully ends up in prison, or in a menial job, while the meek studious kid becomes successful and marries the man or woman of their dreams .

Aggression in the Workplace

It is possible that having aggressive tendencies may help one climb the greasy pole of the job market, although this aggression will need to be modulated and channeled for it to be effective. In any case, those at the receiving end of aggression in the workplace will undoubtedly find this news distressing.

We may find comfort in the belief that the bullies and narcissists we encounter in the workplace are in fact unhappy and may eventually become victims of their own aggression and misplaced self-love, and so discovering that there may be material advantages to their behavior is a little disturbing. There is, incidentally, some empirical evidence that narcissists are in fact a pretty happy bunch . They are happier than the rest of us, according to this research, carried out at Queen’s University Belfast, because their self-adoring traits shield them from a variety of unpleasant emotions.

Things Are Changing

Luckily, things are changing. Aggression and bullying in the workplace are gradually becoming less acceptable, so these behaviors should eventually become counterproductive, at least as far as doing well occupationally is concerned. Research has shown that bullying at work is not only associated with predictable bad outcomes for the victims in terms of psychological sufferin—and even the possibility of developing PTSD —but is also bad for the employer, as it increases rates of employee sickness and lowers productivity . There is therefore an economic incentive for employers to tackle bullying at work. Bullying is based on a power dynamic in which one side is powerful and the other is powerless, so it is always difficult for the victim to complain against the aggressor. What we need is to continue to encourage a change in culture in which we don't associate aggression with executive decisiveness, or see it as a leadership attribute. It should be associated instead with an inability to work cooperatively, which is bad for productivity.

Despite our perception of the human race as being eminently violent, it is believed that Homo Sapiens' success has been largely due to its ability to cooperate peacefully in large groups, while lesser Homo species wasted their resources in constant warfare. Our dislike of aggression is imprinted in our genetic code.

We may have tolerated the office bully in the past, but a change in social attitudes hopefully means that their days are numbered.

Rafa Euba is a retired seasoned consultant psychiatrist, based in London. He has lectured in several universities and written many articles in the general and academic press, as well as three books.

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Playground bullies do prosper – and go on to earn more in middle age

Five-decade UK study finds that aggression at school leads to better-paying jobs, while those with emotional instability went on to earn less

Children who displayed aggressive behaviour at school, such as bullying or temper outbursts, are likely to earn more money in middle age, according to a five-decade study that upends the maxim that bullies do not prosper.

They are also more likely to have higher job satisfaction and be in more desirable jobs, say researchers from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex.

The paper, published today, used data about almost 7,000 people born in 1970 whose lives have been tracked by the British Cohort Study . The research team examined data from primary school teachers who assessed the children’s social and emotional skills when they were 10 years old in 1980, and matched it to their lives at the age of 46 in 2016.

“We found that those children who teachers felt had problems with attention, peer relationships and emotional instability did end up earning less in the future, as we expected, but we were surprised to find a strong link between aggressive behaviour at school and higher earnings in later life,” said Prof Emilia Del Bono, one of the study’s authors.

“It’s possible that our classrooms are competitive places and that children adapt to win that competition with aggression, and then take that through to the workplace where they continue to compete aggressively for the best paid jobs. Perhaps we need to reconsider discipline in schools and help to channel this characteristic in children in a more positive way.”

Policymakers should recognise that socio-emotional skills are important, she said, and introduce policies to support these skills in school. “These findings make a strong case for more interventions supporting those struggling with their attention to lessons or with friendships and emotions, to prevent a lifelong negative impact on their earning potential.”

Del Bono, Ben Etheridge and Paul Garcia used primary school teachers’ answers to more than 60 questions about the children’s behaviour.

They found that an increase in teachers’ observations of conduct problems – such as temper outbursts or bullying or teasing other children – was associated with an increase in earnings in 2016 of nearly 4% for a given rise in conduct problems for boys and girls. That compared with a 6% rise for higher cognition skills.

Those considered to have attention problems, such as failing to finish tasks, and emotional problems – seen as worried, anxious or fussy – went on to earn less than their classmates.

Further analysis showed that, by age 16, those with conduct problems were more sociable as teenagers, and were more likely to smoke and be arrested at some point in their lives.

Del Bono said that expectations about children’s behaviour had changed since the 1980s and that many participants had dropped out of the study since it began, a factor that affects all longitudinal studies. “We do lose more of those with higher conduct problems,” she said.

The work tallies with previous research by economists including Nicholas Papageorge, who examined longitudinal studies in the UK and US in 2019 and found that “externalising” behaviour linked to aggression and hyperactivity was associated with lower educational attainment but higher earnings.

Many successful people have had problems of various kinds at school, from Winston Churchill, who was taken out of his primary school, to those who were expelled or suspended.

That does not mean parents should encourage children to misbehave, Del Bono said. “I suppose [it means] encouraging your child to stand their ground, rather than being aggressive.”

Other research has emphasised organisational skills and being goal-oriented – high conscientiousness and low neuroticism in the so-called “big five” personality traits – as keys to career success.

There is no evidence in the institute’s study about whether children who were aggressive continued to be so in adulthood, but if that was a factor in their later success then it may not work for younger generations.

Mary-Clare Race, chief executive of Talking Talent and an occupational psychologist , said 2016 had been a “real turning point” in workplace culture. “Before that time, we did reward typically masculine or aggressive behaviours – bosses slamming their fists on the table or shouting,” she said. But the rise of the #MeToo movement had turned around corporate culture. “At that time I was working in America and we were inundated with companies saying ‘there’s a Harvey Weinstein’ in our company’.”

She said research showed that overcoming an adverse event in childhood was a strong indicator of future success as a leader. “We’re also seeing a generational shift where younger generations expect to have a culture of belonging and being treated with fairness, respect and kindness.”

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Bullying

Argumentative Essays on Bullying

Understanding and addressing the issue of bullying is of paramount importance in today's society. Choosing the right essay topic can make a significant impact, not only in your academic journey but also in raising awareness about this critical issue. This webpage is designed to assist college students in finding diverse and engaging essay topics related to bullying. Remember, your creativity and personal interest can contribute to meaningful discussions and solutions, so let's begin!

Argumentative Essays

Argumentative essays require you to take a stance on an issue and provide evidence to support your position. Here are some bullying-related topic examples:

• Should cyberbullying be considered a criminal offense?
• Is zero-tolerance bullying policy effective in schools?
• How does bullying affect the mental health of victims?

Introduction Paragraph Example:

Bullying, particularly in the digital age, has evolved into a pressing concern that demands our attention and action. In this argumentative essay, we will delve into the contentious issue of whether cyberbullying should be deemed a criminal offense. By examining the psychological and emotional harm it inflicts on victims and the potential legal implications, this essay will advocate for a stricter stance on cyberbullying.

Conclusion Paragraph Example:

To conclude, this argumentative essay has demonstrated the urgent need for legal measures against cyberbullying. By recognizing its devastating impact and the potential consequences for perpetrators, society can take a decisive step towards curbing this digital epidemic and ensuring a safer online environment for all.

Compare and Contrast Essays

Compare and contrast essays involve examining the similarities and differences between two aspects of bullying-related subjects. Here are some topic examples:

• Compare and contrast the effects of cyberbullying and traditional bullying on victims.
• Contrast the approaches to bullying prevention in different countries.
• Compare the psychological profiles of bullies and their victims.

In the realm of bullying, there exists a wide spectrum of approaches and consequences. This compare and contrast essay will explore the distinct effects of cyberbullying and traditional bullying on victims. By examining the methods, impact, and prevention strategies associated with these two forms of bullying, we can gain valuable insights into the complex issue of bullying.

In conclusion, this compare and contrast essay has shed light on the differing dynamics of cyberbullying and traditional bullying. By recognizing the unique challenges each presents and the corresponding prevention measures, we can develop more targeted strategies to address these harmful behaviors effectively.

Descriptive Essays

Descriptive essays aim to create a vivid picture of a subject through detailed and sensory-rich language. Here are some topic examples:

• Describe the emotional toll of bullying on a victim.
• Portray a school environment where bullying is eradicated.
• Illustrate a scenario where empathy and kindness triumph over bullying.

Step into the world of emotions and experiences as we embark on a descriptive journey to understand the profound impact of bullying on a victim's life. Through intricate details and sensory imagery, this essay will transport you to the heart-wrenching reality faced by those who are bullied.

In conclusion, this descriptive essay has painted a poignant picture of the emotional turmoil that bullying inflicts on its victims. By shedding light on the human suffering caused by bullying, we hope to inspire empathy and motivate actions that lead to a kinder and more inclusive society.

Persuasive Essays

Persuasive essays aim to convince the reader of a particular viewpoint or argument. Here are some topic examples:

• Convince educators to implement comprehensive anti-bullying programs in schools.
• Persuade parents to be more involved in identifying and preventing bullying behaviors.
• Argue for the importance of educating students about the consequences of bullying.

Educators, parents, and policymakers, it's time to take a stand against bullying. In this persuasive essay, we will present a compelling case for the implementation of comprehensive anti-bullying programs in schools. By examining the long-term benefits and the potential reduction in bullying incidents, we aim to persuade you of the urgency of this matter.

To conclude, this persuasive essay underscores the importance of implementing comprehensive anti-bullying programs in schools. By prioritizing prevention and education, we can create a safer and more nurturing environment for students, ensuring that they thrive academically and emotionally.

Narrative Essays

Narrative essays tell a story and often convey a personal experience or life lesson. Here are some topic examples:

• Share a personal experience of overcoming bullying and the lessons learned.
• Write about a moment when bystander intervention made a difference in a bullying situation.
• Describe a school's journey in transforming its culture to eliminate bullying.

Life is a journey filled with challenges, and in this narrative essay, we will delve into a personal experience that revolved around the issue of bullying. Through the lens of this impactful story, we will uncover valuable lessons learned and the transformative power of resilience and empathy.

In conclusion, this narrative essay has highlighted the transformative journey of overcoming bullying and the importance of bystander intervention. By sharing these stories, we hope to inspire others to stand up against bullying and create a more compassionate and inclusive society.

Engagement and Creativity

When selecting a bullying essay topic, allow your passion and creativity to shine. Your unique perspective can contribute to a deeper understanding of this issue and inspire positive change. Each essay type offers a distinct avenue for exploring bullying-related subjects.

Educational Value

Each essay type serves a purpose and helps you develop different skills:

• Argumentative essays enhance your analytical thinking and persuasive writing skills.
• Compare and contrast essays sharpen your ability to critically analyze and organize information.
• Descriptive essays improve your skills in using vivid language to convey emotions and experiences.
• Persuasive essays develop your ability to persuade and motivate action.
• Narrative essays allow you to share personal experiences and convey important life lessons.

Consequences of Bullying in Schools

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The Impact of Social Media on Bullying Among Children

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The Importance of Bullying Awareness and Prevention

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Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate.

Bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by the following three criteria: (1) hostile intent, (2) imbalance of power, and (3) repetition over a period of time. Bullying is the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, physically, mentally, or emotionally.

Bullying has been classified into different types. These can be in the form of nonverbal, verbal, or physical behavior. Another classification is based on perpetrators or the participants involved, so that the types include individual and collective bullying. Other interpretation also cite emotional and relational bullying in addition to physical harm inflicted towards another person or even property. There is also the case of the more recent phenomenon called cyberbullying.

Bullying can cause loneliness, depression, anxiety, lead to low self-esteem and increased susceptibility to illness. Bullying has also been shown to cause maladjustment in young children, and targets of bullying who were also bullies themselves exhibit even greater social difficulties. A mental health report also found that bullying was linked to eating disorders, anxiety, body dysmorphia and other negative psychological effects, or even suicide.

In the US, 1 in 5 students ages 12-18 has been bullied during the school year. Approximately 160,000 teens have skipped school because of bullying. More than half of bullying situations (57%) stop when a peer intervenes on behalf of the student being bullied. 6th grade students experience the most bullying (31%). The most commonly reported type of bullying is verbal harassment (79%), followed by social harassment (50%), physical bullying (29%), and cyberbullying (25%).

1. Brank, E. M., Hoetger, L. A., & Hazen, K. P. (2012). Bullying. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 8, 213-230. (https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-102811-173820) 2. Rettew, D. C., & Pawlowski, S. (2016). Bullying. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics, 25(2), 235-242. (https://www.childpsych.theclinics.com/article/S1056-4993(15)00117-0/fulltext) 3. Craig, W., Pepler, D., & Blais, J. (2007). Responding to bullying: What works?. School psychology international, 28(4), 465-477. (https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0038928) 4. Fekkes, M., Pijpers, F. I., & Verloove-Vanhorick, S. P. (2005). Bullying: Who does what, when and where? Involvement of children, teachers and parents in bullying behavior. Health education research, 20(1), 81-91. (https://academic.oup.com/her/article/20/1/81/632611) 5. Einarsen, S. (1999). The nature and causes of bullying at work. International journal of manpower, 20(1/2), 16-27. (https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01437729910268588/full/html?fullSc=1&fullSc=1&mbSc=1&fullSc=1&fullSc=1&fullSc=1) 6. Farrington, D. P. (1993). Understanding and preventing bullying. Crime and justice, 17, 381-458. (https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/449217) 7. Smith, P. K. (2004). Bullying: recent developments. Child and adolescent mental health, 9(3), 98-103. (https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-3588.2004.00089.x) 8. Rigby, K. (2003). Consequences of bullying in schools. The Canadian journal of psychiatry, 48(9), 583-590. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/070674370304800904)

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It pays to be mean: A 40-year behavioral study confirms your worst fears—kids who bully go on to make the most money

If movies have taught us anything, it’s that the school bully always gets their comeuppance before the end credits. Inevitably, their fall from grace will permeate into an adulthood of mediocrity and low income.

But in reality, a new study suggests that rather than becoming something resembling Back to the Future ’s Biff Tannen, the class jock is increasingly likely to become your future boss. 

Academics at the University of Essex in the U.K. found children who exhibited behavior like bullying and throwing temper tantrums were likely to go on to earn more money than other children in their forties, according to a study published earlier in March. 

The academics believe this behavior is more likely to come from an early acceptance of the dog-eat-dog world they’re about to enter into.

“On the other hand, problems with attention, emotions, and peer relationships tend to lead to poorer labor market outcomes,” the authors wrote.

“It is possible that what is often identified as aggressive behavior is the adaptive response to a competitive environment.”

The results of the 40-year analysis track with previous findings about the future earning potential of people who have typically shunned traditional curricular activities in their formative years.

Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that athletic students at Ivy League colleges would go on to earn 3.4% more than their non-sporty peers over their lifetime, equivalent to about $220,000.

The authors of the U.K. report think the findings should force a rethink in how school bullies are disciplined, given their potential future success. 

“Rather than a punitive approach, there could be more focus on understanding the causes of the disruptive behavior and teachers could be trained to identify strategies that help children to channel these tendencies in ways that fit better with the classroom.”

Bullies in the C-suite 

Peeling back the pages of historic C-suite culture, it seems the class bully doesn’t shake their meanness streak once they’ve made it in the corporate world.

A host of companies have found themselves embroiled in bullying and harassment scandals at the very top of their businesses in recent years, in a trend that is probably just the tip of an iceberg of toxic workplace culture.

There are several reports of CEOs engaging in controlling and manipulative behavior, even resorting to discrimination and harassment to get their way. Other times, they can just be jerks.

The most high-profile example is probably billionaire X owner Elon Musk, who in the past used his platform to mock a disabled ex-employee he had laid off after acquiring the social media company. But there are many other examples.

Earlier in March, the scandal-hit U.K. Post Office’s CEO faced accusations from the group’s former chair that he had exhibited behavior to the company’s head of HR that “constituted bullying.”

“She felt that she was being treated by Read and his henchmen as a ‘pain the arse’ for focusing on tackling the toxic culture rather than prioritizing Read’s salary,” former Post Office chair Henry Staunton wrote of CEO Nick Read’s behavior toward his HR chief.

Read is just the latest in a long line of bosses who have faced accusations of bullying. While it apparently helped them rise to power, it’s often the cause of their downfall.

In 2018, U.K. advertising millionaire Sir Martin Sorrell was ousted from his job as CEO at comms business WPP amid accusations that he bullied and harassed his staff, an investigation from the Financial Times found . 

One account details how he allegedly fired his chauffeur who refused to drive Sorrell on two hours of sleep after working a late shift previously. Sorrell denied the allegation.

These behaviors are often part of an endemic culture of aggressive behavior across an organization. 

The financial sector is one of the less surprising sources of this high-income bullying.

For one Goldman Sachs employee, it got so bad that he took the company to court demanding significant damages . 

Ian Dodd, who left Goldman in 2019, alleged meetings were marred by “high emotions, often tears,” while there were often casual threats of physical violence thrown around the workplace.

Of course, these are just some of the instances of corporate bullying that make it into the press, with several hidden under intimidation or big companies’ ability to pay off wronged parties .

And since the onset of COVID-19, it appears instances of bad behavior have only seen an uptick , with an Ethisphere survey last year reporting a 13-point increase in workplace bullying compared with pre-pandemic. 

Turn the other cheek all you want—it seems you’ll never fully achieve the minor childhood dream of evading your school bully.

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In states with laws targeting LGBTQ issues, school hate crimes quadrupled

School hate crimes targeting LGBTQ+ people have sharply risen in recent years, climbing fastest in states that have passed laws restricting LGBTQ+ student rights and education, a Washington Post analysis of FBI data finds.

In states with restrictive laws, the number of hate crimes on K-12 campuses has more than quadrupled since the onset of a divisive culture war that has often centered on the rights of LGBTQ+ youth.

At the same time, calls to LGBTQ+ youth crisis hotlines have exploded, with some advocates drawing a connection between the political climate and the spike in bullying and hate crimes.

Tell The Post: Do you have experience with anti-LGBTQ+ bullying at school?

LGBTQ+ students have long dealt with bullying and harassment at school, but some students are feeling particularly vulnerable due to the wave of legislation. They are also on edge following the death of Nex Benedict, a nonbinary teenager who died after a fight in their Oklahoma public school bathroom. The death was ruled a suicide, according to a one-page summary report released Wednesday by the state’s chief medical examiner.

That’s the case for Carden, a transgender 17-year-old. He argues that politicians’ anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric has shaped the views of adults in the conservative Virginia county where he lives.

“Kids parrot these ideas in their head, it’s like, ‘Oh, my parents think …’” said Carden, whose parents asked that his last name be withheld for fear of further bullying. “Then it translates to being mean to other people their age.”

Twice in the fall, a group of freshmen boys at Carden’s school harassed him for his gender identity — once calling him “queer” in a nasty tone, he said. The second time, after telling him a Pride flag he had tucked into his backpack was “pitiful,” one of the boys suggested Carden should “just go die already.”

Since his election in 2021, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has encouraged schools to require that students use facilities matching their biological sex and has signed a law requiring schools to alert parents of “sexually explicit” lessons, alarming LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, which predicted it would be used to limit education on sexual orientation and gender identity. Other Republican governors have advanced similar policies through executive action and legislation.

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The Post analysis found that the number of anti-LGBTQ+ school hate crimes serious enough to be reported to local police more than doubled nationwide between 2015-2019 and 2021-2022. The rise is steeper in the 28 states that have passed laws curbing the rights of transgender students at school and restricting how teachers can talk about issues of gender and sexuality.

In more-liberal states that have not enacted restrictive school LGBTQ+ laws, The Post found that the rise in FBI hate crimes was lower — though the absolute number of crimes was higher. Analysts said that may be because people in those states are more likely to report incidents.

Advocacy groups have also seen a rising number of young people in distress.

Calls have spiked to the Trevor Project, which provides support to LGBTQ+ youth aimed at suicide prevention and crisis intervention. In the fiscal year ending in July 2022, the group fielded about 230,000 crisis contacts, including phone calls, texts and online chats. The following year, it was more than 500,000.

Similarly, the Rainbow Youth Project , a nonprofit that offers crisis response and counseling to at-risk LGBTQ+ youth, saw calls to its hotline rise from an average of about 1,000 per month in 2022 to just over 1,400 per month last year. The top reason cited by callers in 2023 was anti-LGBTQ+ “political rhetoric,” such as debate over laws and policies limiting rights at school.

Young people will say, “‘My government hates me,’ ‘My school hates me,’ ‘They don’t want me to exist,’” said Lance Preston, the group’s founder and executive director. “That ... is absolutely unacceptable. That is shocking.”

How The Post reported on anti-LGBTQ hate at school

In the weeks after Nex’s death, the Rainbow Youth Project saw a crush of calls from Oklahoma, rising from 321 in January to nearly 1,100 in February, though the surge may have been driven at least in part by news coverage of the group’s work.

Nex, who used they/them pronouns, died on Feb. 8, a day after a confrontation in the bathroom of their school in a Tulsa suburb. School officials sent the students home, but Nex’s grandmother took Nex to the hospital later that day and called police.

In a statement to an officer, Nex and their grandmother said three girls had been bullying Nex and a friend because of how they dress. In the bathroom that day, these girls were making comments Nex found offensive, and Nex poured water on them. Then “all three of them came at me,” Nex said. A fight ensued.

Nex was discharged from the hospital but rushed back the next day, when they died. The case has drawn national attention. Before the cause of death was released, LGBTQ+ advocates argued that Nex was bullied and that their death was a hate crime related to their gender identity. After the finding of suicide was made public, they connected the suicide to the bullying. The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education this month opened an investigation into the school’s actions.

Since 2020, Oklahoma has adopted several laws restricting transgender rights. The state prohibits students from using bathrooms that do not align with the sex assigned at their birth and bars minors from receiving transition-related care. The legislature is considering additional measures this year, including a ban on changing one’s gender on birth certificates and requiring that schools teach that “a person’s sex is an immutable biological trait” that cannot be changed.

Many of these bills have been championed by the state’s schools superintendent, Ryan Walters, who said in an interview that Nex’s death was a heartbreaking tragedy, but that those who are connecting it to bullying or gender identity are pushing a “left-wing agenda” and “politicizing the death of a student.”

Va. killed bills aimed at trans youths. Here’s where the debate moves next.

Walters said he will continue to push for legislation to counter what he called “radical gender theory,” which he defines as the notion that one’s gender can differ from biological sex.

“There’s two genders. That’s the way God created us,” Walters said. Some young people are confused, he said, but, “your job as an adult is to help kids, not lie to them.”

He added that he opposes bullying but wholly rejects the idea that the political environment is encouraging it.

“Because you share a belief or an opinion does not mean it’s connected to violence,” he said.

Hate crimes on the rise

The FBI data shows serious incidents against LGBTQ+ people are on the rise, particularly in the more than two dozen states that have passed laws targeting LGBTQ+ students or education. Some of these laws, like those enacted in Oklahoma, bar students from competing on sports teams or using school bathrooms that do not conform with their sex assigned at birth. Others circumscribe what teachers can teach about gender identity or sexual orientation or bar instruction on these subjects entirely.

Overall, there were an average of 108 anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes at schools reported to the FBI per year from 2015 to 2019 on both college and K-12 campuses. In 2021 and 2022, the most recent years for which data was available, the average more than doubled to 232. (The number of reported hate crimes overall dropped in 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic shut down many school campuses, forcing learning online.)

The rise was even steeper in states that have enacted laws or policies which restrict LGBTQ+ students’ education or rights at school — tripling from an average of about 28 per year from 2015 to 2019 to an average of about 90 per year in 2021 to 2022. There was also an upsurge in the states without these laws, from about 79 reported hate crimes per year to 140.

When the data is limited to K-12 campuses, the increase is even more marked. In states that have enacted restrictive laws, there were more than four times the number of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes on average, per year, in 2021 to 2022 compared with the years 2015 to 2019 across elementary, middle and high schools.

“Policy sets the tone for real-world experiences [and] discriminatory policy just creates a hostile environment,” said Amy McGehee, a doctoral student at Oklahoma State University who researches LGBTQ+ health and well-being.

FBI data indicate the most common crimes associated with reported hate crimes at schools include simple assault, intimidation and vandalism.

McGehee added that LGBTQ+ students were reporting feeling unsafe on both college and K-12 campuses even before states began passing waves of policies restricting their rights at school. A sweeping Washington Post-KFF poll last year found that school is among the greatest stressors for transgender children in particular. Forty-five percent of trans adults said they felt generally unsafe at school as a child or teenager, compared with 10 percent of cisgender adults.

Trans kids crave acceptance at school in a nation that often resists it

The Post’s analysis of FBI data found that the per capita hate crime rates on K-12 and college campuses were higher in the more liberal states that have not enacted laws limiting transgender rights. Although the finding may seem counterintuitive, it actually makes sense, said Stephen Russell, a University of Texas at Austin professor who studies LGBTQ+ youth. He said LGBTQ+ youth and families living in those 22 states were probably more likely to report violence and harassment in the first place.

Many of these states have adopted laws and school policies specifically prohibiting bullying of or discrimination against LGBTQ+ students, he said. In some places, he said, that includes required annual notifications alerting students and parents to their rights and spelling out how they can and should report bad behavior.

“It creates a context where they see themselves, they stand up for themselves, they believe there is a place for them in their schools,” Russell said of LGBTQ+ children.

In addition, it’s possible more kids are public about their identities in more liberal states, creating more targets for bullies, said Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, who studies social policy and politics.

Both Erickson and Russell were unsurprised to learn that the number of hate crimes had risen faster in states with conservative laws.

“The data you have is the thing I’ve been worrying about, and here it is,” said Russell.

‘They don’t want us to exist’

The upsurge in restrictive laws and in school bullying has left some LGBTQ+ students feeling under attack.

Last year, classmates regularly harassed a transgender teenager in Mississippi for his short hair and for wearing boy’s clothing and chest binders, his mother said in an interview. Throughout that year, her son often woke up in the middle of the night vomiting due to stress. He wound up missing about three weeks of school due to bullying-induced breakdowns, recalled the mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from family members who do not support her son’s gender identity.

She said her son has been suicidal at times, at one point keeping a journal in which he detailed plans to kill himself. She said he also cut himself. “He feels shamed,” she said. “It’s hard for him to find friends.”

In 2021, Mississippi enacted a law barring transgender students from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity. Partly citing that state policy, the mother said she feels like everything is just getting worse.

“I’m really worried that my child is getting irreparable mental damage from all of this,” she said. “I also just get worried that, what if he gets suicidal again? I don’t want to lose my son.”

Studies show that LGBTQ+ youth are at particular risk for bullying and mental health problems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2021 Youth Risk Behavior survey, for instance, found that more than 1 in 3 gay, lesbian and bisexual students were bullied either on school property or online in the previous year. For about 1 in 4, the bullying was at school. Among straight students, those rates were about half as high.

When Max Ibarra was a sophomore in high school in the Chino Valley, Calif., east of Los Angeles, they endured what Max thinks of as everyday bullying from other students.

Max, who identifies as trans and nonbinary, recalled hearing snickering behind their back. In one class, they said, another student regularly threw erasers and wads of paper at them in class. In the hallway once, someone purposefully stuck out a shoulder to shove Max into the brick wall.

But what really bothers Max, now 17, is what the Chino Valley Unified School District school board did. In July 2023, the board approved a policy requiring the school to notify parents if a student asked to use a name that differed from official records, or if they asked to use pronouns or school facilities that do not align with the sex listed on the student’s birth certificate.

At the school board meeting where the policy was approved, 4-1, Max shouted objections into the microphone during the public comment period. They said that many trans students feel safe at school but not at home, and that the policy “shoves them in the closet.”

“I am tired of the idea that all parents love and support their children unconditionally. That is not true,” they yelled into the microphone. “There are evil people in this world, and some of them have children. Shocking, I know! Some prefer a dead child to a trans child.”

A spokesperson for the district declined to respond directly to Max’s assertions but said the schools have systems in place to report and respond to bullying and to address the needs of LGBTQ+ students. The district, she said, is “committed to upholding an educational setting that encourages, emboldens, and motivates scholars to become the global citizens they are meant to be.”

The policy was later put on hold by a court, and Thursday, the school board rolled back most of it. Still, Max said in an interview that the tone set by the school board remains.

“This culture of hostility and division has been festering, especially for the last three years, and its ramped up more and more each year,” Max said. “The school board has made it very clear we’re not welcome here. It’s very clear they don’t want us to exist.”

Emily Guskin and Scott Clement contributed to this report.

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Guest Essay

Ethan Crumbley’s Parents Were Just Part of a Much Bigger Problem

By Elizabeth Spiers

Ms. Spiers, a contributing Opinion writer, is a journalist and digital media strategist.

James and Jennifer Crumbley never anticipated that their then-15-year-old son, Ethan, would use the 9-millimeter Sig Sauer handgun Mr. Crumbley had bought — ostensibly as an early Christmas present — to kill four students at a Michigan high school. At least that’s the argument their lawyers made in court before Ms. Crumbley, last month, and Mr. Crumbley, almost two weeks ago, were convicted of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials. Prosecutors argued that the Crumbleys did not do enough to secure the gun and ignored warning signs that Ethan was planning to use it.

After every mass shooting by a teenager at a school, there is an instinct to look to the shooter’s parents to understand what went wrong. In the case of the Crumbleys, this seems obvious: Ethan left disturbing journal entries fantasizing about shooting up the school, and stating that he had asked his parents for help with his mental health issues but didn’t get it. His father said the family had a gun safe but the safe’s combination was the default factory setting, 0-0-0.

One factor that’s gotten less attention, however, is how the Crumbleys’ attitudes and actions reflect an increasingly insidious gun culture that treats guns as instruments of defiance and rebellion rather than as a means of last resort.

I’ve been thinking about this case a lot because I grew up in the 1980s and ’90s in a rural part of the Deep South where almost everyone I knew had guns in the house, unsecured, and mental illness was stigmatized and often went untreated. Church was considered a superior venue for counseling, and only “crazy” people sought professional help. If the evidence for criminal negligence is a failure to lock up a gun and ignoring signs of mental illness, many of the adults I grew up around would have been (and still would be) vulnerable to the same charges as the Crumbleys.

It’s convenient and comforting for many people to believe that if it had been their child, they’d have prevented this tragedy. But prison visiting rooms are full of good, diligent parents who never thought their kid would be capable of landing there.

My parents didn’t own a gun safe, but kept guns hidden away from us, which, like many gun owners at the time, they thought of as “secured.” The men in my family were all hunters and the guns they kept were hunting rifles, not AR-15s. (You can’t feed a family with deer meat that’s been blown to bits.) I knew my parents kept a handgun, too, but it was never shown to us, or treated as a shiny new toy.

Gun culture was different then. It would have never occurred to my parents to acquire an entire arsenal of guns and display them prominently around the house, as some people now do, or ludicrously suggest that Jesus Christ would have carried one . They did not, as more than a few Republican politicians have done, send out Christmas photos of their children posing with weapons designed explicitly to kill people at an age when those children likely still believed Santa existed. Open carry was legal, but if you were to walk into the local barbecue joint with a semiautomatic rifle on your back emblazoned with fake military insignia, people would think you were creepy and potentially dangerous, not an exemplar of masculinity and patriotism.

All of these things happen now with regularity, and they’re considered normal by gun owners who believe that any kind of control infringes on their Second Amendment rights. Children are introduced at a young age to guns like the Sig Sauer that Ethan Crumbley used. They’re taught to view guns as emblematic of freedom and the right to self-defense — two concepts that have been expanded to include whatever might justify unlimited accumulation of weapons.

“Freedom” is short for not being told what to do, even though the law very much dictates how and when guns should be used. “Self-defense” is often talked about as a justifiable precaution in the event of home invasion, though home invasions are as rare as four-leaf clovers and do not require an arsenal unless the invader is a small army. (It’s also worth noting that basic home security systems are far less expensive than many popular guns, which suggests that at the very least, some gun owners may be intentionally opting for the most violent potential scenario.) Most important, too many children are taught that guns confer power and can and should be used to intimidate other people. (Relatedly, any time I write about gun control, at least one gun owner emails to say he’d love to shoot me, which is not exactly evidence of responsible gun ownership.)

Mass shooters often begin with a grievance — toward certain populations, individuals they feel wronged by, society at large — and escalate their behavior from fantasizing about violence to planning actual attacks. A study from 2019 suggests that feeling inadequate may make gun owners more inclined toward violence. In the study, gun owners were given a task to perform and then told that they failed it. Later they were asked a number of questions, including whether they would be willing to kill someone who broke into their home, even if the intruder was leaving. “We found that the experience of failure increased participants’ view of guns as a means of empowerment,” wrote one researcher , “and enhanced their readiness to shoot and kill a home intruder.”

The study hypothesized that these gun owners “may be seeking a compensatory means to interact more effectively with their environment.”

Good parents model healthy interactions all the time. If their kids are struggling with a sense of inferiority or are having trouble dealing with failure, we teach them self-confidence and resilience. Parents who treat guns as a mechanism for feeling more significant and powerful are modeling an extremely dangerous way to interact with their environment.

What’s particularly hypocritical here is that the most strident defenders of this culture skew conservative and talk a lot about what isn’t appropriate for children and teenagers. What they think is inappropriate often includes educating kids about sex, about the fact that some people are gay or transsexual and about racism. It’s a perverse state of affairs: Exposing children to simple facts is dangerous, but exposing them to machines designed to kill is not. You can’t get your driver’s license until you’re a teenager, or buy cigarettes and alcohol until you’re 21, but much earlier than that, kids can, with adult supervision, legally learn how to end someone’s life.

Parents can’t ensure that their child won’t ever feel inferior or disempowered, or even in some cases become delusional or filled with rage. Teenagers do things that their parents would never anticipate every day, even if they’re close and communicative. Some develop serious drug habits or become radicalized into extremism or take their own lives.

One thing parents can ensure is that their children cannot get access to a gun in their house. The only foolproof way to do that is to ensure that there’s no gun in the house to begin with. Barring that, parents can make sure they are not reinforcing a toxic gun culture that says that displaying and threatening to use lethal machines is a reasonable way to deal with anger or adversity. That message makes the idea of killing someone seem almost ordinary.

That doesn’t prevent school shooters; it primes them.

Elizabeth Spiers, a contributing Opinion writer, is a journalist and digital media strategist.

Source photographs by CSA-Printstock and John Storey, via Getty Images.

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