Myths and Facts About Bullying

A topic of great concern among American society, and parents in particular, is that of youth violence. The media often makes the situation appear as though youth violence is on the increase in the United States. However, scientific research shows that youth violence is not truly increasing, but that certain environmental factors make the statistics read as though the violence is increasing. Statistics can be influenced by a number of factors besides actual increases in violence, such as the introduction of ‘zero tolerance’ policies in schools or the reduction of police discretion on police forces. These environmental factors lead to more incidents of youth violence being detected by those who measure youth violence, but dose not actually represent an actual concrete increase in the violence. However, there is one area of youth violence that has increased somewhat over the past three decades. Although the increase is not drastic, bullying is a form of youth violence that is highly prevalent in all schools in North America, and abroad. Bullying is a lesser form of violence in which one or more students pick on, verbally or physically abuse another student who is viewed as a weaker child. This often takes the form of physical and/or psychological harm (Bastche & Knoff et al., 1994). Although bullying is a major problem within the school system, the topic is not fully understood and there are many circulated myths related to the subject. This paper attempts to highlight some of these myths and clarify the actual facts that do exist within the documented literature. Myths about the topic of bullying are widespread and are commonly believed by the majority of individuals. One of the most common myths can even be seen in the above definition of bullying, in that the victims of bullying are not always weaker children than are the bullies. One of the myths about bullying relates to the fact that some schools say their do not have bullying. Sometimes schools with ‘zero

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