Definition Essay: The Role Of Bullying In Our Society

Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among people of all ages, but mostly school-age children. Society has been aware of bullying since around 1693, but it was not viewed as a real problem until the 1970s. “While overall incidents of school violence, such as assault and theft, have declined in the last decade, bullying is on the rise.” (qtd in Tyre) The percentage of middle and high school students that have been victimized by bullying went up from 14 percent in 2001 to 32 percent in 2009. (Tyre)

According to the American Psychological Association, “Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions” (Bullying, 2013). People bully each other for several reasons and there are different outcomes that are a result of those reasons. People can be bullied physically, emotionally, or verbally. Bullying can take place at school or online. Bullying should be a considered a crime, but kids get away with it all the time; furthermore prevention can be used in order to keep kids safe from bullying.

Bullying is the act of intentionally injuring a person’s mental or physical well-being through words, emotions and physicality. Bullies at school are always in the group that those students are not properly educated by parents or psychologically affected by their parents at a young, they may have been

Bullying is a situation where one person abuses power over another. Bullying is about power, control and abuse. Bully’s come in all shapes, sizes and forms. Bullying occurs throughout a human’s life span. The most-critical development stage of one’s personality is adolescence. Bullying during adolescence has been a major issue in every community. Bullying can happen in three known forms; direct, indirect, and cyber. Both gender and sexual orientation are associated with all forms of bullying. Bullying affects self-esteem and family cohesion.

Bullying is defined as a dynamic and repetitive and persistent patterns of verbal and / or non-verbal behaviors directed by one or more children on another child that are intended to deliberately inflict physical, verbal or emotional abuse in the presence of a real or perceived power differential (Selekman and Vessey). In other words, it is a group of people who directed an act to threaten, hurt or frighten that individual when he is unable to defend himself. The article outlined and covered the details of bullying – corresponding behaviors, place, time and reasons of bullying, what intervention works and does not work. It is thorough and analytical; clear and specific.

With school-aged children, bullying more frequently happens while they are at school, or afterward when the students are not being supervised by their teacher in places like the cafeteria, bus, lockers, playground or neighborhood. Now that kids have access to online technology, bullying can also happen on the internet. With this in mind, teachers must now research and understand what bullying is, and develop methods to help fight against bullying. Bullying is the aggressive, unwanted behavior that occurs between kids of all ages. Children that bully are using the power they believe they have over other kids to try to control and harm them. Bullying can happen via verbal, social, or physical abuses, such as name-calling, threats, spreading rumors, isolation, embarrassment, spitting, hitting, destroying personal things, etc. In order to be considered bullying, these bad behaviors are repeated over time.

Bullying by definition is a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions. [Why] Bullying has grown new outlets over the last decade. With social media outlets and text messaging added to the game, bullying is not just about getting tormented face to face anymore. Cyber bullying can include sending out mean or threatening emails and instant messages about a person, spreading rumors about someone and also include photos that a person would consider to be humiliating. [Chamberlin] Bullying can have many outlets. The most common form of bullying is still face to face confrontation. But

Bullying is aggressive behaviour that generally occurs among school children. It is a repeated behaviour, sometimes repeated over time. (StopBullying, n.d.) Bullying is the misuse of power by a group of people or an individual towards another person. Bullying can be physical, verbal or emotional.

The terms bully and the act of bullying are defined in many ways. From a blustering quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people to “instances when a child is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other students” to being later fully defined as including the intention to cause harm as well as a power differential in which the less powerful person is being attacked. The most recent definition of bullying is, “as an aggressive behavior or intentional harm doing that is carried out repeatedly and over time in an interpersonal relationship characterized by an actual or perceived imbalance of power or strength”. Since bullying has such a wide array of definitions it is often handled differently for each situation.

When we are talking about defining bullying as a whole, there can more than one definition. Many researchers have made attempts in defining bullying from their own perspective but the question still stands. What is Bullying? Bullying can be defined into three characteristics; intentional harm, repetitive in nature and the power differential between the aggressor and victim. It is also causing harm upon another, indirectly or directly. Bullying is when a person is repeatedly attacked verbally or physically overtime causing injury or discomfort of another this includes negative actions like facial gestures and ignorance of another’s wishes.(Olweus,1993).

Bullying can be verbal (name-calling), physical (hitting and kicking), virtual (cyber bullying, threats or name-calling via internet or text) or a combination of all three. Bullies know exactly how to upset their victim by picking on their sensitive points. The person victimised by a bully can feel a whole range of emotions, from feeling very upset, shut out, to feeling suicidal and often self-harm.

Bullying is typically described as someone who uses power to physically and/or mentally to intimidate someone weaker. There are three forms of bullying. Verbal that can be said or written; taunting, inappropriate comments, and threatening. Social involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationship; spreading rumors, leaving someone out on purpose, and embarrassing someone in public. Physical involves hurting a person’s body or their personal possessions; it includes any form of physical pain. This negative behavior is a massive problem among school aged children that’s repeated or has potential to repeat over time. According to KeepSchoolSafe.com, 160,000 students miss school each day for fear of being bullied

Bullying is defined as “verbal, physical, or psychological abuse or teasing accompanied by real or perceived imbalance of power” and is usually targets what children perceive as different (Olweus, 1993). Bullying is prevalent across the nation. It has devastating effects on students each day. Bullying is a problem for all students, regardless of race, gender or class. The National Education Association reports that 160,000 children are absent intentionally from school each day because they fear being bullied whether it is an attack or just intimidation by other students. This accounts for 15% of all school absenteeism (Hunter, 2012). Dan Olweus (1993) from the National School Safety Center tells us that bullying includes three parts: (1)

The general definition of bullying is, “… [This] states that a person is being bullied when he or she is exposed repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons” (Aluede et al. 3). There are two different variations in bullying type such as direct and

Bullying has been defined as longstanding violence physical or psychological, conducted by an individual or group and directed against an individual who is not able to defend themselves in the actual situation. The threat can be carried out in two major forms that is psychological and physical threat. Some researchers had defined that the incident would include intimidation, extortion, physical threats, the destruction of homework and psychological bullying. Bullying, whether done verbally, physically or in cyber space, is wrong and should be dealt with seriously.