Understanding School Bullying

'This extraordinarily comprehensive book authored by the leading international authority in the field integrates research, theory and practice on the topic of school bullying. In an already research saturated field Peter Smith's writing captures the humanity of why this topic strikes such a chord in the community. He reminds us in a thoughtful, practical and caring manner why we must continue to advocate on all levels for those impacted by bullying.' -Professor Phillip T. Slee, Flinders University, Australia 'Understanding School Bullying offers a refreshingly clear account of the wealth of insights gained over a quarter of a century of research. As Smith's comprehensive review convincingly shows, much has been learned and much of this has been put to good use in improving children's wellbeing. This is surely essential reading for any researcher concerned with bullying, childhood or life at school.' -Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, author of Children, Risk and Safety Online 'Peter Smith's new book will occupy a prominent place on my bookshelf. It provides a thorough and highly readable discussion of the breadth of research on school bullying. Dr. Smith includes discussions of important challenges related to research on this topic along with an excellent review of important studies and findings. This unique volume has influenced my thinking about the direction of my own research. The book will be an invaluable resource for researchers, consumers of research, and others who seek a research-based understanding of this important topic.' -Sheri Bauman, Ph.D., Professor at University of Arizona Bullying involves the repeated abuse of power in relationships. Bullying in schools can blight the lives of victims and damage the climate of the school. Over the last 25 years a burgeoning research program on school bullying has led to new insights into effective ways of dealing with it, as well as new challenges such as the advent of cyberbullying. This new book, by a leading international expert on the topic, brings together the cumulative knowledge acquired and the latest research findings in the area, with a global perspective especially covering research in Europe, North America, Australasia, and Asia. It will appeal to those taking academic courses in psychology, social work, educational psychology, child clinical psychology and psychiatry, and teacher training, but it will also be of interest to parents and teachers.

Bullying is now widely recognised as a serious problem that affects many children in schools. It can take many forms, including direct verbal and physical harassment and indirect forms such as deliberate exclusion and the targeting of individuals using cyber technology. Continual and severe bullying can cause both short term and long term damage, making it difficult for victims to form intimate relationships with others and for habitual bullies to avoid following a delinquent lifestyle and becoming perpetrators of domestic violence. Even though this type of abuse affects many of our school children, Ken Rigby believes there are grounds for optimism. This passionate and motivating book shows that there are ways of reducing the likelihood of bullying occurring in a school and effective ways of tackling cases when they do occur. Using up-to-date studies, Bullying in Schools helps us to understand the nature of bullying and why it so often takes place in schools. Importantly, it examines and evaluates what schools can do to promote more positive peer relationships within the school community and take effective and sustainable action to deal with problems that may arise. Teachers, parents, school leaders, policy makers, and health professionals will find it invaluable and empowering.

This new book, by a leading international expert on the topic, brings together the cumulative knowledge acquired and the latest research findings in the area, with a global perspective especially covering research in Europe, North America, Australasia, and Asia

The Nature of School Bullying provides a unique world-wide perspective on how different countries have conceptualized the issue of school bullying, what information has been gathered, and what interventions have been carried out. Written and compiled by well known experts in the field, it provides a concise summary of the current state of knowledge of school bullying in nineteen different countries, including: * demographic details * definitions of bullying * the nature and types of school bullying * descriptive statistics about bullying * initiatives and interventions. The Nature of School Bullying provides an authoritative resource for anyone interested in ways in which this problem is being tackled on a global scale. It will be invaluable for teachers, educational policy makers, researchers, and all those concerned with understanding school bullying and finding ways of dealing with it.

Provides a rich understanding of school bullying and the many forms it takes.

Bullying has long been tolerated as a rite of passage among children and adolescents. There is an implication that individuals who are bullied must have "asked for" this type of treatment, or deserved it. Sometimes, even the child who is bullied begins to internalize this idea. For many years, there has been a general acceptance and collective shrug when it comes to a child or adolescent with greater social capital or power pushing around a child perceived as subordinate. But bullying is not developmentally appropriate; it should not be considered a normal part of the typical social grouping that occurs throughout a child's life. Although bullying behavior endures through generations, the milieu is changing. Historically, bulling has occurred at school, the physical setting in which most of childhood is centered and the primary source for peer group formation. In recent years, however, the physical setting is not the only place bullying is occurring. Technology allows for an entirely new type of digital electronic aggression, cyberbullying, which takes place through chat rooms, instant messaging, social media, and other forms of digital electronic communication. Composition of peer groups, shifting demographics, changing societal norms, and modern technology are contextual factors that must be considered to understand and effectively react to bullying in the United States. Youth are embedded in multiple contexts and each of these contexts interacts with individual characteristics of youth in ways that either exacerbate or attenuate the association between these individual characteristics and bullying perpetration or victimization. Recognizing that bullying behavior is a major public health problem that demands the concerted and coordinated time and attention of parents, educators and school administrators, health care providers, policy makers, families, and others concerned with the care of children, this report evaluates the state of the science on biological and psychosocial consequences of peer victimization and the risk and protective factors that either increase or decrease peer victimization behavior and consequences.

Bullying is a covert problem, buried in he subculture of a school. But what kind of child becomes a bully or a victim, and why? What family and social context produce them? How important are the factors of race and gender in the bullying cycle?

Bullying at School is the definitive book on bullying/victim problems in school and on effective ways of counteracting and preventing such problems.