Chapter 1: Introduction
Background Information:
Bullying has been an ongoing problem for many years, it can occur in the workplace, school, or online. Although this can happen anywhere, I will discuss bullying in the school and the measures being taking to prevent it. In Dake, Price, and Telljohann, they state that in the past three decades, school bullying gained increased attention in the United States due to media attention on homicide and suicide cases where bullying was a precipitating factor (Dake, Price, and Telljohann, 2003). The US Secret Service investigated characteristics of students involved in school shootings in the United States. During the Secret Service’s research, they found 37 different school shootings, two-thirds involved attackers who "felt persecuted, bullied, threatened, attacked, or injured by others prior to the incident". While two-thirds of the cases did not directly involve school bullying, "a number of the attackers had experienced bullying and harassment that was longstanding and severe. In those cases, the experience of bullying appeared to play a major role in motivating the attack at the school (US Secret Service, 2000)”.
Ethics is another factor to consider when thinking about bullying and its effects on the victims. Burke and Richer break down behavior into two groups. Clearly wrong and conditionally wrong, of the two clearly wrong would be the proper fit for the topic that I am discussing. Clearly wrong includes behaviors which are so widely viewed as unethical that few people would attempt to justify them on moral grounds ( Burke and Richer, 2007). Researchers have found several different factors which contribute to a person becoming a bully and the victims of bullying.
In this paper I will discuss the suggested causes of bullying. The causes are family/home environment, academic/school, and physical characteristics. In order to control the problem, schools and their communities much come together to fight bullying and lookout for possible victims and signs of those who may be bullied by others.
Research
There are many different factors that play a part in bullying as it relates to family/home environment. Dake el. al state that early socialization, parenting styles, and responsive & supportive parenting also play a major role in bullying. Sourander et al26 found that parental levels of education, socioeconomic status, and family composition were not significantly associated either with bullying or victimization. This also shows that no matter what type of education your parents have achieved, where you live, or the amount of income they have will not have an effect on you getting bullied. Bullies comes can be found in the richest schools as well as the poorest school across the US. Dake el. al stated that parenting style also plays a role in the early socialization of children regarding bullying behavior. Students identified as bullies were 1.65 times more likely to come from homes with an authoritarian style of child rearing compared to a participatory style.37 Bullies also were 1.71 times more likely than non bullies to have parents who used punitive forms of discipline more often (Dake el. al, 2003).
As it relates to bullying, it can be related to academic/ schools as well. Pellegrini and Long suggest there also appear to be spikes in the risk for involvement in bullying which are contextually based, such as the transition from elementary to middle school, and from middle to high school (Pellegrini and Long 2002). While I was in middle school I don’t remember anyone being bullied. But, again just because I didn’t see it doesn’t mean that it didn’t occur. I was raised as a military brat and I went to school with other kids who parents served in the armed forces as well. With that being said, most of our parents knew each other and you often were friends with your parent’s children. It wasn’t a bad or good thing; it was just the way military life was. It was a tight, family orientated community and I felt very safe and secure growing up there. Borg suggest the older students may be more likely to be perpetrators of bullying (Borg 1999). and hold more aggressive beliefs than younger students (McConville and Cornell 2003).
Espelage, Bosworth, and Simon researched the change and stability of bullying changed over a four month time period. The research reviewed 516 middle school students from the 6th grade to the 8th grade (Espelage el al., 2001). In their research, they refer to Dahlberg, Toal, and Behrens. In it they explain how bullying behavior was assessed with a scale that consisted of five items from the Modified Aggression Scale. The items on this scale were consistent with the definition of bullying used in the current study and reflected both psychological and physical aspects of bullying. Participants were asked how many times they did the following in the last 30 days: (α) "I called other students names"; (b) "I teased students"; (c) "I said things about students to make other students laugh"; (d) "I threatened to hit or hurt another student"; and (e) "I pushed, shoved, slapped, or kicked other students (Dahlberg et al., 1998). I found these results to be very interesting because of the questions asked it seemed as if the students had to ethical morals as to what they were saying or doing. I feel that some of this is due to the parents not being very active or influential in the child’s life. Ethics is not just about being right or wrong, it’s about the choices that the children make when no one is around. This is when most bullying occurs. Bullies taunt and tease others often when there is no supervision around. This shows they have some kind of coconscious because if they get caught they are aware of the consequences.

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The chart above shows how bullying decreases as the children go from middle school to high school. This is because the bullies are become equally matched with those that they bully and maybe from an ethical sense they feel it’s not right to be such things.
Two philosopher’s Wormer and Odiah of the University of Northern Iowa stated that bullying leads some people to commit violent acts against others in quest of paying the supreme penalty for their actions (Wormer and Odiah, 2011). In the paper they make some great points that I agree with. They explain how bullying leads people to commit other crimes such as murder, robbery, or rape. I feel that this is try because a person who a victim of bullying may have some pinned up aggression inside that no one is aware of. This in turn could cause them to act out in a violent manner in which they harm or kill others. Although this may sound extreme, its happens more often than not. I feel that more research should be done in the United States to help identify those who have the potential for become a bully or a victim. We need to take measures to ensure that our children are safe when they go to school. This can only be done if we fight back and say no to bullying and those that do it that it will not tolerated or accepted. I also feel we need more aware and support groups for the victims. Many adults today were victims of bullying and to this day it may have some kind of effect on them.
Conclusion
In closing, we discussed the causes of bullying being family/home environment, academic/school, and physical characteristics. All three of these factors can be controlled and dealt with if we work as one and show our children some morale and ethical values. Dusenbury el al., mention the findings from this study have implications for prevention programs. These programs are but shouldn’t be limited to self-defense, counseling sessions, and one with the attacker. Dusenbury el al., also state that messages that teachers and other significant adults in the community send to students appear to have an important impact on students' behavior. So if this is the case, then adults need to be mindful of the messages they are giving about the use of violence and teasing in their day to day communications with students or peers. Next is the significance of two factors-beliefs supportive of violence and confidence in using nonviolent strategies on future bullying behavior-suggests a role for teaching and practicing prosocial skills. This part I don’t agree with because an adult wont be around 24/7 and yes some kids may have protect themselves. However, as teaching social skills alone may not be effective in reducing violence, research is needed to explore how this instruction can be coupled with other prevention strategies, such as changing the school environment or providing teacher and parent training to reduce bullying behavior ((Dusenbury, Falco, Lake, Brannigan, & Bosworth, 1997; Tolan & Guerra, 1994). References

• Borg, M. G. (1999). The extent and nature of bullying among primary and secondary schoolchildren. Education Research, 41(2), 137–153.

• Dake, J. A., Price, J. H., & Telljohann, S. K. (2003). The nature and extent of bullying at school. The Journal of School Health, 73(5), 173-80. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/215678120?accountid=38769

• Dahlberg, L. L., Toal, S. B., & Behrens, C. B. (1998). Measuring violence-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors among youths: A compendium of assessment tools. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
• Dusenbury, L., Falco, M., Lake, A., Brannigan, R., & Bosworth, K. (1997). Nine critical elements of promising violence prevention programs. Journal of School Health, 67, 409-414.
• Espelage, D. L., Bosworth, K., & Simon, T. R. (2001). Short-term stability and prospective correlates of bullying in middle-school students: An examination of potential demographic, psychosocial, and environmental influences. Violence and Victims, 16(4), 411-26. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/208565479?accountid=38769

• McConville, D. W., & Cornell, D. G. (2003). Aggressive attitudes predict aggressive behavior in middle school students. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 11(3), 179–187.

• Pellegrini, A. D., & Long, J. D. (2002). A longitudinal study of bullying, dominance, and victimization during the transition from primary school through secondary school. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 20, 259–280.

• Sourander A, Helstela L, Helenius H, Piha J. Persistence of bullying from childhood to adolescence - a longitudinal 8-year follow-up study. Child Abuse Neglect. 2000:24:873-881.

• Tolan, P., & Guerra, N. (1994). What works in reducing adolescent violence: An empirical review of the field. The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute for Behavioral Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.

• US Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center. Safe School Initiative: An Interim Report on the Prevention of Targeted Violence in School. Washington, DC: US Depts of Treasury and Education with the support from the National Institute of Justice; 2000.