Should schools be required to have laws against bullying?
Introduction
Bullying is intentional aggressive behavior that involves different forms such as physical, sexual verbal, relational, psychological, and indirect form by a person or a group. Bullying in the school is a serious problem that affects students and the technology such as smartphones, and Internet access has increased the cyberbullying where the perpetrators use these the electronic forms to attack the victim. Various studies have confirmed that both the victim and the offender develop lower self-esteem, anti-social behaviors and criminal behaviors that impact their adulthood. Schools do not understand the relationship between the law and bullying and neither do they control bullying. However, teachers should be aware of bullying, and they have an obligation and duties to address the problems. To address these issues schools should take professional and legal responsibility to create bullying-free environments and positive school culture. It is important to create and develop laws against bullying to ensure that students and staffs live in a safe and productive environment. Schools should have anti-bullying laws for prohibiting bullying, and the law should provide clear policies and procedures to help students and the educators understand the expected behaviors, the consequences of bullying and the need to report bullying.
School-related bullying is a long-standing problem that must be stopped and prevented. Recently, bullying has created unprecedented public attention since the intentional aggressive acts have been associated with bullying-related suicides, lower academic achievements, lower self-esteem, and depression, poor physical and mental health among many long-lasting effects. Bullying in school affects students of all ages in both elementary and secondary schools (Allen, 2010). The worrying thing about bullying is that the effects hinder the talented children from achieving their academic goals. For this reason, the schools and communities should develop bully-prevention laws with the aim of punishing the bully, and protect the victims of bullying. About 49 states have developed zero tolerance policies for bullying that provide legal remedies by reporting bullying to the police. However, these laws do not provide long-term protection since rather than creating positive school climates; the perpetrators are punished in the legal sphere. Thus, it is important for the school administrators to create and implement efficacious practices and policies that are related to creating positive schools and communities (Allen, 2010). Various studies have found that various prevention programs in the U.S are not practically helpful. For example, a specific meta-analyses study in 2011 found that the prevention programs of bullying reduced bullying by 23% in non-US countries. However, current empirical investigations on bullying prevention programs show that there is a need for skill-building in bullying prevention programs (Allen, 2010). In other words, schools should have laws against bullying that are designed to support positive behaviors, create positive school climate and allow the school members to develop a sense of belonging and a sense of community.
Espelage (2013) asserts that bullying is a problem that contributes to detrimental effects to both students and staff and the issue can be addressed of in only educators intervene. The reason as to why bullying in the schools is alarming is because teachers do not respond to bullying simply because the victims do not report and if they do, only 30 to 50 % forward the cases (Espelage, 2013). Teachers also hesitate to address the matter when the students forward bullying and the victims end up experiencing long-lasting physical and psychological effects that affect their young and adult life. Thus, it is important for the teachers to prevent bullying by detect bullying, preventing bullying and solving the cases among the victims, the bullies and the bystander. Recent studies are challenging the educators in that despite the fact that they agree with the scientific definition of bullying (direct or indirect intentional aggressive behaviors toward a person due to power imbalance) they never recognize direct bullying but they only notice indirect bullying (Espelage, 2013). Also, they are likely to recognize the physical and verbal attack and ignore social exclusion.
In most cases, educators underestimate bullying and hesitate to intervene in bullying situations. The article asserts that even though it is difficult to recognize bullying in the typical setting, they should understand that bullying is not a single event, but it is a repetitive act over a period. To address bullying and its associated consequences, the school should create laws against bullying and develop a whole-school approach (Strohmeier & Noam, 2012). It is important to educators to understand that bullying is not an issue that only involves the victim and the perpetrator but it is relationship problem that occurs in social contexts. In other words, in social contexts, educators, peers, and parents should play a role in discouraging bullying. Educators should be in the frontline to prevent bullying by supporting the victimized students through holding effective conversation, being empathetic and showing self-efficacy (Strohmeier & Noam, 2012). The author puts emphases that evade-based programs is the best strategy to stop bullying. The programs contain both preventative and interventionist measures and they are designed to change the school practices and culture. Schools should have laws against bullying and in this case, the evidence-based practice means that schools should conduct research and come up with the best policies. Educators should understand that rather than using ideology in implementing instructional programs and practices, they should use proven scientific ideas.
According to Graham (2016), since school bullying causes serious consequences, it is the high time to place more attention on the issue. School should have laws against bullying or in other words, there should be school-based intervention since this is the best strategy. The schools' laws against bullying or the school intervention should put concern on all students, parents, staff, teachers, and administrators. The law should define bullying and perceive bullying as a systematic social problem and put a collective responsibility to all school members. Having defined the bullying and understanding its nature, the law will allow the involved members to have a heightened monitoring and offer a consistent response to bullying. Under the school laws against bullying, students should have the opportunity to create rules about bullying, learn about the expected behaviors, forms of bullying, and the consequences of bullying and get training on the best strategies to address bullying and, the need for classroom discussion about bullying experiences. Under the law, teachers and other school members should be trained on the best strategies for addressing bullying (Graham, 2016). The evidence that shows the importance of school wide approaches and the need for school laws against bullying is derived from recent meta-analyses of 2008 and 2011 which reported a positive effect since the approaches increase the awareness of bullying, reports of bullying and immediate response. Overall, the laws against bullying should allow teachers to recognize both direct and indirect bullying, offer a quick responses, receive training based on definition of bullying and the differences between bullying and normative experiences, learn more about the classroom social dynamics and learn the need for creating teachable moments to discuss the bullying incidents, learn the risk factor for bullying such as stigma of being different and teach the students the importance of appreciating diversity in the school environment.
Furniss (2000) brings opposing views by asserting that even if the school disciplinary mechanism is appropriate in addressing bullying, the criminal justice arena is more appropriate especially when the school offer ineffective measures and is unwilling to address the issues. Secondly, he argues that the criminal system arena is appropriate when the school cannot address too serious situations. As the argument in this paper focuses on the need to develop policies in school, Furniss (2000) argues that the criminal justice agencies should address the problem simply because bullying is a criminal offense. The author argues that the school is unable to address bullying and teachers perceive bullying as inevitable and they believe that addressing the issue may worsen the situation. In other words, schools do not take bullying seriously, and even if they address the issue, students continue with bullying or engaging in other troubling behaviors. The author asserts that the school is unable to employ a ‘socializing influence' and to offer a serious disciplinary sanction such as school exclusion (Furniss, 2000). However, it is important to understand that school has a great role in maintaining discipline by creating an internal school mechanism that addresses issues such as bullying. Schools have the power to form a ‘socializing influence' and to create a positive school culture and to apply to a whole-school disciplinary approach. Rather than using the criminal justice system which uses sanctions and acts as an authoritarian agency, it is important to set laws against bullying in school since schools will create an inclusive atmosphere and set clear values (Whitted & Dupper, 2005). In addition, schools laws against bullying focus on encouraging pupil participation, the need for behavioral change, the use of peer mediation and shared concern approach. Rather than using the criminal system agencies, the local education authorities should support schools in the development and implement the laws against bullying and also offer support in creating behavior support plans.
Conclusion
Bullying is a serious issue that poses a serious health concern and affects the student's ability to focus on education. Bullying causes both physical and mental injury and raises fear, anxiety distress, and helplessness. Having understood bullying and its pervasive effects, a major concern is to reduce the violence where teachers, parents, and legislators should take responsibility. To address the issue, schools should have laws against bullying or in other words there should be a school-level intervention where there should be policies and procedures that communicate the behavioral norms and school wide rules. To effectively implement the laws, teachers should define bullying, recognize both direct and indirect bullying, take bullying seriously and more importantly use a multilevel approach. The latter involves changing the school climate and culture, creating a teachable moment with students to discuss bullying and proving students with training for them to gain problem-solving skills and learn pro-social behaviors. Even though it is important to apply a cohesive strategy that involves both school laws and criminal justice intervention, the school should offer internal disciplinary measures to create a favorable school climate and culture.
References
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Espelage, D. L. (2013). This Issue. Theory Into Practice, 52(4), 229-232.
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Graham, S. (2016). Victims of Bullying in Schools. Theory Into Practice, 55(2), 136-144.
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