Speaking of Psychology - Putting an end to bullying and school violence (SOP33)

Episode Date: January 15, 2016

School violence and bullying are a concern for parents and educators alike. As a result, thousands of school districts have implemented anti-bullying programs. In this episode, psychologist and education expert Dorothy Espelage, PhD, talks about the effectiveness of these programs and what parents and schools can continue to do to curb everything from cyberbullying to dating violence. APA is currently seeking proposals for APA 2020, click here to learn more https://convention.apa.org/proposals Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cyberbullying and violence can be a persistent problem for kids of all ages, in schools, and even at home. One out of three students is bullied during the school year, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. It's a problem that is dramatically affecting the mental health of young people in a variety of ways. In this episode, we speak with one psychologist about why school-wide anti-bullying and anti-violence programs are so important. I'm Audrey Hamilton, and this is speaking of psychology. psychology. Dorothy Espelage is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has been conducting research on bullying, sexual harassment, dating violence, and gang violence for the last 20 years. She is associate editor of the Journal of Counseling Psychology

and is author of more than 120 peer-reviewed journal articles. Welcome, Dr. Espelage. Thank you for having me. The psychological study of bullies and bullying has come a long way. I think there's been a lot more awareness of the issue and what it means for children's mental health. Has all this awareness made a difference from what you've seen in the research and the prevalence of bullying and aggression in schools? Certainly there has been a heightened awareness. We have studied it for a number of decades, but it wasn't until 2011 when President Obama had his White House conference on bullying that really the public took notice of bullying. It's difficult to estimate whether or not this awareness has contributed to a decrease in the prevalence of it, but certainly we do.

know from national statistics that in some schools where there's lower violence, we've seen less bullying. But certainly in our studies, and we're engaged in studies in hundreds of schools right now, it's still alive and well in our schools, and we need to be concerned about it, and it's a difficult behavior to decrease. What do we know about what predicts involvement in bullying and aggression? You know, you hear video games, you know, other types of media. How much do we know about what causes it? Yeah, we know that actually, you know, predicting who's going to be involved as someone that is what we call a perpetrator or a target is very, very complex. And so it just really depends on their home environment.

It depends on a child's school, whether or not they have anti-bullying policies in place. It's whether or not they're in middle school. In middle school, bullying tends to be concentrated among some of the most popular kids. When kids are younger, they seem to kind of navigate this, and kids that engage in bullying behaviors are rejected. but by middle school, they really do have high social status. By high school, it really nuances into sexual harassment and teen dating violence. So I think what we do know is that there's not a deterministic model. We can't predict who's going to be involved in bullying as a perpetrator or a victim,

but we certainly do know that there's certain risk factors, and that could be violence in the home, it could be neighborhoods in which they're witnessing violence. It could be that you have a sibling that is aggressive towards you and then you play that behavior out in school. We also know that school climate matters. So if I'm in a school in which there's no anti-bullying policies and the teachers model violence or they actually bully themselves, then the kids are more likely to bully.

But if I'm in a school in which it's not tolerated, then I'm less likely to engage in that behavior. And so certainly we know that there might be individual characteristics that predict whether or not I'm going to engage in this behaviors, but it's not deterministic. It depends on their larger social environment. And a lot of your research does focus on the schools and their role in bullying and aggression. What role do schools play in bullying and how can they play? prevent it from becoming a widespread problem. You go into more detail on that. Certainly. I mean, kids spend more time in schools than they do sometimes even with their

parents or in their neighborhoods or in their home. So the school is pivotal. Now, the school is not the only place where we need to intervene, but certainly we do know from our research that if we implement what we call social emotional learning programs where we teach kids' empathy and perspective taking, how to communicate, how to problem solve, how to resolve conflicts. We have less bullying. We have less sexual harassment. And so certainly schools do play a role. We also know that a lot of people talk about, oh, the epidemic is cyberbullying. Bottom line is that most of the conflicts that play out through media and through the internet actually start at school. So the schools play a pivotal role in creating a positive school climate

so that when kids do pick up technology, they're less likely to be mean and cruel. Another area of research that you're focusing on now is sexual harassment and teen dating violence. How serious is this problem among middle and high school students specifically? Yeah, and I mean it's hard for anybody listening to this to think that a sixth grader who's 10 years old would engage in any type of inappropriate sexual commentary or rumor spreading. But we do know that about 30% of six through eighth graders engage in unwanted sexual commentary and sexual rumor spreading. Luckily, only 1 to 3% of 6th through 8th graders report being inappropriately touched, but we do know that that number goes up quite substantially in high school. And the bottom line is if we do not, high school is too late to start talking about sexual harassment.

And we're in the United States, and sexual harassment is illegal in K through 12, just as it is in workplaces. And so we need to start talking to kids about the sexual commentary they use so that it doesn't escalate to the unwanted sexual harassment, though that is quite prevalent in high school. You mentioned before that schools aren't the only places where all of this needs to be having. Can you give some examples of other areas that needs to improvement? Certainly. I mean, I think that schools are pivotal, but the reality is that kids reside in other context, right? So we have to think about even boys and girls clubs. We have to think about sport, right? So only now

our coaches starting to think like, okay, maybe I play a role in the escalation of bullying or sexual harassment. In the home, parents need to have open dialogues with their youth about what they're doing online, who they're engaging with. If parents are listening now, talk to their kids about sexual harassment, talk to them about bullying, are they those good kids that just go along with that kind of bully ringleader? All of us need to have this conversation. It should happen in churches. It should happen anywhere that you have a child and you interact with a child, these conversations need to happen. I think parents also have this idea that the schools have to do something about the bullying. You hear that a lot, and I'm a parent, so I know even in elementary school you say, well,

this needs to be handled. I mean, how do you go, what is the best way to go about getting the school to intervene or having the parent involved? I mean, what sort of level of coordination do you need there? Well, I mean, I think that we know from, you know, systematic studies that if we address the issue of bullying and sexual harassment and teen dating violence from all directions in the home and in the school. But the reality is kids spend a lot of time in the schools and schools are mandated. Unfortunately, there are law. I mean, there are unfunded mandates, right? So schools are told you will address the bullying problem, but we're not going to give you any funds to do this.

And your teachers are overworked and the teachers feel they have to address bullying and put that on their plate along with other things that they have to address in the social ills. The reality is that in our research we find that if in fact schools are addressing it and teachers feel supported by their administration to address the bullying problem, they feel that they can dialogue with the parents, there's less bullying. So again, it's not just that there's a quick fix. There's not a quick fix. We know that if it's a positive school climate and kids like going to school and they're connected with their teachers, there's less bullying. And so that's just one area where we can address it, but certainly we can't do it without

the parents. We actually know that kids that are when they're bullied online, 85% of the time, they're at home. And so when I talk to parents, like, I need, parents need to engage with the schools or needs to be an open form of communication. We can't do it alone. All of us need to get on the same page. Thank you, Dr. Esplod.

Very interesting. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. For more information on Dr. Espelage's work and to hear more episodes, please go to our website, speakingofpsychology.org. With the American Psychological Association's Speaking of Psychology, I'm Audrey Hamilton.