bullying

Survey Shows Disparities In Harassment Between High School Males And Females

 

The Washington Post (7/29, Rich) reports that information from the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights shows that “disparities between bullying and harassment on the basis of sex increase between boys and girls” as they grow older. The report shows that harassment is almost 56 percent higher for girls in traditional high schools than it is for males of the same age. The self-reported data “likely understates the problem” since the question is new on the Office of Civil Rights’ survey.

        Salon (7/29, Kutner) reports that while the report shows that girls receive higher rates of harassment than males at all ages, the data “makes huge jumps from elementary to middle to high school.” The article writes that the data shows that the data and the accompanying chart show that “school bullying disparity isn’t just a gender problem in education. It’s.. how boys and girls learn sexual harassment in the classroom.

Study: US Teens Less Likely To Engage In Bullying

HealthDay (4/25, Mozes) reports that according to a study published online April 17 in the American Journal of Public Health, US adolescents “are much less likely to engage in bullying than they were a decade ago.” After surveying middle and high school students between the years 1998 and 2010, researchers found that “instances of both verbal and physical bullying dropped by roughly half, with much of the decline seen specifically among boys.” The study’s author, Jessamyn Perlus, “a fellow in the division of intramural population health research with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development,” part of the US National Institutes of Health, “described her team’s findings as ‘encouraging.’”

Study: Sexual Violence Occurs In Middle School Without Teachers Noticing

The Huffington Post (4/6, Klein) reports that “a substantial amount of sexual violence in middle school” happens in the classroom. A study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign observed that, of those surveyed, 27% of girls and 25% of boys “reported facing a form of sexual violence on middle school grounds in the past year.” Dr. Dorothy Espelage, co-author of the study and professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois, said the types of abuse described are “a precursor to teen dating violence.” She noted that while teachers were trained to deal with bullying, they were “less educated” on sexual harassment, and school anti-bullying policies “may fail to properly consider whether the student misconduct also results in discriminatory harassment.” Espalage called for combining bullying prevention programs with sexual harassment prevention programs.

Author Offers Advice On Boys And Bullying

The US News & World Report (11/7, Zalan) interviews parenting expert and author Rosalind Wiseman, who said “boys oftentimes feel that people are talking to them in sound bites of advice that do not in any way acknowledge the complexity of their lives.” They also have “knowledge and an intolerance of adult hypocrisy.” Many people “dismiss boys in stereotypes” and “say things that are very derogatory or dismissive of boys that we would never, ever say publicly about girls.” Wiseman advised adults “to stop minimizing or dismissing [boys’] experiences.”

Text messaging originator opt-in data and consent will not be shared with any third parties, provided that the foregoing does not apply to sharing (1) with vendors, consultants and other service providers who need access to such information to carry out work on our behalf (and who will not use such information for their own purposes); (2) if we believe disclosure is required by any applicable law, rule, or regulation or to comply with law enforcement or legal process.