Bullying or Peer Abuse at School: Facts and Intervention

Current Directions in Psychological Science

Dan Olweus

AGGRESSION (Psychology)

CANADA

GREAT Britain

HATE crimes

NONVERBAL communication

SCHOOL bullying

SCHOOL environment

UNITED States

Bullying among the school children is certainly a very old and well known phenomenon. Though many people are aquatinted with the problem, it was not until 1970s, that it became the object of systematic research. For a number of years, these efforts were largely confined to Scandinavia. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, bullying among schoolchildren began to attract attention also in other countries like Great Britain, Canada and the U.S. According to the author, a student is bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on part of one or more students. Negative actions can include physical contact, words, making faces or dirty gestures, and intentional exclusion from a group. An additional criterion of bullying is an imbalance in strength. i.e., the student who is exposed to negative actions has difficulty in defending himself or herself. Several common myths associated with the causes of bullying have received no support from empirical data. They include the hypothesis that bullying is a consequence of large class or school size, competition for grades and failure in school and differences in appearance of students.

4

6

196-200

December 1995

Current Directions in Psychological Science

Bullying or Peer Abuse at School

10.1111/1467-8721.ep10772640

09637214