Research Paper on the School Bullying in the United States

Background of the Study

In todays society violence are becoming rampant and they are soaring on a very high note. There is need to look at the main causes of these violent acts so as to stamp the vice and provide solution to this problem. Blame has been shifted to watching of violent videos, movies, and even music as some of the causes of violence in schools among many others. School violence may involve verbal or physical attack while on school compound. In the past delinquency and fight were treated as school violence. Nonetheless, it is becoming a problem to the nations of the world. The degree of violence is on the rise, and it involves persons being harmed and even others being killed. Students come to school with a variety of weapons to schools such as knives, guns, swords and other deadly weapons. The weapons are employed in hurting and killing others. With the rising incidences of shooting, the recent one in Littleton in Colorado .It is attracting public cry and they are becoming concerned on which solutions is to be employed to effectively end the violence in schools. The objective of this study is aimed at investigating the main causes of violence in schools, the effects, and the possible methods of prevention. The questions that this study aims at answering are the causes and indicators of violence, effects on the students and teachers, and the methods of prevention. It is hypothesized that exposure to media is a driving factor in causing violence in school, that the violence caused will have damaging effects on the academicians, and that enhanced security will reduce violence.

1.1 Statement of the Problem

Bullying happens in any circumstances, contexts, and places. The venues of bullying have been spread to now encompass the online platform through electronic platforms. The electronic platforms include cellphones and the cyber. This involves the technological advancement that perpetuate bullying. This diminishes the normal conceptualization of bullying where the majority understood bullying as a form of physical abuses or aggression from outsiders. Bullying spans to the latest models of verbal abuse among students. All these forms of violence and aggression have had impacts on the students to the extent of having some risk factors that accompany the practice among students. However, in the recent past, the rate of violence among students in the United States have been scaling the heights. This places the majority of the policymakers and organizations on the alarm on how to control the phenomena at an early stage. In addition, there is a shortage of qualitative studies that explain the nature and prevalence of bullying among students in the United States involving varied demographics. This study ventures into filling the existing gap by providing a cross-analysis of the literature and providing a qualitative explanation of the results by aligning the facts to specific theories.

1.2 Objectives of the Study

The objective of this study are;

To describe the prevalence of bullying in the United States.

To identify the causes of bullying in schools.

To explain the risk factors of school violence.

To describe the nature and demographics of the victims of school violence.

1.3 Questions of the study

The following questions will guide this study.

How frequent is bullying in the United States?

What are the causes of bullying in schools?

What are the risk factors for school violence?

How is the nature and demographics of victims of school violence?

Literature Review

Smokowski et al. (2013) ventured into studying the nature of bullying victimization by using a sample of 3610 youth from diverse races. The participants had an average of 12.8 years who completed their school form rural schools. This study is effective since the researchers use binary regression models in predicting the prevalence of bullying in schools in the United States. The study was aligned towards elaborating the risk factors of bullying. The variable such as age, race, gender, and psychiatric status. The study found out that Hispanic and African American students are at increased risk of victimization. The situation is even worse among the Indian and the Caucasian students. The study also found out that students are victimized for a variety of purposes. For instance, lacking relationships and power, being physically weak, and being insecure are among the causes for bullying in schools. This study is very instrumental in having an in-depth understanding of the relationships in the nature of bullying victimization.Shetgiri, Lin, and Flores (2012), examines the trends involving the factors and prevalence of perpetration of school violence among children. The age of the participants ranged from 10-17 years. The study utilized the data from the National Survey of Childrens Health which significantly impacted on the validity and reliability of the findings. The study also employed a report from parents that measures and questionnaires which were employed to measure the factors that are related to school violence. The variables included gender, the emotion of the child, behavioral or developmental problems, and parental anger concerning the child.

Schapiro, John, and Adesman (2014) ventured into studying the link between weapon ferrying and school bullying in the United States. The researchers observed the increased rate of school bullying alongside other school-related tragedies in the United States. Onn the other hand, the public health had intensified efforts to curb the increasing rate of bullying and related school violence in schools. The researcher notes that physical abuse together with the undying fear of retaliation is among the greatest forms of buying in high school. Besides, other forms of bullying include verbal taunts which are common in middle schools and grade schools. The study relies on the fact that there is a gap in information relating high schools are bullying and weapon carrying among the victims subjected to school violence. The study relied on the data from the CDC survey on the youth risk behavior in 2011. Majorly, the study was aligned towards demonstrating the rate of carting weapons in high schools alongside identifying the risk factors and the demographics. Furthermore, the study relied on questionnaires designed to measure how an individual was a victim of bullying (VoB). The variables in the study include, age, grade, sex, weight, BMI, and height. This study is inPapas & Axe (2015) focused on explaining the relationship between bullying and suicide-related characteristics which involve disabled and adolescent participants in the United States. The study was carried out at a time when there was widespread school violence and therefore the public health concern that linked bullying with health consequences. The consequences involved increased suspensibility to suicide. The researcher notes that the effects of bullying are even higher in physically disabled adolescent students. This usually leads to suicidal thoughts among the victims of school-based violence.

McNicholas and Orpinas, (2016) analyzed the rate and prevalence of victimization involving physically disabled students. Bullying is referred to as a repeated relationship that involves high rates of aggression in environments that has an imbalanced power. Disabled children are more exposed to bullying that those students who are not disabled. However, there is limited research that aligns with this fact. The study employs a mixed approach by using both qualitative and quantitative study designs in examining the characteristics and prevalence of bullying victimization in the United States. The participants included 161 physically disabled students whose information were available in the disability resource center at the school. The variables include gender, race, mode of study, and age. The respondents completed a survey through electronic means which greatly impacted on the reliability and objectivity of the study. The questioned were centered around the rate of verbal, physical, cyber, and relational bullying. The questionnaire involved open-ended questions.

Maynard et al. (2016) carried out a study to understand the prevalence of bullying victimization involving immigrant school-going youth. The study was carried out in the United States. Buying remains to be one of the serious socio-developmental problems in the United States among other countries in the world. Therefore, there exist a range of long and short-term consequences among the victims of bullying. Given that less literature and studies are delineating the correlation between bullying and immigrant students, the researcher endeavors to fill the existing gap by providing a detailed study of the prevalence and nature of the relationship. The findings of the study indicated that the immigrant students are at an advanced rate of experiencing victimization than the native students. Besides, the immigrant students are at an increased likelihood of reporting socioemotional, health, drug and substance abuse alongside interpersonal problems.

Hertz et al. (2015) ventures into studying the relationship between health risk characteristics and school violence victimization involving high school adolescent. The childhood encounter with experience from adverse conditions has been linked to smoking, asthma, obesity, sexually transmitted infections, depression, sleep disorders, and substance abuse. The study employed the data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 2011 to help in conceptualizing the correlation between school-based violence and health risk characteristics. The study used a regression analysis to study the variables such as sex, race, and grade. The sample population is N=13846. The study found out that the victimization frequencies varied considerably. Some of the students reported that they had been victimized either in person or electronically with some indicating that they have never been victimized. The study concludes by indicating that the behaviors and functioning of the bullying victims can be an indicator for the policymakers in intervening school violence at an early stage.

Grinshteyn & Yang (2017) studies the relationship between absenteeism and electronic bullying among high school youth. The study takes place in the United States. The study examines the relationship between absenteeism and exposure to electronic bullying with the conception of fear. The study employs a multinomial, multivariate analyses using the survey form the youth risk behavior 2013 data. The variable sunders study incl...