Special Chapter 01: Dynamics of Bullying

~When examining the issue of bullying in schools, a definition combining essential elements from a number of definitions serves as a useful guide.

Bullying is aggression in any form: verbal, emotional, psychological, sexual, or physical. When bullying occurs there is an imbalance of power; the person who bullies intends to subjugate the will of another person. Those who bully intend to harm someone physically, emotionally, or socially. Bullying is an act against an individual or a series of individuals who fear the bully's power. It is usually characterized by repetition, but not always.

~In all cases, an imbalance of power exists.

Bullying is often organized and systematic. Students who bully often feel justified in their behaviour. In a school, bullying can occur anywhere and can be perpetrated by anyone. Those who bully can be students or adults. Those who bully can operate alone or with accomplices. Those who bully rely on bystanders or onlookers either doing nothing to stop the bullying or actually supporting the behaviour. A target of bullying may be a single individual or a series of individuals. Bullying can occur over a short period of time or go on indefinitely.

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OTHER TYPES OF BULLYING:

Verbal

Verbal bullying is the use of words to gain power over someone or to torment them. This can include teasing or insulting someone, as well as using racist, sexist and homophobic language. Making hurtful comments about someone's religion or disability is also a form of verbal bullying.

Sexual

Sexual bullying can include gestures and statements of a sexual nature that are made to intimidate, hurt or offend someone. This bullying focuses on sexual activity or orientation, as well as body parts.

Covert

As the name suggests, covert bullying is subtle and not easy to detect. It is often done specifically to damage the victim's self-esteem, relationships or social standing. This kind of bullying can include behaviors such as threatening hand gestures and looks, spreading gossip and rumors, blackmail and attempts to make someone a social pariah.

Reactive

This type of bullying is created by the complicated relationship between bullies and their victims. It occurs when people who have been mistreated for a long time finally lash out at their bullies. As a result, the victim and bully appear to switch roles, with the victim in that moment becoming the aggressor and the bully becoming the victim.

Relational

Relational bullying is done specifically to impact someone's social life, often ostracizing the victim from friends. This can include gossip, being intentionally excluded from activities, neglect and intimidation.

Special Circumstances/Specific Types of Bullying

Some bullying takes place because of a specific reason that the bully perceives the victim is inferior. In these cases, the reason for bullying can be because of someone's sexual orientation, gender identity, race, religion or disability status. This can include activities like racial slurs; stealing icons related to someone's faith, such as Muslim hijabs or Jewish yarmulkes; homophobic language; and making fun of someone's disability.

Communities can often combat this kind of bullying through education and promoting tolerance. By teaching students about different groups of people, and stressing their similarities rather than their differences, this can help reduce the perception of "the other" and encourage an appreciation for those from different backgrounds.

Cyberbullying

As more people rely on technology to communicate with others, it's not surprising that bullying has gone from the schoolyard to cyberspace. Cyberbullying is a form of bullying behavior that takes place through electronic means. It can occur in many ways, including posting hurtful messages about someone, impersonating the victim, or disseminating personal information about someone digitally for the world to see.

Although all forms of bullying can be detrimental to the victims, cyberbullying ratchets up the terror for numerous reasons.

Unlike bullying that occurs at school, cyberbullying can be even more pervasive and difficult to avoid. It can occur at any time during the day or night, seven days a week.In addition, given the nature of the Internet, it can be witnessed by many more people, whether they actually attend the victim's school or they're a stranger on the other side of the world. Cyberspace affords a bully the anonymity to cause a great deal of damage with little or no repercussions. The evidence of the bullying can be long lasting because once a harassing message is posted, it can spread like wildfire around the net. Even if the original message is deleted, it may be reproduced many times over, making it impossible to reign in the damage.

SOURCE/REFERENCE:

https://www.learnpsychology.org/now/bullying/