Bullying+and+Prejudice+Reduction++Research

Bullying and Prejudice Reduction Research

//The Elephant on the Playground// By: Jill Vailet, __Principal__ November/December 2008 p38-41

This article's title may be a little tricky to understand at first but don't be fooled because there is not an elephant in the article. This article focuses on the first place were bullying seems to start, the playground. This article is intended for school principals but has great ideas to try for teachers and parents as well. This article provides great ideas of teaching kids how to play on the playground rather than bully on the playground. Since many children are use to virtual type games and have a limited amount of social play they often don't know how to play with each other. According to this article there are five major areas that the author focuses on and these are: -Maping the schoolyard -Teach everyone the rock-paper scissors game -Work with smaller group -Play outside yourself -Give kids responsibilities These five steps will ultimately help to tame the elephant on the playground. Althought no plan will ever completely eliminate the bullying issue that seems to plague the school playgrounds these ideas will certainly help to calm the issue and reintroduce active play among students. The main idea of this article is to focus on the idea of getting every child on the playground envolved in play in order to reduce bullying because if every child is involved and active in play then there will be no room for bullying.
 * __Summary__:**

__**Connections to Course and Implications for Teaching**__: -Helps teachers to understand why children are often bullying and not playing. -Helps teachers to get students involved in play that is social and active. -Helps the children who are bullying to feel involved with the other children rather than left out. -Teachers should be actively involved in playground play, this is a main idea for this article and is a wonderful problem solver. Posted By Heather White

//Process Evaluation of A bullying Prevention Program: A Pubic School-County Health Partnership// By Lynne Edmondson and John Hoover, __Reclaiming Children and youth__ Winter 2008 p 25-33 This article describes a research study that was conducted to see what would happen if a bullying prevention program was implemented. A bullying prevention program was created and implemented in schools in a rural Midwestern county. “Children were taught self-reliant strategies and techniques for building empathy.” (26) They wanted to positively change the climate and culture of the school and classroom. This article explains the exact strategies and core features of the program. They wanted to make the students feel safe.
 * __ Summary: __**

This article has great ideas to help students feel safe at school and to help them combat a bully. A teacher may be able to implement pieces of this research study in her classroom to help the students feel safer. * Helps teachers realize what they should do if a bully is in their classroom:
 * __ Connections to Course and Implications for Teaching: __**
 * Help the students to combat a bully
 * Teach children self defense strageies so they can deal with bullies in a nonviolent ways
 * Help children of a different ethnicity fit in, while making each child feel unique and special

Page edited by Amanda Johnson

[|School Bullying as a Creator of Pupil Peer Pressure] By Paivi Hamarus and Pauli Kaikkonen, //State Provincial Office of Western Finland//. Dec 2008. p333-345 This Article mentions how school bullying is a phenomenon globally. This article gives you the definition of exactly what bullying means, and how it should be viewed and stopped. How bullying is not just that individual it’s all about their surroundings and how it is supported even though it looks like it isn’t. Groups of people were interviewed to see how the status of bullying is viewed and the social norms and values of bullying. Being different is the core value of being bullied. This article mentions how some people are singled out and then how they react and so on. It gives many examples of how things like this gone on in class, without even knowing that it is going on.
 * Summary: **

This article would be great for every teacher to read. It shows how bullying can start and ways that it can be prevented or changed. Give every child a chance and equality is the best thing to prevent this. **__ Connections to Course and Implications for Teaching: __** Page edited by: Ryan Cook
 * Shows the teacher how bullying starts
 * Shows how people view bullying
 * Ways the bullying can be prevented or ceased
 * Studies to support their data

//School // //Bullying //: //Changing // //the // //Problem // //by // //Changing // //the // //School // Journal article by Pamela Orpinas, Arthur M. Horne, Deborah Staniszewski; School Psychology Review, Vol. 32, 2003 For educators to be successful, a positive school environment must be maintained. This is directly related to classroom management and bullying prevention. This article is intended to give educators a model of putting this theory into action. The model in this case is from a study completed during the late 90’s, at a large elementary school in the Southeastern United States. Over 50% of the students in this school received free or reduced lunch and were of African-American descent. The results of this program were measured by a survey completed by students on a voluntary and anonymous basis, which had an 88% participation rate. An important note to this intervention program is that it was designed by teachers rather than an expert consultant. First, the school developed a committee composed of teachers from all grade levels, paraprofessionals, a parent representative, the school counselor, and one administrator. This committee developed and implemented a plan of action that addressed the school climate, character education, and bullying prevention. The committee identified five basic values that provided the core to their plan of action. They turned this into a school-wide theme called //The Five Bees’//: Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Honest, Be Ready to Learn, and Be Your Personal Best. These principles were the backbone of their BEE Character Education Program. All teachers completed a 20-hour training session to become better educated about the issues facing the school, the students’ feelings about bullying, and how to implement strategies to combat this. Teachers were very active participants in this program, which the authors feel is very important, as do I. Reflective surveys were distributed out in 1998 and 1999, and the results of the program were identified. Among K-2nd grades, a 40% decrease was documented in the mean self-reported aggression. Surprisingly, no significant changes were seen among 3rd- 4th graders who reported committing aggressive acts towards others. However, a 23% decrease was documented among this group upon the mean reported victimization. A 19% decrease was also seen among K-2nd graders who reported being the victims of bullying. It appears the data shows that education and awareness, along with school-wide rules and policies, can have a positive impact on bullying in school. In this model, the school identified their values and then implemented strategies that modeled these values; //attacking the problem by changing the school//. It should be noted that this model isn’t without limitations. We have data from an experiment in a single school, without a comparison school to match numbers with. Also, the data collected was given voluntarily by students. There is simply no way of knowing how seriously and accurately they answered the questions. For more information on this study visit: [] __Course Connections and Implications for Teachers__: -Strategies to change school environment -Alternative methods for dealing with bullying -Ideas for teacher-friendly school environments Posted by: Chad Stevens