Digital Commons Network^™

Bullying Victimization As A Disability In Public Elementary And Secondary Education, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

This article discusses two reasons why likening bullying victimization to an educational disability makes sense. First, face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying impose on student victims the sort of educational deprivation that the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) addresses in the disabilities arena. Second, today’s belated public sensitivity to school bullying victims resembles the belated public sensitivity to students with disabilities that led to passage of the IDEA in 1975.

Victim-Blaming: A New Term For An Old Trend, Julia Churchill Schoellkopf

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Center

Victim-blaming is a phenomenon that has been happening since at least the beginning of recorded history but has only recently been identified as a dynamic used to empower the criminal and maintain the status quo. Victim-blaming is perpetuated by sexism, the Just World Theory, cognitive biases, and the theories of self-blame. Victim-blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or abuse is held partly or entirely responsible for the actions committed against them. In other words, the victims are held accountable for the maltreatment they have been subjected to. Perpetrators of crimes for which they blame the victim commonly enjoy …

An Overview Of State Anti-Bullying Legislation And Other Related Laws, Katharine B. Silbaugh, Dena Sacco, Felipe Corredor, June Casey, David Doherty

Faculty Scholarship

As a part of its collaboration with the Born This Way Foundation, the Berkman Center is publishing a series of papers that synthesize existing peer-reviewed research or equivalent scholarship and provide research-grounded insight to the variety of stakeholders working on issues related to youth empowerment and action towards creating a kinder, braver world. This series, called the The Kinder & Braver World Project: Research Series (Danah Boyd and John Palfrey, editors), is presented by the Born This Way Foundation & the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and supported by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur …

Identifying Potential Mediators And Moderators Of The Association Be-Tween Child Maltreatment And Bullying Perpetration And Victimization In School, Jun Sung Hong, Dorothy L. Espelage, Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, Paula Allen-Meares

Social Work Faculty Publications

A growing body of literature is demonstrating associations between childhood maltreatment and bullying involvement at school. In this literature review, five potential mediators (explanatory) and three potential moderators (mitigates or exacerbates) of the association between childhood maltreatment and school bullying are proposed. Mediators include emotional dysregulation, depression, anger, and social skills deficits. Moderators reviewed include quality of parent-child relationships, peer relationships, and teacher relationships. Although there might be insurmountable challenges to addressing child maltreatment in primary or universal school-based prevention programs, it is possible to intervene to improve these potentially mediating and moderating factors.

Problem Behaviours, Traditional Bullying And Cyberbullying Among Adolescents: Longitudinal Analyses, Leanne Lester, Donna Cross, Therese Shaw

Research outputs 2012

Problem Behaviour Theory suggests that young people's problem behaviours tend to cluster. This study examined the relationship between traditional bullying, cyberbullying and engagement in problem behaviours using longitudinal data from approximately 1500 students. Levels of traditional victimisation and perpetration at the beginning of secondary school (grade 8, age 12) predicted levels of engagement in problem behaviours at the end of grade 9 (age 14). Levels of victimisation and perpetration were found to moderate each other's associations with engagement in problem behaviours. Cyberbullying did not represent an independent risk factor over and above levels of traditional victimisation and perpetration for higher …

Hostile Educational Environments, Ari Ezra Waldman

Articles & Chapters

This Article is one in a series about bullying and cyberbullying in schools. I argue that the proper analysis for a First Amendment challenge to school discipline for off-campus misuse of the Internet to harm or harass a member of the school community based on the victim’s identity depends on the nature of the offending behavior. For students who are punished for a single incident – what I will call cyberattacking – a Tinker analysis makes sense. But, given that Tinker’s “substantial disruption” standard originated in the context of student protests and that targeted identity-based harassment can create substantial disruptions …

Tormented: Antigay Bullying In Schools, Ari Ezra Waldman

Articles & Chapters

This Article begins a theoretical and empirical discussion on bullying and cyberharassment of all students, but particularly gay and lesbian youth. Despite the recent spate of bullying-related suicides, I argue that antibullying proposals that include harsh criminal punishments for egregious cases of bullying and cyberbullying in schools lack validity as a matter of legal theory and practice. In fact, it is what makes criminalization so initially attractive — that is, the public’s emotional and retributive need for punishments equal to bullying tragedies — that ultimately leaves the proposal devoid of reason. Criminalization proposals only satisfy retributive aims and are unlikely …

All Those Like You: Identity Aggression And Student Speech, Ari Ezra Waldman

Articles & Chapters

Online and face-to-face harassment in schools requires a coordinated response from the school, parents, students, and government. In this Article, I address a particular subset of online and face-to-face harassment, or identity-based harassment. Identity-based aggressors highlight a quality intrinsic to someone’s personhood and demean it, deprive it of value, and use it as a weapon. They attack women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and other traditionally victimized groups. And, as such, they attack not only their particular victims but also their victims’ communities. Identity-based aggressors com- mit a constitutional evil not only because their behavior interferes with victims’ access to education, …

Respectful And Responsible Relationships: There’S No App For That (The Report Of The Nova Scotia Task Force On Bullying And Cyberbullying), A. Wayne Mackay

Reports & Public Policy Documents

Chairing this Task Force and producing this report has been both the most engaging and exhausting project that I have ever undertaken. Since my appointment in late May 2011, I have lived and breathed in the world of bullying and cyberbullying. I am sure my fellow Task Force members and members of the Working Group did the same. Born in the wake of tragic teen suicides it was easy for the members of the Task Force to be motivated. Indeed, few ventures have stirred my passions as much as this exercise has.

Bullying is a major social issue throughout the …