CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Related Literatures

Bullying is defined in different ways, but researchers agree that is form of
aggression, and for bullying to occur, three characteristics must be present; 1. The
behavior is meant to inflic t physical and or psychological harm, 2. The behavior must be
repeated overtime and 3. There is an imbalance of power among the people involved
(Banks, 1997; Deitrich, 1997; Espelage & Swearer, 2003; Nansel et al., 2001). Bullying
occurs physical form through hitting and kicking, in verbal form. IN the continuum of
participants in a bullying situation, a person maybe a bully, a victim, a bystander, a bully-
victim.Bullying behaviors are influenced by many factors including demographic
variables, family, peers, and aggression. In 2000, Espelage et al. tested sex, grade, rape,
price or lunch, and poverty status as demographic variables. The finding of Seals and
Young in 2003 concurs with the results of both Espelage et at. Family relations also
affect bullying. According to the article by Cohn and Canter in 2003, two family
influences on bullying are the amount of adults supervision a child receives and seeing
family members exhibiting bullying behaviors. In the study 2000 study by Espelage et al
over seventeen percent of the middle school students reported at least sometimes being
physically punish when breaking a rule at home. In their article Research on school
bullying and victimization: What have we learned and where do we go from here? In
addition, it was found that many students who bully their peers in school also bully their
siblings at home. (Espelage & Swearer, 2003). Since bullying is a subset of aggression,
different types on aggression can lead to different manifestation of bullying behaviors.
Espelage and Swearer in 2003 list different types of aggression, including, proactive
versus reactive aggression, direct versus indirect aggression, overt versus covert
aggression, and relational aggression. In addition, the authors found that more than
seventy of girls in their study were victims of relational bullying, which included both
verbal and psychological behaviors. Depression is another major emotional factor related
to bullying. In the same articles, it was noted that depression levels are higher in victims
as well as in bullies compared to non-bullies or non-victims (Espelage & Swearer, 2003).
School environment affects the prevalence of bullying as well. When school faculty
members ignore bullying behaviors, students are reinforced for the behavior (Cohn and
Canter). School climate is related to bullying, while others such as poorer relationships
with classmates and loneliness are related to being bullied and coincident bullying being
bullied.
The new school year had barely begun when stories of bullying started to
circulate once again. TV host Dr. Phil McGraw, for example, hosted a televised
discussion on the problem of bullying in public schools. While bullying behavior has
existed in various forms throughout human history, earlier societies and religious
authorities developed means by which to discourage such behavior. The published
works of French political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville and Dr. Helmut Shoeck
provide insight into envy and bullying. In his treatise entitled Theory of Envy,
Shoeck advised that envy is at its most intense when people are almost equal. In The
Old Regime and the French Revolution, Tocqueville theorized that the French
revolutionaries who rebelled against the nobles were almost equal to the nobles.
Much of the female bullying that occurs in schools almost consistently involves a girl
or a group of girls attacking a peer who has more in common with her attackers
than she has differences. Competition for the attention of boys or significant adults
is often at the root of much school-age female bullying.

Female bullying is by no means exclusive to people. It often happens in the
wolf compounds at large zoos where the alpha female regularly bullies subordinate
females. In the wild, the alpha female wolf will often bully subordinate females that
have reached sexual maturity to the point where they leave the pack. Indefining
envy, Shoeck advised that an envious person does not want the attributes or
possessions of another person; they want to ensure that other people do not enjoy
their possessions or get to use their abilities or attributes.

In a wolf pack, the alpha female ensures through bullying subordinate
females that potential competitors that are practically her equals will not use their
reproductive capacity to attract the attention of the alpha male. Research into
teenage female peer bullying suggests that the bullying females are often the
popular girls who are well liked by most of their peers of both genders and by
significant adults. Interviews with teachers indicate that female bullying is rampant
in mixed gender schools and mixed gender classrooms, with less bullying of peers
occurring in single gender schools and classrooms.

The state is no innocent bystander in the phenomenon of peer bullying
involving school-aged children. With rare exceptions, school attendance laws
compel children to attend schools where they are likely to be bullied. Quite often,
students learn ways by which to bully teachers to the point where 1 out of 3
teachers would likely leave the profession after five years.
(http://clinicalcounselor.blogspot.com/2011/10/bullying-statistics-2010.html

The combination of state control of medicine, drugs, food and education is
quite literally an act of organized bullying that may actually be contributing to the
growing epidemic of bullying that is sweeping schools in many jurisdictions and
many nations. Interviews with several teachers of pre-teen students in one region
revealed that up to 75% of their students were products of single parent homes,
often with half-brothers and half-sisters in the same classroom or same grade level.
Teachers admitted to spending most of their classroom time dealing with behavioral
problems instead of teaching children the essential skills of reading, writing and
math.Research undertaken internationally into youth gangs revealed that for most
gang members, fathers were either physically or emotionally absent in their lives.
The gang leader and fellow gang members often provide emotionally what a father
and/or older male relatives would otherwise provide in a traditional or extended
family. Gang members who were interviewed individually after participating in a
gang activity such as a group assault or a gang rape admitted to doing so to gain
acceptance, approval, validation, acknowledgement and recognition from their
peers. Several gang members even admitted to not enjoying such acts and even to
feeling degraded and dirty for what they had done. During an earlier era, nobody
else joined into schoolyard fights between two protagonists. In the modern era,
friends of the bully join in the attack against another child, for the same reasons as
participants in a gang rape. They do it to look good in front of their peers. Research
indicates that young boys who attend single gender classrooms that are taught by
male teachers for several successive years have a very low propensity for gang
membership and low incidence of engaging in bullying behavior.

For boys who are compelled to attend government schools where the male
teacher is a vanishing breed, the only remaining institution capable of providing
male leadership happens to be organized gangs. Police departments are becoming
alarmed that gang membership is increasing in many large cities. State welfare
policies that undermined the traditional family structure has increased the
population of fatherless boys who will forcibly be vaccinated and immunized with
drugs of questionable efficacy after which many will be prescribed anti-depressants
that may come from the same companies that provide the vaccines, the animal
growth hormones and the antibiotics. Many of them are potential gang members in
waiting.

Much of their diet will include foods laced with growth hormones and antibiotics
and they will be forced to attend state schools. Retired award winning teacher John
Taylor Gatto authored a book entitled Dumbing Down in which he detailed the
deficiencies of state schools, state schooling and the state curricula that ultimately
undermines students' abilities to think critically. Given the nature of state
involvement in the numerous aspects of children's lives, it should come as no
surprise that there is an epidemic of bullying underway in state schools.
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/10/101115-8.html