 strategies
for schools
The bully and the victim
BY CYNTHIA LEE
UCLA Today Staff
You can spot them on any playground or school lunchroom. They revel
in pushing other kids around, assaulting their hapless victims with
a few well-chosen expletives, preferably in front of a crowd.
The bane of the meek and mild, the power-hungry bully has long
been a force to contend with. But only in the last five or six years
have educators and psychologists in this country studied bullies
and their victims and counseled schools on how to keep bullying
from disrupting the lives of students.
“Schools are desperate for concrete guidelines,” said
Jaana Juvonen, professor of psychology who, together with her collaborator
Sandra Graham, did some of the first research in this country on
bullies and their victims, especially in multiethnic schools. As
a consultant to Los Angeles schools, Juvonen frequently gives talks
to educators and counselors on the topic.
“Schools may have some programs against bullying, but they
know they’re not very effective,” she said. “There’s
a lot of goodwill and good intentions out there. Unfortunately,
they don’t translate into best practices. For example, we’re
still struggling with popular myths or misconceptions.”
One myth that she and her collaborator exploded with their research,
recently published in the journal Pediatrics, was that bullies suffer
from low self-esteem and need ego boosting. Some schools, in fact,
have programs to do just that. “Actually, bullies are doing
really well psychologically. They feel very strong,” the psychology
professor said. “They’re popular among their peers,
which explains, in part, their good feelings about themselves.”
What bullies lack are the skills to resolve conflicts peacefully,
she noted, as well as any empathy for the victim. “They don’t
necessarily think about the victims’ emotional distress,”
she said.
Ironically, researchers have found that many bullies feel they are
unfairly treated in school.
As for chronic victims, they often blame themselves for becoming
targets. “They think, ‘I get picked on because there’s
something wrong with the way I look or who I am, and there’s
nothing I can do about it,’ ” Juvonen said.
To turn the situation around, schools, such as the Corinne Seeds
University Elementary School at UCLA, are teaching children life
skills to combat bullying. Teachers mediate playground confrontations
to take advantage of those “teachable moments,” when
children are most open to learning real-life problem-solving.
Victims learn they have some control over the situation —
they can avoid or exit situations where they may be bullied, Juvonen
said. “They learn not to place themselves in vulnerable situations.”
Children can be taught, especially when they are young, to feel
empowered to stand up to bullies. Approximately 70% of children
witness bullying incidents. “By not intervening, by watching
and giving the bully those little smiles of encouragement, they
help maintain the bullying behavior,” she said.
While a school must customize its strategies to fit its own culture
and student population, what’s key is that it acknowledge
bullying as a problem and make the solution part of the curriculum
for the entire school, she said.
“We can never get rid of bullying altogether,” Juvonen
said. “But we can vaccinate the kids against the negative
effects of this ‘bacteria’ by dealing with the situation
better.”
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