According to recent statistics from the STOMP Out Bullying organization, 1 out of every 4 teens are bullied on a daily basis, and as many as 160,000 students stay omen from school on any given day because they're afraid of being bullied (STOMP, 2011). Other statistics from STOP show that Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender children experience more harassment at school and online than heterosexual students (STOMP, 2011).
While there will always be conflicts between kids, accessibility is an intentional cruelty, emotional and physical harassment and at times sexual abuse.Parent's, teachers and counselors all agree that accessibility and setting is on the rise among teens and adolescents, but they draw different conclusions when looking to answer the following questions: 1. What exactly is accessibility and setting and how is it different from traditional bullying? 2. How are teens and adolescents affected? 3. What are the repercussions for those who deliberately engage in this form of bullying? 4.
How do we protect our kids in a digital world?This review focuses on these four questions and strives to answer them through the research of scholars. What Exactly is Accessibility and How is it different from Traditional Bullying? In the article "Accessibility, What school administrators and parent's can do", authors Andrew Belle, and Karen Hall define accessibility as "a form of emotional buses that involves sending or posting hurtful, embarrassing, or threatening text or images using the Internet, cell phone or other electronic communication devices" (Belle, 2007).According to Belle, what makes this form of bullying more unlike Ana narrate than traditional Dulling Is ten sense AT anonymity approval Day screen names or other virtual identities which allow bullies to distance themselves from the situation. Another noticeable difference between the two forms of bullying was found during a survey of 1,000 teenagers. While both boys and girls engage in accessibility, a study conducted by Samuel Keith and Michael Martin, "Cyber-Bullying: Creating a Culture of Respect in a Cyber World", indicate that girls are often more likely to become involved in it, as both perpetrator and victim (Keith & Martin, 2005). According to another article published in 1995 by Nathan Crick and J.
Garrotter, "Relational aggression, Gender, and Social-psychological Adjustment", when acting as the perpetrators of bullying, girls are more likely than boys to display "relational bullying" which amounts to engaging in the hurtful manipulation of peer relationships that inflicts harm through behaviors such as "social exclusion" and malicious rumor spreading" (Crick & Garrotter, 1995).If combining theories from Belle, Martin and Garrotter, it would appear that girls use accessibility as a meaner to engage their targets due to the sense of anonymity they have while hiding behind screen names. However, in sharp contrast to this assumption, Maier points to a survey conducted among 1 ,500 adolescent and teenage girls between the ages of 10- 17. During this survey, 45% of the girls who were targeted by online bullies stated they knew their peer harasser and had offline contact with them prior to the start of the bullying (Maier, 2008).
Utilizing the theory f Maier, one could possibly assert that Martin & Garrotter was premature in their assumption that submersibles utilize the internet as a meaner to distance themselves from the situation. Unlike any of the aforementioned articles, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children ("NICE") recently found a new form of accessibility that is also on the rise, "setting".As defined by the NICE, setting refers to the practice of "youth writing sexually explicit messages, taking sexually explicit photos of themselves or others within their peer group, and transmitting those photos and/or messages to their peers" (NICE, 2011). To date, four surveys have been conducted on setting among teens and young adults in the United States. The most recent, released by the Pew Research Center in December 2010, focuses on adolescents and teens between the ages of 12-17 who report sending or receiving "sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images via text messaging" (Pew Research Center, 2010).The survey found "4% of those questioned have sent sexually provocative images of themselves to someone else, while 15% have received such images" (Pew Research Center, 2010).
Unlike the research conducted at the Pew Research Center, in 2010 Harvard Mental Health published a newsletter Protecting Youth from Accessibility which found "20% of all American teenagers have sent or posted nude digital images of themselves to peers, and 39% have sent sexually suggestive text messages" (Harvard Mental Health Board, 2010).According to these students, they are in turn being harassed or bullied by these images which may have intentionally or inadvertently been viewed by an unintended recipient. Accessibility has gained more attention over the years as this new form of bullying is leading to more violence in schools, and suicide. While studies show most adolescents ages 12-17 have at some point or another been the perpetrator or victim AT tans creme, researchers still nave not Taunt a way to appropriately categorize want is making this new trend grow faster with females than males, which research has shown girls commit more than boys.How are teens and adolescents affected? There have been numerous cases concerning teens committing suicide due to being unable to cope with constant bullying.
One of the earliest documented cases involves a 13 year old boy who began being teased and bullied at school as young as age 11. Alex", who was bullied everyday from age 11 until 13 committed suicide in 2004 at age 14. In 2007, after researching the case of young Alex, researchers Anderson & Strum coined the phrase "bullied" as they strongly believe this form of suicide stems directly from the constant bullying (Anderson & Strum, 2007).Other cases of teens and adolescents committing suicide or resorting to other violent methods to stop the bullying have also been noted.
The Association of Suicide and Bullying in Childhood to Young Adulthood began sending films to various middle and high school throughout the country to get the word out about the uniqueness of constant bullying. For example, Bowling for Columbine, a film about the Columbine Massacre in 1999, focuses on the life and bullying of Eric Harris and Dylan Keyhole, the two students responsible for the Columbine High School massacre (Moore, 2002).More recently, in an article entitled Accessibility: An old problem in a new guise? (Campbell, 2005), Campbell goes to great lengths to provide facts that school aged children who have experienced face-to-face bullying are the primary perpetrators of accessibility. One study conducted by Karen Rugby, entitled "Bullying among Australian school children", found that one in six children reported harassing or threatening their peers online due to the face-to-face bullying they received at school (Rugby, 1991).If Campbell analysis is applied, it holds true in the wake of the Columbine High School shooting due to the constant bullying these teenagers endured. However in a contrasting article entitled "The Measurement of Accessibility: Dimensional Structure and Relative Item Severity and Discrimination", authors Messing, Injection and Casuals surveyed 1,092 Italian teens and adolescents of which 50.
9% stated they had sent nude or violent pictures, nasty or due test messages and e-mails Just to annoy their victims (Messing, Injection, and Casuals, 2011). What are the repercussions for those who deliberately engage in this form of bullying?New laws and regulations are being implemented throughout the United States and worldwide to combat accessibility. According to several statues under the Education Amendment of 1972, parent's and educators have an obligation to ensure students can attend school free from harassment and bullying. New amendments have recently been added to the statue to include accessibility and setting as part f this obligation (Willard 2011). Willard also points to several civil rights violations administrators can be sued for if they fail to uphold their responsibilities.For example, according to Section 1 II of the Massachusetts Constitution Whenever any person or persons, whether or not acting under color of law, interfere by threats, intimidation or coercion, or attempt to interfere by threats, intimidation or coercion, wilt ten exercise or enjoyment Day any toner person or persons AT rulings secured Day the constitution or laws of the United States, or of rights secured by the constitution r laws of the commonwealth, the attorney general may bring a civil action for injunctive or other appropriate equitable relief in order to protect the peaceable exercise or enjoyment of the right or rights secured.
Said civil action shall be brought in the name of the commonwealth and shall be instituted either in the superior court for the county in which the conduct complained of occurred or in the superior court for the county in which the person whose conduct complained of resides or has his principal place of business (The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1982, up. 105). In a more practical twist to the repercussions associated with accessibility, Paul Corbett authors a Journal piece entitled Accessibility and Other High-Tech Crimes Involving Teens.Journal of Internet Law in which he uses several hypothetical scenario's and Michigan law as a guide to help parent's and educators better understand the ramifications associated with accessibility. One such example involves a teenage male using e-mail and instant messages to harass and threaten students, while posing as another student.
According to Michigan law, "individuals are prohibited from posting messages wrought the Internet without the victim's consent if the person knows or has reason to believe the post could cause multiple instances of UN-consented contact or make the victim feel frightened or harassed" (State of Michigan, 2009).Using the hypothetical scenario above, the teenager could be found tried and found guilty of felony harassment which is punishable by fines and / or two years imprisonment. Laws on accessibility vary from state to state and the repercussions for the crime in one state may be completely different in another. While federal civil rights laws eave been put in place in an effort to hold educators and parent's responsible for their child's behavior, states have also begun implementing policies and laws in order to make the perpetrator as well as the parent's accountable for their actions.
How do we protect our kids in a digital world? Protecting teens and adolescents in a digital world has also been the subject of controversy as it centers on what exactly should be a parent's involvement and intervention in their child's life. Recent research conducted by Samuel Macaque Ill and N. Sampan in a Journal article entitled "Survey of internet and at risk behaviors" suggested that nearly all youth, in middle and high school with access to a computer will use the Internet at some point or another in an inappropriate manner (Macaque & Sampan, 2008).The suggestion asserted by Macaque & Sampan to alleviating this problem is to either limit home computer usage among young people to when parent's can properly supervise their activities, or take it away all together.
If Macaque's approach is applied, consequently accessibility via the Internet will decline, however if one were to apply Bale's definition of accessibility, which involves multiple forms of electronic devices such as cell phones, pad's, and theInternet to harass, threaten and annoy their victims, limiting or removing time on a personal computer will not work. According to another researcher, Terry Finger in the article "Accessibility: Intervention and Prevention Strategies" it is critical for parent's and educators to not only understand the impact that accessibility has on children and teens, but to also recognize its critical characteristics and look for ways to Implement strategies Tort prevention Ana Telling Dick (Yellowier, Ana Rorer, 2009).In particular, Finger makes note of several strategies the victim as well as aren't and educators can utilize to prevent and respond to accessibility such as; calmly and strongly alerting the bully to the annoyance and insist that the harassment stop immediately. This includes removing any offensive material from future communications, as well as public message boards. If the harassment continues, Finger notes that victims and parent's should report the bullying to their local police authority for legal action to be taken.
To the contrary, Derbyshire found that involving parent's and police only make the situation worse for the victim when they intervene. In his article, Why it's not always bad to be bullied: Learning to fight back helps children mature, Derbyshire uses the notion that standing up to bullies and classroom enemies can help children develop psychologist claim. In the article he makes mention to other researchers assertion that bullying can be damaging to children and lead to depression and anxiety, however those who are not afraid to stand up for themselves can benefit later in life.In a study of American children aged 11 and 12, researchers from the University of California, Los Angels, compared those who stood up to bullies and aggressors with those who did not. In the study, children who returned hostility with hostility appeared to be the most mature according to the researchers.
Boys who stood up to bullies and schoolyard enemies were Judged more socially competent by their counselors and teachers. The same result was found for girls, the ones who stood up to their peers were considered more popular and admired by teachers and peers (University of California, 2010).While the study did not suggest bullying was a healthy lifestyle for children, it did find negative experiences could teach children about conflict resolution earlier in life. According to Psychologist Melissa Wit of the University of California, "the lessons learned through childhood bullying can provide early lifelong lessons that not everybody in life is going to get along" (Wit, 2010). The repercussions associated with accessibility may vary depending on the laws and statues of various states called into question.Willard points out legal ramifications associated with parent's and educators not closely monitoring a child's behavior online, while other researchers have found that a parent's' involvement in bullying only leads to further problems.
The line regarding a parent intervening in a bullying situation has not bee fully established however, researchers, educators and political figures caution students and parent's that accessibility can lead to serious legal troubles if not handled properly.Conclusion Although many strides have been made to deter and prevent accessibility, researchers have shown that over the past 10 years this form of bullying has gotten larger, while the age gap of those being bullied, and targeting individuals is getting smaller. Because of this trend, the notion that being bullied in school is a problem al generations have experienced and something that this generation will have to experience is being less relied on, and instead ways to improve this problem is becoming the new way of thinking.
