Bulletin
Current Issue
Vol. 86 No. 633, pp. 42-53

A Study of Bullying in the Middle School
Sandra Harris and Garth Petrie
 

Katy Montague was in the 7th grade and it was her worst nightmare. She was teased about the way she looked and about her eyeglasses. Katy was never invited to parties, she ate lunch alone, and because no one spoke to her, she spoke to no one. The other students in the 7th grade were "the meanest people I ever met…" (Hellmich, 2002, D, 1).

Bullying is a problem for all students at every level of schooling, and it is an especially insidious problem at the middle school level. After all, even without the issue of bullying, for many young people the middle school years are characterized as a "downward spiral"--a time of great risk socially as well as emotionally--when students often need help learning to identify, acknowledge, and manage their emotions (Jackson & Davis, 2000, p. 8). But when bullying occurs, it engenders destructive behaviors in this already difficult time of adolescence, behaviors that can become insurmountable barriers for children in making positive connections with other students and school faculty members. In fact, the amount of teasing and its intensity have increased over time, but now the stakes are much higher. According to psychologist William Pollack (2000), "[We] live in a world in which violence can erupt at a moment's notice..." (2000, p. 3). This was tragically illustrated when a 13-year-old Texas student shot herself in front of a group of fellow middle school students. Her mother said that she had been having a difficult time and that classmates "were mean to her" (Bogan & Aradillas, 2002, p. 5b).

Further complicating this already troubling situation is the concern that bullying among middle school students manifests a cultural misunderstanding of the establishment and use of power, as suggested by Espelage (Orecklin, 2000) and Pelligrini and Bartini (2000), who reported that middle school students resorted to bullying to establish dominance in this new school grouping. Too often youngsters at this age perceive that denigrating others is the surest route to achieve prominence within a new school. Pollack (2000) emphasized that boys actually admire aggression and violent behavior. Likewise, Rigby (1996) reported that middle school girls and boys often considered that they were more admired by fellow students when they bullied others; that bullied students "deserved it" (p. 103); or that bullying made "you feel good" (p. 95).

When educators consider that students reported that the most trauma resulting from bullying occurred during the middle level years (Hoover & Oliver, 1996; Orecklin, 2000; Rigby, 1996), the problem of bullying at this age reaches critical levels of importance. Thus, in this unique development phase, when it is often natural for adolescents to feel a sense of isolation, middle school educators are especially challenged to establish a climate that fosters, instead, a sense of connectedness or caring. Such a climate enables youth to form strong associations with safer behaviors during adolescence and to develop a sense of closeness to school personnel (Resnick et al., 1997) thereby reducing bullying behaviors and incidents at school. Clearly, bullying has negative consequences for all involved--the bully, the victim, and the bystander--but it is particularly painful for adolescents in their middle school years.

What We Know About Bullying
Bullying is defined as aggressive behavior, repeated over time, that is intentionally harmful and occurs with no provocation (Olweus, 1991). It is bullying when the bully enjoys dominating the victim and the victim feels oppressed (Rigby, 2001). Bullying can be direct--for example, teasing, taunting, calling names, hitting, kicking, stealing, threatening, or using a weapon. Bullying can also be indirect, such as spreading rumors about someone, ignoring or excluding others intentionally, or influencing others to do these things.

In general, more boys than girls bully others, and more girls than boys report that they are being bullied, yet more boys than girls are victims of bullying (Olweus, 1996). Direct, physical bullying is more common among boys, while girls typically use more subtle, indirect forms of harassment. In other words, boys are more likely to taunt or threaten violence, whereas girls are more likely to spread rumors or exclude other students intentionally from activities. Bullies are most likely to be described as bigger, stronger, aggressive, impulsive, low in empathy, and uncooperative. Victims of bullying are generally described as being less physically strong, timid, introverted, having low self-esteem, and having few friends (Rigby, 1996).

Bullying is most likely to occur in the lower grades and decreases as youngsters reach grades 9 and 10 (Olweus, 1993). However, Rigby (1996) noted a marked increase in bullying at the middle school level, and Hoover and Oliver (1996) suggested that as many as 80% of middle school students engaged in bullying behavior. This phenomenon occurs worldwide; Olweus (1993) estimated that 15% of Norwegian students in junior high schools were involved in bully/victim problems with some regularity. In England, 10% of secondary students reported being bullied at least sometimes (Smith, 1999); in Japan, 13% of lower secondary students were victims of ijime or bullying (Morita, Soeda, Soeda, & Taki, 1999); and in the United States, as many as 10% of middle school students reported being bullied during the past 6 months (Kaufman et al., 2001).

Middle School Bullying
Research studies have indicated that both middle school bullies and bully victims have poorer psychosocial adjustment than those who were uninvolved and should be considered an at-risk group. However, bullied students demonstrated poorer social and emotional adjustment; reported greater difficulty making friends, poorer relationships with classmates, and greater loneliness than bullies (Nansel et al., 2001); and were more anxious (Salmon, 1998). Hoover and Oliver (1996) found that the most common reason middle school students gave for bullying students was "[they] just didn't fit in" (p. 13).

Ma (2001) found that middle school students with low academic status were more likely to be victims than bullies. Bullied students were likely to use alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and be poor academic achievers (Nansel et al., 2001). Students who were physically different in race, size, or in the way they dressed and who were not as adept as others were more likely to be bullied (Kass, 1999; Ma, 2001). In addition, bullying victims reported the degree of school satisfaction or dissatisfaction was related to the degree of physical and psychological bullying experienced (Miller, Verhoek-Miller, Ceminsky, & Nugent, 2000). Furthermore, special needs children appeared to be at particular risk for being bullied (Limber, Flerx, Nation, & Melton, 1998).

Conversely, according to Nansel et al. (2001), bullies were more likely to use alcohol and smoke cigarettes than their victims. Bullies were more poorly adjusted to school both academically and in their perception of the school climate than bullied students. However, bullies reported that they made friends more easily than the bullied, were rarely socially isolated (Nansel et al., 2001), and never reached the low level of popularity that characterized bully victims (Olweus, 1996). Bullies often teased other students to go along with the crowd, but they admitted to feeling uncomfortable with their own behavior (Kass, 1999). Olweus (1996) and Rigby (1996) reported that more victims than bullies had poor self-esteem; however, Ma (2001) found that though students with poor self-esteem were often victims, poor self-esteem was much more a characteristic of bullies, particularly in the later grades of middle school.

Approximately 6% of chronically bullied children admitted to both bullying and being bullied (Ross, 1996). These youngsters demonstrated the poorest adjustment across both social and emotional dimensions and problem behaviors (Nansel et al., 2001). Even though strong physical condition was more a characteristic of victims than bullies, Ma (2001) found that middle school students with poor physical conditions often became bullies, with physically weaker students as their targets. Another study attributed the "bully and bullied" cycle to the need for some form of retaliatory behavior in the face of aggression, and researchers found that girls were much less inclined to retaliate than boys (Glover, Gough, Johnson, & Cartwright, 2000).

Another behavior among middle school students that further exacerbates the issue of bullying is that of the bystander. The bystander rarely gets involved for fear of being the bullies' next victim or doing the wrong thing. Developmental studies of children have suggested that as children get older their capacity to empathize and understand the perspective of another increases; however, this may actually contribute to the consequences of bystanders' avoidance behavior, which include feelings of powerlessness and loss of self-respect and confidence (Hazler, 1996). There is some evidence that bystanders become desensitized to bully behaviors, and that girls--perhaps even more so boys--actually become "less and less sympathetic" toward bully victims, until about the age of 15, when this trend begins to reverse (Rigby, 1996, p. 97).

Long-Term Effects of Bullying and Being Bullied
Research indicates that negative effects of bullying and being bullied reach into adulthood, and bullies, as well as their victims, are likely to drop out of school (Boivin, Hymel, & Hodges, 2001; Limber et al., 1998). Over time, the bullies' popularity tends to decrease, and by high school they are significantly less popular than other students (Olweus, 1993). More importantly, bullies are four times as likely to be involved in criminal behavior, with 40% of bullies already having three or more convictions by the age of 24 (Olweus, 1993; Rigby, 1996).

Predictably, students who were victims of bullying in early grades also reported being bullied several years later (Olweus, 1993). Moreover, those who had been bullied in secondary school were found to have higher levels of depression and poorer self-esteem by the age of 23, even though they were no longer harassed or socially isolated (Olweus, 1993, 1996). Chronically victimized students may even be at increased risk for other mental health problems, such as schizophrenia (Limber et al., 1998) or suicide (Olweus, 1993; Rigby, 1996).

The Problem
The literature strongly demonstrates the negative impact that bullying has on students at all grade levels and suggests that bullying is especially insidious at the middle school level. Olweus (1993) implemented an intervention program in Norway, and within 2 years, problems involving bullies and victims had been reduced by 50% or more. He argued that there were two general prerequisites to a successful bully intervention program: awareness and involvement. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to increase awareness by exploring the incidence of bullying at the middle school level. Even though students reported information anonymously, study findings are limited due to self-report. Often children who are victimized, as well as children who bully, are not comfortable acknowledging such behaviors (Rigby, 1996). Another limitation of this study is the small number of girls participating in the survey.

Method
Sample. This study is part of a larger ongoing study on bullying that has surveyed more than 1,500 students in grades 5 through 10 in school districts in the South (see Harris, Petrie, & Willoughby, 2002, for grade 9 findings.) Grade 8 students (N = 198) from two middle schools each with an enrollment of more than 1,000 students participated in this study. Teachers surveyed students in their sixth period physical education classes at the end of the fall semester. One hundred thirty-one boys and 67 girls completed the anonymous, forced-choice questionnaire. The ethnic breakdown of students participating in the survey was 26% African American, 35% Hispanic, 35% White, and 4% other, which is representative of the school population. Data collection. The survey, available in English and Spanish, was adapted and revised for use in the United States from the Peer Relations Questionnaire (Rigby & Slee, 1995). After pilot testing, it was revised again to pursue emerging issues not addressed. The 30-item questionnaire explored issues of bullying in the middle school, including how often and where it occurred, and who students told when they saw or experienced it.

Data analysis. Surveys were coded and collectively analyzed using SPSS version 10.0. Analyses reported frequencies, and data were disaggregated by gender and race. We used the Pearson chi-square to test for significance (p = .05) for gender and ethnicity.

Findings and Discussion
We explored five categories related to incidences of and reactions to bullying. Students were generally offered three responses to these items (never, sometimes, and often), but some questions (e.g., "How often have you been bullied?") offered different choices. Survey questions and responses are listed and analyzed in the following paragraphs.

How often does bullying happen at your school? This category explored how often students saw bullying at their school and how often bullying had happened to them within the last year. Of the respondents, 59% indicated that "sometimes" bullying occurred, 33% reported it happened "often," and 7% indicated that they never noticed bullying at their school. Thus, 92% indicated that bullying happened at least "sometimes." There were no significant differences between groups.

However, when students were asked how often they had been bullied within the past year, 63.0% indicated that they had "never" been bullied, 20.5% said "less than once a week," and 15.5% reported "at least once a week." This disparity between the high reporting of seeing bullying happen (92%), and low reporting of bullying happening to them (36%) is not uncommon. It suggests, among other things, that students are not comfortable acknowledging bullying behavior as such when it is directed at them (Juvonen, Nishina, & Graham, 2001; Pelligrini & Bartini, 2000). Significantly more boys (56.5%) than girls reported that they "always feel safe," however, more girls (49.3%) than boys reported that they "usually feel safe" (see table 1).

Where or when does bullying happen? The majority of students who responded reported seeing bullying at least "sometimes" at lunch (83.0%), followed by in the classroom (77.0%), at cocurricular events (63.0%), on the way home from school (62.0%), at recess (61.0%), and on the way to school (34.0%). Girls (70.2%) reported seeing bullying at cocurricular events significantly more often than boys (61.0%) and boys (13.3%) reported noticing bullying on the way to school significantly more often than girls (1.5%). This category has valuable implications for schools because it identifies areas where more supervision is necessary to prevent bullying (see table 2).

What kinds of bullying do students experience? Middle school students reported "at least" sometimes being called names (49.5%), being teased unpleasantly (46.5%), being left out of things (34.0%), being hit or kicked (22.0%) and being threatened (20.0%). The category "being left out of things" was significant by gender and ethnicity. As expected, girls (44.8%) were more apt to report being excluded at least "sometimes" than were boys (29.0%). However, Hispanic students (39.7%) were more likely than African American (30.2%) or White (33.3%) students to report being excluded at least some times from school activities (see table 3). Although this study does not provide causal data, it does provide a particularly important finding and suggests that school leaders should implement strategies to encourage participation by all groups. This category also contributes to understandings among faculty about the kinds of behaviors that students identify as bullying. The results reported here provide teachers with greater awareness, which we anticipate will lead to providing a stronger support base for middle school students.

Significantly more Hispanic students (88.2%) reported that they had never been threatened than did African American (77.4%) or White (73.9%) students. Although not statistically significant, more middle school girls (22.4%) actually reported being threatened than boys (19.0%) and nearly as many girls (31.0%) reported being hit or kicked as boys (32.0%). This is a particularly alarming finding because previous research indicated that twice as many boys as girls reported being threatened or hit or kicked (Olweus, 1996; Rigby, 1996; Harris et al., 2002). However, other recent research has found that girls have become more involved in violent crimes than they were a decade ago (Weiler, 1999). This finding suggests that school leaders should be diligent in their efforts to work with boys and girls in anger management and other behavior control strategies.

How do students feel after they have been bullied? Students were asked how being bullied made them feel; possible responses were "miserable," "angry," "not bothered," or "not bullied." Although 40.0% of middle school students reported that they had never been bullied within the past year, 11.0% reported that bullying made them feel "miserable" and 23.5% felt "angry." Anticipated significant differences were found with more boys (25.7%) than girls (17.9%) feeling angry and more girls (22.4%) than boys (3.8%) reporting feeling "miserable" (Pearson chi-square p = .023). Consistent with previous research that reported an association between bullying and staying home from school (Olweus, 1996; Rigby, 1996), 17.0% of students indicated that even though they had not stayed home, they had considered it and 4.0% indicated that they had stayed home at least once or twice from fear of being bullied.

Whom do students tell about bullying? Middle school students were most apt to not tell anyone (47.0%) when they were bullied. If they did tell, they told a friend (21.5%) or their mother (12.5%). Only 2.5% of the students surveyed indicated that they would tell their father or tell a teacher. When students reported bullying, only 23.0% felt that it got better, 18.0% indicated that there was no change, and 6.5% felt that it became even worse. White students (48.0%) were significantly (Pearson chi-square p = .000) more likely than Hispanic (37.5%) or African American (28.1%) students to report that when they told bullying got worse or there was no change.

Findings show that either middle school students at these two schools perceived their teachers (59.5%) and administrators (73.0%) as "not interested" or they "didn't know" if they were interested in reducing bullying on their campuses. This implies a critical need to build relationships between students and faculty to bridge this apparent communication gap. Although more girls (79.0%) than boys (57.0%) believed they should work together with their teachers and administrators on this problem, only 27.0% indicated they would be interested in talking with someone about bullying.

Recommendations
A positive school environment has been consistently found to be effective in the reduction of bullying (Hazler, 1996; Olweus, 1993). Therefore, middle school principals must diligently support and sustain the creation of a positive school experience for every youngster during this crucial time, and this includes openly addressing the problem of bullying. Hoover and Oliver (1996) suggested that integrating bully prevention activities into the middle school curriculum is most successful when principals encourage integrated programming and teachers have regular planning meetings. At the same time, Jackson and Davis (2000) encouraged principal support of cooperative learning and project-based approaches to instruction with middle school youngsters.

Other strategies recommended specifically for middle schools that principals should consider include developing schoolwide bullying policies (Hoover & Oliver, 1996; Olweus, 1993; Rigby, 1996); promoting an academic environment that emphasizes achievement (Ma, 2001); involving school counselors in a more significant role (Hoover & Oliver, 1996); improving discipline climate (Ma, 2001; Olweus, 1993); implementing bibliotherapy, which focuses on books that resonate with coping, enduring, and overcoming (Hoover & Oliver, 1996); training teachers in identification of bullying and specific strategies to reduce or prevent it (Rigby, 1996); increasing parental awareness of bullying issues and involving parents in working with schools to reduce or prevent bullying (Ma, 2001; Rigby, 1996); implementing models for therapy with bullies and victims, such as Promoting Issues in Common, a model specifically developed for youths having difficulty with relationships (Hazler, 1996); implementing models for the whole school, such as No Blame and Shared Concern, which emphasize teaching students responsibility and a sense of empathic concern (Rigby, 1996); or providing training for students in peer mediation and conflict resolution skills (Jackson & Davis, 2000).

Summary
Data from this study indicated that bullying is a problem in these two middle schools. In fact, when findings from this study were compared with findings from our grade 9 study (Harris et al., 2002), figures in nearly every category suggested an increase in bullying during the middle school years as compared to bullying in grade 9 (Hoover & Oliver, 1996; Pelligrini & Bartini, 2000). For example, in our earlier study of 136 students in grade 9, 79% saw bullying happen at least sometime compared with 92% in this middle school study. In that same study, 21% of grade 9 students were bullied during the past year, compared with 36% of middle school students.

Few questions were statistically significant by gender or by ethnicity, by and large, but findings indicated that boys and girls, as well as ethnic groups, provided similar responses. This similarity of responses across all groups suggests that bullying is a crucial issue for school leaders to consider for all of their students. Conversely, the uniformity of these responses suggests a need for future research into the disparity between grade 8 and grade 9 students.

Certainly, findings at these two middle schools suggested a need for more supervision, as well as the need to encourage greater student involvement within the school. The implication that students did not perceive faculty members as interested in bullying presented another major area that must be addressed. However, all of these are concerns that principals, faculty members, parents, and students can discuss together to discover workable strategies and solutions to reduce bullying on their campus. Although many school leaders consider bullying an inevitable, though unfortunate, rite of passage, informed principals know that this is not true. Bullying is not inevitable. Principal awareness of the problem leads to involvement; involvement leads to a reduction in bullying, and a reduction in bullying leads to an improved middle school experience for every child.

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Sandra Harris is an assistant professor of secondary education and Garth Petrie is a professor of education and educational leadership, both in the College of Education at Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX. Correspondence concerning this article may be sent to slharris@sfasu.edu.