Published: April 16, 2008 11:16 pm         

Helping students build outside social connections can prevent school bullying

TERRE HAUTE — Helping students make social connections outside the classroom is one important way to prevent school bullying, according to the co-author of a study on bullying.

Students who are isolated and lack friends are more likely to be bullied, said Jean Peterson, director of Purdue University’s school counseling program.

She spoke Wednesday at Indiana State University’s School and College Law Conference, which focused on school safety and security.

Peterson advocates small group sessions led by school counselors to help potential bullying victims “be known beyond the classroom.”

“It could be terribly important for some kids to at least have six other people who will say ‘hi’ in the hall” and know something about them personally, Peterson said.

The small group sessions are a way for students to talk about some of the issues and pressures they face, and it can help them learn better social skills, she said.

After about six months, “We see a huge change in those kids,” Peterson said.

Small group sessions help potential victims feel connected, rather than disenfranchised, she said.

The study, published in 2006, involved 432 gifted eighth-graders from 16 school districts in 11 states, including Indiana and Illinois.

Of those surveyed, 67 percent had experienced at least one of 13 kinds of bullying listed in the survey; they experienced the most bullying in sixth grade (46 percent).

Eleven percent had experienced repeated bullying in sixth grade, the peak year for multiple incidents.

Bullying incidents were typically name-calling and teasing rather than physical acts of aggression. The name-calling and teasing tended to focus on appearance and intelligence, although it also included expletives, sexually-oriented terms and insulting terms describing a person’s personality.

One question asked if the students ever had violent thoughts, and 37 percent of males and 23 percent of females said they had violent thoughts in eighth grade.

When asked if they had done anything violent, 19 percent of males and 12 percent of all students surveyed reported they had done something violent in sixth grade.

The study’s findings as far as the impact and trauma of teasing and name-calling is particularly important, Peterson said.

“We tend to minimize that. We look for more dramatic, more physical kinds of bullying,” she said. “This study really showed the impact of it and also the prevalence of name-calling,” even as early as kindergarten.

Teachers and parents may not take name-calling too seriously, but students do — particularly if the teasing relates to appearance, the study showed.

Lisa Jones, a counselor from North Montgomery High School in Crawfordsville, found Peterson’s research insightful. She’d like for more school personnel to recognize how bullying comes in a variety of forms.

“I think the verbal bullying, the name-calling, is much more detrimental than some would think,” Jones said.

Jones and Brooke Van Scoyoc, another North Montgomery counselor, said that it’s difficult to have small group sessions at the high-school level.

“It’s hard to take kids away from their academics because that’s so stressed and so important these days,” Scoyoc said.

Jones said the biggest problem she encounters these days is online bullying on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

“Students feel like they can say whatever they want to online … things they would never dream of saying to the other student’s face,” Jones said. “I think it’s strange they call it Facebook. There is no face-to-face.”

The study’s authors interviewed some of those surveyed, who offered some of the following thoughts about being bullied:

n “I think it just basically destroys people sometimes … it makes them feel they’re not worth anything.”

n “I just felt so bad. My mind was telling me, ‘You’re worthless.’”

n “You feel like something’s wrong with you.”

Sue Loughlin can be reached at (812) 231-4235 or sue.loughlin@tribstar.com.