Anti-Bullying Programs Backfiring, Based on New U. of Texas Study
“Actually teach students different bullying techniques — and even educate about new ways to bully.”
Legal Insurrection has been following the story of a cyber-bullying case that lead to the suicide of a beautiful teen girl.
Meanwhile, a new study has found that the massive anti-bullying programs and laws that have spread through the country may have made things worse.
Countless tax dollars have been spent on anti-bullying programs, and 49 states have anti-bullying laws. After New Jersey passed a broad anti-bullying law, hundreds of schools “snapped up a $1,295 package put together by a consulting firm that includes a 100-page manual.”
But a University of Texas researcher found that anti-bullying programs increase bullying, and “actually teach students different bullying techniques — and even educate about new ways to bully” classmates:
A lot of schools spend countless hours trying to stop bullying. But . . . University of Texas at Arlington criminologist Seokjin Jeong analyzed data collected from 7,000 students from all 50 states.
He thought the results would be predictable and would show that anti-bullying programs curb bullying. Instead — he found the opposite.
Jeong said it was, “A very disappointing and a very surprising thing. Our anti-bullying programs, either intervention or prevention does not work.”
The study concluded that students at schools with anti-bullying programs might actually be more likely to become a victim of bullying. It also found that students at schools with no bullying programs were less likely to become victims.
The results were stunning for Jeong. “Usually people expect an anti-bullying program to have some impact — some positive impact.”
…
Broad anti-bullying rules can backfire and be harmful to child development. As a school administrator noted after passage of New Jersey’s bureaucratically rigid anti-bullying law, “The anti-bullying law also may not be appropriate for our youngest students, such as kindergartners who are just learning how to socialize with their peers. Previously, name-calling or shoving on the playground could be handled on the spot as a teachable moment, with the teacher reinforcing the appropriate behavior. That’s no longer the case. Now it has to be documented, reviewed and resolved by everyone from the teacher to the anti-bullying specialist, principal, superintendent and local board of education.”
Comments
You’d think that the education establishment, along with all alert parents, would have caught on, after mandatory “value-free” sex education was followed closely by an explosion in teen sex,that you don’t teach kids what you don’t want them to do. And we all were once kids, always alert for people giving you ideas you never had,right? So the “unintended consequences”, once again, could have been foreseen if the people tasked with “doing something” about the bullying problem had just thought a little. And again, just like sex education, how to treat the other schoolkids is best taught at home, by the parents.Bullying would be reduced over time if Americans went back to getting a job and marrying before they had children, and staying employed and married after. Dad at home to straighten out the little brat worked when I was young, we had several reformed bullies in our school. As long as we have galloping divorce and illegitimacy, we will have millions of kids with anger and hatred towards others,especially others who are weaker,happier,more popular,smarter,better off, or of a different race than they are.