Causes and Prevention of Bullying in High Schools in China

Causes and Prevention of Bullying in High Schools in China

1 Introduction

        Bullying refers to the use of superior influence or strength to force others to do something that they are not willing to do or to intimidate others. It is usually aggressive and unwanted behavior that often engages with an imbalance in power, be it real or perceived. Typically, bullying behaviors are repeated over an extended period of time, resulting in lasting and even severe psychological and physical problems. Bullying can happen in many settings, such as in the workplace. One of the most common settings for bullying is in schools, known as school bullying. Even though there are no universal definitions for school bullying, three criteria have been identified as the judgment for the observation of bullying, including hostile intent, power imbalance and repeated behaviors over an extended period of time (Olwesu, 2013).

        Some underlying causes of school bullying have been identified. Social norms are one of the primary causes for the bullying. For instance, gender norms that favor male dominance and submission of females tend to shape gender inequality and violence against girls in school settings. Those who do not follow such gender norms in schools tend to be punished by their peers through bullying even though they may not be punished by their parents, teachers or the schools (Thornberg, 2010).

        The negative effects of school bullying are severe. The victims can experience depression, anger, and anxiety. The commitment of suicide, know as bullycide, is also possible. From a long-term perspective, severe mental illnesses may be developed, such as psychopathy, posttraumatic stress disorder. In addition, the school performance of victims may also drop resulting in lower educational quality because victims may be less likely to go to school or concentration in classrooms (Machmutow et al, 2012).  The social and economic costs of school bullying are also severe. It is estimated that nearly $8 billion was associated with violence and bullying in schools per year (Wolke et al, 2013).

2 Aims, Objectives and Research Questions

        Considering the severe negative impacts of school bullying on mental health and school performance of students as well as its huge social and economic impacts for the society, it is important to understand the causes of school bullying and explore the possible prevention strategies, which are exactly the aims and objectives of this research study. To achieve these aims and objectives, the following research questions are explored:

Research Question 1: What are the underlying causes of school bullying in high schools in Beijing, China?

Research Question 2: What are some possible effective prevention strategies to reduce and stop school bullying in high schools in Beijing, China?

3 Literature Review

        Even though school bullying is a common phenomenon in a school setting that has received wide attention and investigation in western societies, its research in China has just started with rather limited empirical studies. Chan and Wong (2015) showed that the self-reported prevalence of bullying and victimization varied significantly, from 2% to as high as 66% in Mainland China. The prevalence is also high in other regions in China but with less variability. In Hong Kong, the self-reported victimization prevalence ranged between 20% to 62%. The prevalence reached up to 78% in Macau and 50% in Taiwan. Large variation of self-reported perpetration also varied significantly. It was 2%-34% in Mainland China, 16%-46% in Macau, 19%-56% in Hong Kong and 40%-68% in Taiwan (Chan & Wong, 2015). The larger variation of bullying in Mainland China as compared to that in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau point out the uniqueness of school bullying and the necessity to deeply explore this phenomenon. Furthermore, most of the studies focus on limited regions. For instance, Hazemba, Muula, and Rudatsikira (2008) analyzed the prevalence of school bullying among adolescents in Beijing. Huang et al (2012) showed the victimization and bystander behaviors in adolescent Chinese students in Fujian Province. Some more studies focused on school bullying prevalence and its psychosocial aspects in Guangdong province in China (Wang et al, 2012; Guo et al, 2010). To the best knowledge of the author, there are only two academic studies on school bullying in China using national data. One study was conducted in 2011 in high schools in China in which the authors showed that nearly 6% of high school student being bullied smoked and approximately 5.6% of students being bullied demonstrated higher risks of depression (Guo et al, 2016). Another was published in 2017 by Han, Zhang, and Zhang in which they explored the prevalence of school bullying in urban China nationwide. Their results revealed that the incidence of reported bullying reached more than 26% and the incidence of witnessing bullying reached more than 28%. Bullying behaviors were more prevalent in primary schools (Han, Zhang & Zhang, 2017).

        Apart from the limited research studies on the prevalence of school bullying in China, the studies analyzing the underlying causes of school bullying are also limited. Han, Zhang, and Zhang (2017) revealed that school climate was one key factor that resulted in school bullying. Students from elite schools were less likely to engage with school bullying. In addition, the teacher-student relation, peer-peer relation and school performance (GPA) were negatively correlated with the prevalence of school bullying. In addition, another key reason for the severe school bullying in China is the lack of adequate regulations and policies, placing China lagging behind other countries in addressing school bullying. There are laws, such as the Minors Protection Act, the Law against Domestic Violence, that are in place. However, these are mainly targeting adult violence against minors. There is no law that particularly addresses the insulting behaviors and violence among children (Huang, Hong & Espelage, 2013). Furthermore, it is also pointed out that the high prevalence of school bullying in China was due to the high legal threshold of the penalizing acts against violence. Currently, only bullying and violence behaviors that result in physical damages or physical limitations of a person in the movement for more than 24 hours can be prosecuted for intentional assault. For the majority of bullying in school, in the form of verbal abuse, for instance, only those lead to serious consequences will be accounted as crimes (Craig et al, 2000). There have been some studies looking at the school organizational factors in school bullying. For instance, Wei et al demonstrated that the support from teachers was associated with the decline of the bullying while the size of schools and the ratio of pupil to teachers were not significantly associated with the prevalence of school bullying (Wei et al, 2010). However, this study was conducted in public middle schools in Taiwan. Such an analysis in mainland China is rather limited, pointing to the needs of further exploration in this research study.