Campaign Limits. Research shows bullying is often more complex that efforts like this sign at a school in Woodstock, Ga., would suggest
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Very little about bullying conforms to popular belief. Not all that long ago, it was dismissed as an unfortunate rite of childhood. But because of high-profile cases like the Clementi tragedy and the 2010 suicide of Phoebe Prince, a Massachusetts girl, bullying has become cemented in public opinion as a growing epidemic. Measures rushed into place following these tragedies reinforce the sense of a spreading plague: today only two states, Montana and South Dakota, lack antibullying laws, and the White House has staged two antibullying conferences. The President has called on school districts to adopt antibullying policies, and his chief civil rights litigator, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, thundered at the second conference that "we're sailing into an undeniable headwind of intolerance." So when the news of a teen gunman in Ohio broke, it was easy for many to jump to the conclusion that bullying had claimed more victims.
But as painful as bullying can be, and as horrible as its victims' scars may be, research suggests that the talk of an epidemic may be exaggerated. At the same time, some of the supposed remedies swiftly implemented in response to tragedies like Clementi's are having unintended consequences. Some teachers feel forced to escalate routine playground spats into cases to present before school boards. And while tough sanctions against accused bullies are now everywhere, educators are divided on how effective they are at actually helping kids.
Statistics showing that bullying is a growing problem are contradictory at best. The U.S. Department of Justice has reported that 37% of students don't feel safe at school because of bullying. That figure, while disturbing, has remained stable over decades. And despite fears that cyberbullying via Facebook and Formspring has exploded, the Bureau of Justice Statistics' most recent figures, from 2007, show that only 3.9% of bullied students say they were bullied outside school grounds.
Other numbers suggest that many students are both victims and victimizers. In a survey of 43,000 high school students completed in 2010, the Josephson Institute's Center for Youth Ethics found that 47% had "been bullied, teased or taunted" at school but that 50% had been bullies themselves. This suggests a lot of overlap between the two groups, meaning that the world isn't cleanly divided into bullies and victims. Psychologists have long known that those who are brutalized are more likely to strike back than mere bystanders. It's not always easy for a teacher busy in the classroom to distinguish the bullied from the tormented.