Purpose of the Program

This letter is to draw your attention to one of the greatest social issue that our nation is facing, bullying, discrimination and harassment. One of the greatest threats to the social and psychological health of the teens and adolescents are being affected tremendously by the continuous and outrageous discrimination and bullying with respect to race, color, language, ethnicity, gender and even sexual orientation. The phenomenon of bullying and harassment is not new, as the USA has encountered phases of immigration in the past, the American society is home to a largely diverse and multicultural. Yet, the society still lacks an open minded sense culturally safety, which is the most important contributing factor to the bullying and harassment faced by the majority of immigrants and culturally diverse ethnic minorities.

The youth of the society is the most affected by the bullying and harassment, and even though there have been many laws and policies that have been introduced to stop the bullying and harassment activities, the concern for bullying affecting the teens and adolescents of the society is still prevalent. The immigrants and culturally diverse population have been reported to view bullying and the fear of being bullied to be the main contributor to self-harming behavior, aggression, and even dropping out. Unfortunately, our elementary school has also faced bullying, mostly verbal and physical concerning body image, color, and language. Hence, it is very important for us to design and implement strategies to delimit the bullying in these children so that they can grow up to be culturally appropriate and respectful citizens.

The topic chosen for this assignment is to delimit the behavior of bullying and discrimination from the children in the elementary school and encourage a culture of unity and togetherness with the different cultural backgrounds. The most important contributing factor to the selection of this topic. First and foremost, participation is bullying, body shaming and discrimination is a behavioral trait that the children pick up from the very childhood. Many research studies have illustrated the fact that bullying can be stopped at a large scale if the children grow up in an environment where discrimination and bullying is strictly abhorred and seen as a punishable offense (Oldenburg, Bosman & Veenstra, 2016). As the children spend a long period of time in the schools, a culture of antidiscrimination practiced inside the classroom can help the children envision bullying as a crime and develop an inherent aversion towards it.

Bullying is an umbrella term which encompasses unwanted aggression; observed or perceived power distance or imbalance; and repetition of such behaviors or high likelihood of repetition. The bullying can be direct and indirect, and it can be carried out verbally, physically or relationally. Statistical data suggests that one in three students in the USA have been reported to be facing bullying and harassment, including cyberbullying which is equally detrimental if not more (Stopbullying.gov, 2018). Although the most of the bullying is observed in the middle school, the elementary schools are also encountering both physical and verbal bullying (Gökkaya, 2017).

Objectives

The purpose of this program is to use psycho-education to change or modify the psychosocial climate of the children so that they recognize bullying as an offensive activity which is to be avoided and protested against. Psycho- education can be defined as a specialized education program which targets the thought process of the individuals and attempts to modify the behavior and response of the individuals via the assistance of education combined with supportive intervention and counselling (Midgett et al., 2015). This program will attempt to develop positive behavioral and emotional skills among the students, so that they can integrate compassion, empathy and equality in their natural response to the social minority groups. The vision of the program is to help the children of our school to grow up as responsible citizens that view bullying as a social disease, which needs to be eradicated completely for a better and healthy society.

The objectives of the 10 week program includes:

• Assess the understanding of the children of verbal and physical bullying
• Assess awareness among the teachers regarding recognizing common forms of bullying, its impact and how to stop it.
• Assess the Pupil-on-pupil intimidation risk factor
• Explore the severity and extent of bullying
• Assess the mental health status of the bullied children and the response among the teachers
• Assess the self-blaming tendencies of the bully victims
• Enhancing and improving the academic performance of the bully victims and perpetrators
• Improve the psychosocial climate of the school with the aid of psycho-education.

Jan and Husain (2015) stated that bullying is an everlasting issues and is extremely prevalent in the lives of kids who are in elementary schools. While common forms of bullying include physical and verbal assaults, jokes, threats, mockery, facial expressions, and insulting behaviors are also found to create a long impact on the mental health and wellbeing of the victims. The researchers tried to explore the nature of bullying, its underlying causes, and the impacts on student learning. It was suggested that it is often difficult to eradicate bullying in elementary schools owing to its prevalence students. Teachers adorn the role of professionals and are directly held responsible for the magnitudes of pupil-on-pupil intimidation. The influence of prejudice associated bullying should never be undervalued. Another study assessed the severity of bullying among school participants having varied roles such as, bullies, victims and non-involved person (Chen, Cheng & Ho, 2015). Upon using the School Bullying Severity Scale and Olweus questionnaire, it was found that verbal and physical bullying were the most severe forms that were prevalent in schools, in comparison to cyberbullying and relational bullying. The research also facilitated the identification of a two-way association between the category of bullying and the role of the participants. While the responses suggested that student bullies failed to perceive differences between varied kinds of victimization, physical victimization was the most severe kind. This in turn can be associated with the fact that self-blame tendency of the victims or the bullies have been found to be greater than victims who are exposed to generalized scenarios. The traumatic experiences of bullying at schools have been allied with a tendency of the victims developing an attitude that makes them being critical of self and fail to appreciate the positive things about them (Chen & Chen, 2018).

Thornberg, Wänström and Pozzoli (2017) also aimed to examine the contribution of moral disengagement and class climate on the different categories of victimization among elementary school participants. The findings elaborated on the fact that victimization demonstrates a reduced likelihood to happen in classes that are typically characterized by a warm, positive, supportive, and fair relational pattern between teachers and children, and by lesser levels of moral disengagement. Hence, the research helped in establishing the role of educators in preventing bullying in elementary schools. Owing to the fact that targeted children usually suffer from poor academic performance in schools, which in turn is concomitant with anxiety, sleep problems, and depression (Strøm et al., 2013). Furthermore, the perpetrators of school bullying have also been found to be more susceptible to substance abuse and violent behavior at a later stage in their life. Hence, there is a need of implementing a psychoeducation program for boosting socio-emotional learning among the elementary school students, with the aim of helping them avert from or defend themselves from any kind of bullying activities.

Literature Review

Evans, Fraser and Cotter (2014) conducted a systematic review to determine the effects of school based programs in the prevention of the social phenomenon of bullying and found that interventions that were implemented outside the United States, on homogeneous samples proved better successful in bullying prevention, when compared to programs that were implemented in the US. This could be accredited to the fact that the samples were more heterogeneous in the US. Bradshaw (2013) affirmed the fact that the Preventing Bullying through Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) can be implemented in the form of a probable framework for integrating youth and children bullying and violence anticipation models across educational institutions. It was further suggested that the PBIS is a non-curricular model that can be made to fit within the school context and culture, owing to its flexibility. Hence, implementation of the PBIS across any school type, level, or setting would encompass a three-tiered, health system wide framework namely, Tier 1(universal), Tier 2 (selective), and Tier 3 (indicated) (Flannery et al., 2014). Thus, implementation of the program brought about effective alterations in the disciplinary practices and enhanced systems for promoting optimistic behavior among all students. According to Wang, Berry and Swearer (2013) bullying behaviors are not allowed under situations that involve control and social organization in a school. It has also been established that students demonstrate an increased likelihood of participating in bullying, upon encountering unhealthy school climate.

Furthermore, according to Bosworth and Judkins (2014) students who perceived their school environment as unfriendly, susceptible to conflict, unfair, and non-supportive, also supported victimization and aggression in schools. This can be further associated with the fact that most students fail to show adherence to their school rules and norms against bullying. In addition, under situations when bullying behavior is typically approved by teachers and peers, the students often tend to have faith in that the ability of a school to supervise or control their behavior is weakened, and they are more expected to involve in bullying behavior. This is in accordance with Low and Van Ryzin, (2014) who confirmed that psychosocial climate in schools is strongly allied with momentary reductions in bullying-related behaviors and attitudes among students (both victims and perpetrators). Hence, establishment of a positive psychosocial climate in elementary schools that takes into consideration the perspectives of both the students and the educators that can play an important role in prevention of bullying, by optimizing the impacts of stand-along prevention agendas (Espelage, Low & Jimerson, 2014).

There is mounting evidence for the fact that the student–teacher connectedness acts as a major protective factor that creates a major influence on the harmful impacts of bullying on the academic achievement of students. In addition, students who were found to report low rates of connectedness with their schools reported greater instances of verbal, relational and physical types of peer victimization (Espelage, Polanin & Low, 2014). In other words, teachers reportedly close with students display a greater tendency to report increased job satisfaction, teaching efficiency and lessened student problems their classrooms. The relationship between the school staff members and the administrators of the educational institutions have also proved imperative in this regard, owing to their association with the implementation of school-wide bullying prevention programs and initiatives. Thus, there is a need to implement a psycho-educational program for preventing bullying among students in the elementary school.

References

Bosworth, K., & Judkins, M. (2014). Tapping into the power of school climate to prevent bullying: One application of schoolwide positive behavior interventions and supports. Theory Into Practice, 53(4), 300-307.

Bradshaw, C. P. (2013). Preventing bullying through Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS): A multitiered approach to prevention and integration. Theory Into Practice, 52(4), 288-295.

Chen, L. M., Cheng, W., & Ho, H. C. (2015). Perceived severity of school bullying in elementary schools based on participants’ roles. Educational Psychology, 35(4), 484-496.

Chen, W. R., & Chen, L. M. (2018). Self-blame tendency of bullied victims in elementary and secondary schools. Educational Studies, 1-17.

Espelage, D. L., Low, S. K., & Jimerson, S. R. (2014). Understanding school climate, aggression, peer victimization, and bully perpetration: Contemporary science, practice, and policy. School psychology quarterly, 29(3), 233.

Espelage, D. L., Polanin, J. R., & Low, S. K. (2014). Teacher and staff perceptions of school environment as predictors of student aggression, victimization, and willingness to intervene in bullying situations. School psychology quarterly, 29(3), 287.

Evans, C. B., Fraser, M. W., & Cotter, K. L. (2014). The effectiveness of school-based bullying prevention programs: A systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 19(5), 532-544.

Flannery, K. B., Fenning, P., Kato, M. M., & McIntosh, K. (2014). Effects of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports and fidelity of implementation on problem behavior in high schools. School Psychology Quarterly, 29(2), 111.

Gökkaya, F. (2017). Peer bullying in schools: A cognitive behavioral intervention program. In Child and Adolescent Mental Health. InTech.

Jan, A., & Husain, S. (2015). Bullying in Elementary Schools: Its Causes and Effects on Students. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(19), 43-56.

Low, S., & Van Ryzin, M. (2014). The moderating effects of school climate on bullying prevention efforts. School psychology quarterly, 29(3), 306.

Midgett, A., Doumas, D., Sears, D., Lundquist, A., & Hausheer, R. (2015). A Bystander Bullying Psychoeducation Program With Middle School Students: A Preliminary Report. Professional Counselor, 5(4), 486-500.

O’brennan, L. M., Waasdorp, T. E., & Bradshaw, C. P. (2014). Strengthening bullying prevention through school staff connectedness. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(3), 870.

Oldenburg, B., Bosman, R., & Veenstra, R. (2016). Are elementary school teachers prepared to tackle bullying? A pilot study. School psychology international, 37(1), 64-72.

Stopbullying.gov (2018). Facts About Bullying. [Online] Retrieved from https://www.stopbullying.gov/media/facts/index.html. [Accessed on 19^th Dec]

Strøm, I. F., Thoresen, S., Wentzel-Larsen, T., & Dyb, G. (2013). Violence, bullying and academic achievement: A study of 15-year-old adolescents and their school environment. Child abuse & neglect, 37(4), 243-251.

Thornberg, R., Wänström, L., & Pozzoli, T. (2017). Peer victimisation and its relation to class relational climate and class moral disengagement among school children. Educational Psychology, 37(5), 524-536.

Wang, C., Berry, B., & Swearer, S. M. (2013). The critical role of school climate in effective bullying prevention. Theory Into Practice, 52(4), 296-302.