Bullying can take many forms beyond the particularly severe examples portrayed in the film BULLY. Bullies may also use ostracism and social exclusion, without inflicting any physical harm, to isolate the student target. This type of behavior is called relational bullying. While sometimes less obvious than physical bullying, relational bullying can cause just as much pain.
When bullying occurs, regardless of its form, peers play a powerful role. All humans yearn to belong, and throughout our lives we define ourselves, in large part, by the groups to which we belong. Of course, the group that first shapes our identity is our family. As we become adolescents, however, our peers begin to play an extremely important role in how we define ourselves and in the decisions we make.1
Researchers consider bullying a social event, meaning that it involves many more people—including peers, educators, and parents—other than the tormentor and the target. In most cases, bullying takes place
in the presence of others, but even peers who are not present are often aware that it is happening. As a result, the responses of peers can have a significant
effect on the behavior of those who bully. Witnesses of bullying can choose to join in the bullying behavior, to be bystanders and do nothing, or to be upstanders and try to find a way to help the target.
Eve S., a high-school student, describes a time when she witnessed the exclusion of one of her classmates and she faced this choice:
My eighth grade consisted of 28 students, most of whom knew each other from the age of five or six. The class was close-knit and we knew each other so well that most of us could distinguish each other’s handwriting at a glance. Although we
grew up together, we still had class outcasts. From second grade on, a small elite group spent a large portion of their time harassing two or three of the others. I was one of those two or three, though I don’t know why. In most cases when children get picked on, they aren’t good at sports or they read too much or they wear the wrong clothes or they are of a different race. But in my class, we all read too much and didn’t know how to play sports. We
16 A GUIDE TO THE FILM BULLY: FOSTERING EMPATHY AND ACTION IN SCHOOLS
had also been brought up to carefully respect each other’s races. This is what was so strange about my situation. Usually, people are made outcasts be- cause they are in some way different from the larger group. But in my class, large differences di
Caption this Meme
