Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Study: Half of all High School students have Bullied someone within the Past Year


This is disturbing news about our teens. Half of all high school students say they have bullied someone within the past year, and most of them have been the victims of bullying.
The study of the "Ethics of American Youth" released Tuesday surveyed more than 40,000 high school students and has been conducted every other year since 1992.

The study by the non-profit Josephson Institute of Ethics also found that one-third of all high school students say that violence is a big problem at their school, and nearly one in four say they do not feel very safe there. The problem is much less pronounced at private schools, where the figures drop to less than 10 percent in those two categories.

Weapons are also a part of the mix with 10 percent of all students saying they took a weapon to school at least once in the past 12 months, and 16 percent admitting that they have been intoxicated at school. More than half admit to hitting someone within the last year because they were upset.

"The combination of bullying, a penchant toward violence when one is angry, the availability of weapons, and the possibility of intoxication at school increases significantly the likelihood of retaliatory violence," said Michael Josephson, founder and president of the Institute.
Schools need to get on it and get this issue under control. Our teens need the support!

source

2 comments:

Cubby said...

I'd like the know what the definitions of "bullying" and "teasing" are, and at what point friendly teasing turns into damaging bullying.

Josephson Institute said...

Thank you for sharing our survey results!

We started posting audio of Michael's commentaries on a new youtube channel - www.youtube.com/josephsoninstitute. If you end up posting any of the videos, share the link with us via twitter at www.twitter.com/josephson0.

Thanks!

Dan

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Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.