With a little digging, I was able to find that "The study was conducted this spring at The Wheatley School, a nationally top-ranked high school on Long Island, New York. More than 700 students at the school were given a survey with 28 questions on aggressive behavior four separate times throughout the semester. They were also given a roster of the entire school in which every student had an identification number and kids were asked to write down specifically who did what." Faris also interviewed students from a rural North Carolina and apparently found similar results, though the numbers were not provided.
Faris also found that "most of the behavior is occurring below the radar of adults, with 81% percent of aggressive incidents never reported." This percentage is likely even higher than what he found, due to the sensitivity of the topic.
Faris also found that "most of the behavior is occurring below the radar of adults, with 81% percent of aggressive incidents never reported." This percentage is likely even higher than what he found, due to the sensitivity of the topic.
What was interesting about the study was that the students seemed to pick on people they considered to be their friends and students they looked up to, not the ones they thought were weaker/meeker than they were. Faris' conclusion was that most bullying occurs to gain social favor, like in Mean Girls. Also, apparently, it is all in vain. Those that bully more aren't more popular.
This ended up being a very good study in my opinion. This URL http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/10/10/findings.from.the.wheatley.school.pdf provides a very in depth analysis of what was done, what responses were made, and the final analysis of the results.
Really, the only thing I did not like about the information that was provided was that the actual survey was not available. The questions were generalized and paraphrased in the report. I would be very interested in the order in which the questions were asked and the exact phrasing, since we just learned that this effects results.
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/26/health/bullying-series-identifying-children/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/10/us/ac-360-bullying-study/index.html
Kathleen,
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed reading about this survey until I realized that the actual survey was not provided. I feel that because this very important piece of information is missing, the credibility of the survey is lacking. However, this could be because I am a skeptic after some of the readings in class. I also found it interesting that he did the studies within a top-ranked high school and a rural high school. Maybe Faris should also run the survey in inner-city high schools and high schools that have a high populations of underpriviledged adolescents. I think it would be interesting to see if the results remain similar in the comparison of bullies within the different level of schools.
However, I really liked the sample size he used within the study. I think that 700 students is a great representation of the school's population. Also, I liked that he administered this survey multiple times allowing him to see if the results remained consistent throughout the school year. Overall, this was a great survey, but I would like to see the actual results.
While I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with the survey methodology I think this is one of those cases where you have to take take demographic into account with the survey. I'm very familiar with the New York City area and with that knowledge knew even before reading the results that The Wheately School is located in Old Westbury, Long Island, NY which is one of the wealthiest suburbs both in NY and America. I did some further digging and found that according to a 2011 report from Forbes the average household wealth was 19 million. Does this mean they can't have bullying? No. Of course they can, but I think that taking the area and wealth factor into account is a crucial part of the survey. Although The Wheately School is a public high school it is one of the best public high schools in the country. If they have a bullying problem then they likely also have resources to allocate to dealing with this problem. I say this only because on their homepage they have a section on bullying.
ReplyDeleteNYC is a place where demographics matter: a school on the Upper West Side will have a very different student body than one in Queens. I think you would get very different survey results if you talked to the student body at a school such as Murry Bergtraum High School on the Lower East Side. I chose this school because in March 2012 the NY Post published an article about rioting and violence in the school as caught on cell phone cameras.
Sources:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/halls_of_hell_at_ny_worst_high_school_ZAOl4bIuRykL1PnAOsCa5L
http://xfinity.comcast.net/slideshow/finance-millionairecapitals/old-westbury/
http://www.ewsdonline.org/education/components/form/default.php?sectiondetailid=11072&