Woodsa, S. & Wolkeb, D. Term Paper

According to reports coming out of Japan, teasing is often associated with poor performance, and may be instigated by teachers in many cases. America, it should be noted, tens to have an anti-intellectualism streak in its politics and nature, while Japan tends towards the opposite. It seems possible that the fact that Woodsa and Wolkeb discovered that less intelligent, lower class, and rural children were significantly more likely to be bullied represents an overarching social trend which puts down lower academic achievement in favor of higher achievement, and that teachers themselves are subtly giving children cues as to who they should bully. This point deserves to be more extensively explored, perhaps with comparative studies in America or other countries. Additionally, the school climate towards bullying may be a far more relevant issue than this research lets on.

The concept of victimization is also particularly important to this research. Woodsa and Wolkeb define this vital concept thus: "victimisation refers to a student being exposed to negative actions on the part of one or more other students' with the intention to hurt. Bullying must be a repeated action and occur regularly over time... And it usually involves an imbalance in strength, either real or perceived... Bullying can be physical, verbal, or relational."

In terms of direct bullying, it seems evident that researchers could relatively easily determine whether students were accurately reporting bullying (though some degree of verification might have been a good choice on the part of the researchers).When it comes to relational bullying, however, the lines may become more blurred. If Woodsa and Wolkeb are correct and bullying is a calm and calculated affair, then it seems that some degree of misinformation might be spreading around, and students may be purposefully trying to deceive researchers.

Despite the overarching nature of this study, there does not appear to have been any consistent effort at intervention on the behalf of students who were being bullied. Assuming this research is accurate in all its claims and suggestions, it opens up a conundrum in terms of intervention. If bullies were, as originally thought, suffering from low self-esteem and challenged academic status, then intervention could focus on actually helping the bullies find peace with themselves and achieve more in school, thus helping both bullies and bullied at once. If bullies are actually the elite of the school, being healthier and more academically advanced than their peers, and acting out of some sort of perverse Darwinianism, then the appropriate intervention becomes more complicated. One might be able to instruct children against bullying, or punish them, or do what one could for the victims to raise their academic status and social skills (though this borders on blaming the victim), but it makes the situation more complicated. Based on this theory of bullying, it would be instructive to see Woodsa and Wolkeb, or another inspired researcher, look into appropriate means of intervention......