What We Know About Bullying What is Bullying?

Bullying is aggressive behavior that is intentional and that involves an imbalance of power or strength. Typically, it is repeated over time. A child who is being bullied has a hard time defending himself or herself. Bullying can take many forms such as: hitting or punching (physical bullying); teasing or name-calling (verbal bullying); intimidation through gestures or social exclusion (nonverbal bullying or emotional bullying); and sending insulting messages by e-mail (cyber bullying). Prevalence of Bullying: • Studies show that between 15-25 % of U.S. students are bullied with some frequency (“sometimes or more often”) while 15-20 % report that they bully others with some frequency (Melton et al., 1998; Nansel et al., 2001). • Recent statistics show that while school violence has declined 4 % during the past several years, the incidence of behaviors such as bullying, ha