i wonder if the rates change based on the number of asians in the school? i know that this happens quite frequently, but i am surprised by the high numbers. well, this article appeared on the google news service. i would just post the link, but what the heck. here is the full text.
Asian Americans most bullied in US schools:
By Shaun Tandon (AFP) – Oct 28, 2011
WASHINGTON — Asian Americans endure far more bullying at US schools than members of other ethnic groups, with teenagers of the community three times as likely to face taunts on the Internet, new data shows.
Policymakers see a range of reasons for the harassment, including language barriers faced by some Asian American students and a spike in racial abuse following the September 11, 2001 attacks against children perceived as Muslim.
"This data is absolutely unacceptable and it must change. Our children have to be able to go to school free of fear," US Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday during a forum at the Center for American Progress think-tank.
The research, to be released on Saturday, found that 54 percent of Asian American teenagers said they were bullied in the classroom, sharply above the 31.3 percent of whites who reported being picked on.
The figure was 38.4 percent for African Americans and 34.3 percent for Hispanics, a government researcher involved in the data analysis told AFP. He requested anonymity because the data has not been made public.
The disparity was even more striking for cyber-bullying.
Some 62 percent of Asian Americans reported online harassment once or twice a month, compared with 18.1 percent of whites. The researcher said more study was needed on why the problem is so severe among Asian Americans.
The data comes from a 2009 survey supported by the US Justice Department and Education Department which interviewed some 6,500 students from ages 12 to 18. Asian Americans are generally defined as tracing ancestry to East Asia, the Indian subcontinent or the South Pacific.
Officials plan to announce the data during an event in New York on bullying as part of President Barack Obama's White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
New Jersey parent Shehnaz Abdeljaber, who will speak at the event, said she was shocked when she saw her son's middle school yearbook in which not only classmates but also a teacher wrote comments suggesting he was a terrorist.
Abdeljaber soon learned that her son had endured similar remarks at a younger age but had kept silent. She complained to the school principal but has since pushed for workshops on bullying that involve teachers and students.
"We need a more creative approach and more interaction with the youth, empowering them to do something rather than just going through the framework of authority," she said.
The Obama administration has put a priority on fighting bullying. In March, the president joined Facebook for an online anti-bullying conference, where he warned that social media was making the problem worse for many children.
Duncan, the education secretary, warned that bullying had serious effects as it can lead to mental and physical health problems including dependence on drugs or alcohol.
Duncan also voiced concern about high rates of bullying at schools against gay and lesbians, an issue that has come into greater focus since a spate of suicides last year among gay teens who were harassed.
"We're seeing folks who somehow seem a little different from the norm bearing the brunt," Duncan said.
"We're trying to shine a huge spotlight on this," he said.
A number of Asian countries have also wrestled with bullying.
Japan stepped up measures in 2006 after at least four youngsters killed themselves in a matter of days and the education minister said he had received an anonymous letter from a bullied student who was contemplating suicide.
4 comments:
It's an interesting question. Studies like this always challenge us in the same way anti-Asian crime statistics do.
These are the reported incidents, but how many go unreported, how many hold back from reporting, or in some cases, don't even recognize that what they go through IS bullying and that they can and should object to that treatment.
We must also ask how many of it is interracial, intercultural and how much of the bullying emerges from internalized racism, Lao on Lao in this case.
As we seek solutions, we have to make sure those solutions are constructive for society. Merely stopping and removing bullies from the picture does not necessarily mean an end to the conditions that gave rise to the bullies in the first place.
thanks for your comment bryan. I think you're right - studies can't often can't accurately reflect the issue because of response bias, reluctance to report, etc.
i work in a school that is 60% asian, so internalized racism or horizontal racism is more the issue. of course the schools will continue removing the bullies, but you're right; the issue needs to be looked as a systemic problem in addition to a problem with one single child.
Especially when we look at the situation recently in the Philadelphia schools where Southeast Asian American children were getting bullied and jumped on a daily basis, we need to appreciate the full effects on the system. Many of them are the children of refugees, and when their education is disrupted like this, it's not just an impact on them personally but on their families. When the children are often the bridge for their parents and grandparents to navigate the system, if the children are harassed and harangued to the point of dropping out or pushed to the point of gang activities and retaliation there are some tragic consequences on the journey of adaptation and successful rebuilding.
I want to see the movie "Bully."
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