2024-25 High School Disciple Formation
Safe Environment Lesson: Bullying
Format: Presentation using PowerPoint, along with discussion between presenter and students
Materials: Drawn from the research below (An abridged article written by Fr. Brian Wideman)
Length: 90 Minutes
Goal of the Lesson: To bring awareness to our high schoolers that, while they are not responsible for creating a safe environment, they nonetheless have an active role to play in supporting or undermining a safe environment—most especially in the setting of school.
Approach: The students will be exposed to some of the dynamics of bullying from both a human science perspective and a theological perspective, and then asked to consider and share ways in which the lesson might practically affect how they relate to peers and parents, and how they can concretely help to create a safe environment in their surroundings.
BULLYING
The pastoral issue of bullying is relatively new to the social consciousness. As will be shown, this is just one of the many understated difficulties one faces in trying to address what is coming to be known as peer abuse. Sociologist Anne-Marie Ambert estimates that at least 20% of all children will be victims of bullying during their formative years;[1] in all likelihood, the numbers are much higher. The issue of bullying is both simple and enormously complex to understand and meet with a fitting pastoral response. The intent of this paper is to offer an overview of bullying from the perspectives of the human sciences and also theology.
I. BULLYING: THE HUMAN SCIENCES PERSPECTIVE
The human sciences have much to say about the dynamics of bullying, including: who the “players” are, what acts constitute bullying, what its causes are, the matters over which youth are peer abused, as well as the effects of such bullying. Perhaps the most significant element is the human drive for identity and a sense of belonging:[2] this drive is what is simple to understand about peer abuse; the remaining dynamics are less so because they involve the complex and convoluted world of adolescence.
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The “players” in bullying include: abuser(s), victim, family, and culture. While the stereotypical bully is a social outcast, there are actually three types of abusers: the social outcast, the social trendsetter, and the unwittingly collusive adult. The outcast bully is more often a boy[3] who comes from a socially and economically disadvantaged background.[4] He is typically motivated by jealousy[5] over the talents and strengths of others, and is usually found in a group of other bully outcasts. The presence here of the group is significant because when the group engages in bullying, the individual bullies feel a lessened sense of personal culpability and a greater freedom to engage in abusive actions;[6] this is referred to as deindividuation. The less obvious type of bully is the social trendsetter. This is either a boy or girl who capitalizes on the desires of others to be a part of the “in-crowd” by setting him- or herself as the measure and rule of what it means to be “in”. The boy will often be quite socially skillful, athletic, possessing a positive self-image, and be admired by others;[7] he will typically present the ideal of masculinity.[8] In order to establish dominance, he bullies others in a public way in front of their peer group; this is commonly an isolated incident of abuse. The trendsetting girl bully will, similarly, present the ideal of femininity for others to follow. She will also be socially and sexually desirable. Unlike the boy, however, she will bully in more behind-the-scenes ways which remain fixed on a particular individual over a period of time. But the intent is the same: to establish identity through dominance and power. The third group of abusers is even less obvious than the trendsetters; these are collusive adults who either don’t know how to deal with bullying when they witness it, or who reinforce the stereotypes that play such a major role in establishing an environment where bullying can happen.[9] Based on this portrait of the abuser, it should not be surprising that the portrait of the victim is precisely opposite.
Ambert notes that “any normal and well-adjusted child can be peer abused.”[10] Today, abuse can happen for any reason because the bully is trying to establish his or her identity as the one in control. The victim is often innocent and unsuspecting, one who does not call attention to him- or herself. However, there are common characteristics of both boys and girls who find themselves bullied. The boy victim will often be less physically impressive, perceived by others as weak, soft-spoken, less confident in himself, and will often have more artistic or creative interests.[11] Interesting also, the boy victim—as well as the girl victim—can be a collusive self-abuser, by freely allowing him- or herself to be bullied in order to belong to a particular peer group.[12] Boys are victims for more superficial (though, not insignificant) reasons, whereas girls tend to be victims for reasons that are perceived as being more personal. The girl victim will often come from a poorer working class family background, be less feminine in her body, socially awkward, out-of-step with fashion, and an outcast from a “dyad”: a close friendship between two girls.[13] The experiences of victims do not stop with them, but spill over into their relationships with family as well.
The family of the victim (and the abuser) becomes an indirect victim of bullying. Because of their intense desire to fit in—for the purposes of self-identification—teens will often choose the values and priorities of their peer groups (even if that group is abusive) over those of their parents.[14] As will be discussed later, because of this the family is not exterior to the dynamics of bullying, but is very much an active player in it. What is present is a clash of cultures—school, peer groups, family, religion, and secular values. These cultures collide in the life of any teen who is struggling for self-identification and belonging; when a boy or girl is bullied, these collisions can have devastatingly long-term effects on the individual, family, and larger culture.
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“Boys will be boys” is a phrase common to the now-eroding viewpoint that bullying is just a part of life when we’re younger; one which separates the strong from the weak. It wasn’t until 1972, with the work of Swedish physician Peter-Paul Heinemann, that the acceptability of bullying acts was seriously questioned. His study was supplemented in 1983 by a Swedish psychologist, Dan Olweus. They found that boys are more likely to engage in physical aggression, whereas girls will engage in name-calling.[15] To these acts of peer abuse were added rumormongering, social isolation, and the destruction of property.[16] Today, we also add the particularly insidious act of cyberbullying to the list. Numerous studies have coalesced into some more commonly-recognized categories of bullying acts applicable to both boys and girls:[17] (i) direct-physical aggression, (ii) direct-verbal aggression, and (iii) indirect/relational aggression. In her studies, Ambert has noted that when describing their victimization, very few students cited physical abuse (direct-physical aggression).[18] Rather, the students themselves equated bullying and peer abuse with name-calling, threats, rumors, social isolation, and the like (direct verbal and indirect/relational aggression). Additionally, it has been noted by other researchers, like Ian Rivers, that acts of abuse vary along gender lines.
Boys will more likely be the victims of physical abuse,[19] such as hitting and pushing. This does not rule out verbal and psychological abuse, which often take the forms of being called degrading names in front of the victim’s peers and ‘being made fun of’. Again, this is for identity-forming purposes on the part of the abuser—and also an attempt to show the victim his place in the hierarchical structure of strength and power.[20] The experience is different for girls, who will more likely be the victims of verbal abuse or indirect abuse, e.g., rumors.[21] In any case, the intent of the bullying is to inflict some sort of injury on the victim for a variety of reasons, which will be discussed after a brief look at the often hidden causes of bullying.
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The underlying causes of bullying appear to be rooted in culture and more primitive human instincts. The cultural cause can be divided into universal and local aspects. On the universal end, a widespread hypermasculine or hyperfeminine cultural stereotype reinforces the notion that there is one way to be a male or female. These are social constructions[22] that work at the subconscious level through various media and even the act of bullying itself. Also on the universal end is the sense that one has a “right” to bully because of widely-held religious beliefs.[23] For example, the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality may—in the minds of some—give license and, indeed, a mandate to inflict harm on those who even hint at being homosexual. And, lastly on the universal end, the physical-geographical non-contact between various ethnicities and socio-economic classes contributes to the formation of stereotypes which serve only to denigrate those who are different from the prevailing cultural norms.[24] Locally speaking, the ethos and environment of a particular school can contribute to the presence of bullying in its hallways and classrooms. Rivers notes the artificial gathering of large numbers of students into the physical confines of large schools as problematic.[25] Adolescence is already a volatile time when both boys and girls are exceptionally vulnerable as they seek to form an identity. When so many teens are consistently together in a single space, bullying is an almost inevitable consequence.
Speaking of primitive human instinct as a cause for bullying, Rivers notes the “Young Male Syndrome”:[26] an inherently competitive spirit operative in boys that is an echo of days long-passed when men were the protectors of and providers for a clan, and so they needed to be strong. He notes the presence of this competitive spirit in ghettos of minority populations: where materials and goods are scarce, it’s the strongest who has dominance over those essential goods. In boys, the quest for control—an element of male identity—is a scarce commodity in the school setting. Some boys will simply do what they must to maintain the role of the dominant one. While these causes of bullying are generally not consciously considered, some reasons for bullying a particular victim are more intentional and at the forefront of abusers’ minds.
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Rivers notes the following as more external reasons for which a bullying victim might find him- or herself on the receiving end of abuse: race and ethnicity, Islamophobia, social awkwardness, religious background, sexuality, homophobia, and disabilities.[27] And of considerable potency are the socially constructed ideals of masculinity and femininity. Boys are to be strong, not weak. Girls are to be sexually desirable, not awkward and unpopular. But where such ‘weak’ boys and ‘awkward’ girls walk the hallways, peer abuse is a real possibility. And if such youth attend schools where stereotypes are reinforced, bullying and peer abuse is an unfortunate and destructive probability.
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The effects of bullying are all-pervasive in their destructiveness, extending beyond the victim and to the family and the abuser. One of the more tragic effects of peer abuse is the suicide of the victim—whether attempted or completed. This external effect is the result of prior internal psycho-emotional turmoil within the victim which is felt to be inescapable and crushing to the spirit. This turmoil can include: depression, loneliness, anxiety, low self-esteem, and decreased confidence in oneself. In addition, the uncertainty created by the abuse will often translate into psychosomatic illness, tension, and distress. It’s no surprise then that bullying can leave a permanent mark on the personality:[28] Erik Erikson recognized that one of the tasks of adolescence is the creation of a self-identity which can then be given to others in the intimacy of relationships.[29] The bullied teen will be affected for the rest of his or her life; the person being hounded by an easily shaken sense of who one is as a person. As a result, interpersonal competency and self-confidence for the victim will be struggles during adulthood.
The effects of abuse on the victim will often extend into his or her family life. Ambert calls parents of bullying victims “secondary victims”[30] because they will often experience the pain of the abuse sympathetically. In addition, parents tend to get “the flack” that is released from the embattled emotions of the victim. Ambert recognizes that “without the effect of peer pressure on the child, parents would rarely have had to control, contradict, or punish their youngsters.”[31] In the life of the bullied boy or girl, there is a constant tension between the culture of home and the culture of school; more often than not, the school culture wins out because of the intense desire of teens to fit in and belong—their (unrecognized) need to shape their own identity. While the victim and the victim’s parents are affected, so also is the abuser.
Since the young abuser is also struggling to form an identity and maintain a sense of belonging, the fact that he or she is going about it in a destructive manner will have negative consequences on their own interpersonal abilities as an adult, and also on their relationship with parents and other figures of authority. In the sociological realm, abusers can become over-inflated with self-confidence because of others’ admiration, lead lives of crime and, among girls, have early pregnancies.[32] With these behaviors, the impact on parents of bullies is obvious. In the psychological realm, Rivers and Ambert mention effects which, ironically, echo those of the victim: depression, antisocial behavior, feelings of failure,[33] and personality changes.[34] Additionally, the act of bullying and public humiliation of the victim often leads the abuser into a feeling of exhilaration,[35] an experience which might be akin to a “high”.
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From the perspective of the human sciences, bullying—or peer abuse—has a simple foundation: the natural drive for self-identification, belonging and, ultimately, relationship with others. But how that foundational drive finds concrete expression is complex; it is made even more difficult for victims and abusers when it is expressed through bullying. Turning now to the perspective of theology, one notices similarities in understanding, along with distinctions which only come from a perspective that regards God as essential to understanding and ministering to humans.
II. BULLYING: THE THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Comparatively little is written specifically about bullying from a theological perspective. As noted earlier, bullying is a relative newcomer to the social—and ecclesial—consciousness. And so, it is not surprising that there has been sparse theological reflection on the subject to date. The information and quotes that follow here were not necessarily written with bullying in mind. Nonetheless, they provide relevant universal understandings which can be applied to the particular pastoral problem of bullying, such as: the human drive to ‘become’ and to flourish, the presence of realities which subvert the drive for human dignity, and the experience and pastoral challenge of human vulnerability.
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Made in the image of the Triune God, humans strive to fulfill that dignity—that image—of pure relationality in the loving act of self-gift. Every single human life is an active ‘becoming’ of the divine image. That man and woman are made by and for God explains “the perennial dissatisfaction which man feels throughout his days on earth.”[36] Saint Augustine so famously put it: our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God. We have a drive for life, and this life is characterized by relationship between the “I” and the “Thou”,[37] and is reflected in our relationships with each other. This reaching out for the other, the Thou (as a manifestation of the inner life of the Triune God), is what makes human life sacred; anything that inhibits human relationality violates the sacredness of life. As Gaudium et spes of Vatican II recalled, Christ “fully reveals man to himself;”[38] one’s identity is found through relationship with a world of others. As such, peer abuse violates the sacredness of life, that fundamental urge to find our identity through relationship with others and the great Thou of God.
With the sacredness of human life come several innate rights which open the way for human beings to actively ‘become’ their fullest selves. When these individual rights are trampled upon through bullying, the dignity of both victim and abuser is compromised. Pope John XXIII reiterated what should be obvious to anyone when he wrote that “any well-regulated and productive association of men in society demands the acceptance of one fundamental principle: that each individual man is truly a person.”[39] With this basic acceptance comes the deeper understanding of human life as something sacred, and as marked by those innate rights to: life, bodily integrity, respect, a good name, the ability to practice and profess faith privately and publicly, and to have what s/he needs to ‘become’ a whole and healthy person.[40] Clearly, peer abuse denies these rights to boys and girls who are victimized; and, perhaps less clear, is that such abuse also puts bullies in self-denial of those same rights. In short, the human dignity of everyone involved is injured when bullying happens. From a theological perspective, additional causes of bullying—realities which subvert the drive for human dignity—will now be discussed.
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From the earliest days of humanity, anger and envy have caused brother to attack brother. Cain might be described as an “outcast bully”, motivated by envy of his brother and anger at God’s rejection. Blessed Pope John Paul II recognized this singular act as “the roots of violence against life.”[41] Competition, not cooperation, is the modus operandi of fallen humanity where “man has become the enemy of his fellow man.”[42] Here, theology adds the term sin to the problem of bullying. The act and the effect of bullying is separation, isolation, non-love, and rejection—the definition of sin. This sin of rejection, brought about by anger and envy, is manifested in numerous ways in the contemporary world.
The postmodern “eclipse of the sense of God and of man”[43] is an additional underlying cause of bullying and peer abuse. When God loses prominence in the minds of youth, so too, does the recognition of their peers as fundamentally children of God.[44] This engenders an individualistic notion of human freedom in which little openness is given to the needs and desires of others. Solidarity with the poor other—the victim—is far from the mind of the bully.[45] What is emerging is a “veritable structure of sin”[46] as the undergirding of contemporary society; a broken society from which boys and girls learn how to assert themselves in destructive ways. Indeed, Bl. John Paul II notes the presence of a blatant war on the weaker among us: “A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favored tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated.”[47] Such a war, manifested through the sin of peer abuse, weighs heavily on the victim and leads to that last reality which subverts the human strive for dignity: death.
Death by suicide is the ultimate rejection of love, having been set up by others’ deliberate rejection through bullying. Suicide affects not only the victim, but the abuser as well, and also secondary victims, like the victim’s family and neighbors. These secondary victims of suicide are compromised in their own striving for human dignity because the now-deceased victim of abuse had a role to play in that striving. Suicide is the victim’s final and complete collapse under the weight of sin, the weight of peer abuse and bullying. Succumbing to sin, the victim thwarts his or her own ‘becoming’ human—although, in many cases, it seems that the pain of suicide is perceived to be less than the pain of enduring a bully.
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Lastly, theology recognizes vulnerability as an aspect of bullying; an aspect which all people are called to embrace in their neighbors who are weakened and susceptible to harm. Clearly, the victim of bullying is in a vulnerable state—both before and after the abuse. Such people are the recipients of Christian affection, empathy, and care. Christ calls all to “care for orphans and widows in their affliction;”[48] that is, those among us who are defenseless and oppressed. And the Church names the abuse of any vulnerable person “a flagrant violation of justice.”[49] However, the Church also follows the example of Christ and stresses the importance of respecting every human life—even that of the abuser.[50] God did not destroy Cain, but rather, protected him from anyone who would kill him: “not even a murderer loses his personal dignity, and God himself pledges to guarantee this.”[51] Entering now into a discussion of the pastoral issues present in the problem of bullying, it is helpful to note that “the antidote to violence is love, not more violence.”[52]
III. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the pastoral issue of bullying has been shown to have its roots in the fundamental human question of identity formation; the human sciences and theology agree on this point. As identity is formed through navigating relationships with peers and others, any significant disruption of that process is damaging to the human striving to ‘become’ fully human; that is, that image of relationality which is the Triune God. Bullying—or peer abuse—is just such a disruption and is, depending on its intensity, destructive of the human spirit. The idea that children abuse other children is new to public and ecclesial awareness, but it’s a reality that must be acknowledged and dealt with through multi-faceted, proactive pastoral interventions for the health and flourishing of not only individuals, but of the human community as a whole.
ENDNOTES
[1] Anne-Marie Ambert, “A Qualitative Study of Peer Abuse and Its Effects: Theoretical and Empirical Implications,” Journal of Marriage and Family 56, no. 1 (February, 1994): 126.
[2] Ian Rivers, Neil Duncan, and Valerie E. Besag, Bullying: A Handbook for Educators and Parents (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2007), 56.
[3] Rivers and Duncan, Bullying, 6.
[4] Ibid., 8.
[5] Ibid., 21.
[6] Ibid., 7.
[7] Ibid., 16,19.
[8] Ibid., 58.
[9] Susan Shaffer and Linda Gordon, Why Boys Don’t Talk & Why it Matters (New York, NY: McGraw, 2005), 42.
[10] Ambert, “Peer Abuse and Its Effects,” 128.
[11] Rivers and Duncan, Bullying, 21.
[12] Ibid., 186.
[13] Ibid., 27.
[14] Ibid., 57.
[15] Ibid., 4.
[16] Two studies, by Ahmad, Whitney, and Smith (1991), and Whitney and Smith (1993), added these acts of bullying in an effort to clarify what acts are specifically bully-related.
[17] Rivers and Duncan, Bullying, 4.
[18] Ambert, “Peer Abuse and Its Effects,” 126.
[19] Rivers and Duncan, Bullying, 4.
[20] Ibid., 25.
[21] Ibid., 3.
[22] Ibid., 64.
[23] Ibid.,75.
[24] Ibid., 8.
[25] Ibid., 56.
[26] Ibid., 17.
[27] Ibid., 8, 57, 93.
[28] Ibid., 27, 28.
[29] Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York, NY: Norton, 1958), 262.
[30] Ambert, “Peer Abuse and Its Effects,” 125.
[31] Ibid., 125.
[32] Rivers and Duncan, Bullying, 19, 29, 30.
[33] Rivers, 21, 29, 30.
[34] Ambert, “Peer Abuse and Its Effects,” 124.
[35] Rivers and Duncan, Bullying, 18.
[36] Pope John Paul II, Evangelium vitae, Encyclical Letter on the Value and Inviolability of Human Life, 1995, 35.
[37] Joseph Ratzinger, Dogmatic Theology: Eschatology—Death and Eternal Life (Washington, DC: Catholic University of American Press, 1988), 94.
[38] Vatican II Council, Gaudium et spes, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, 1965, 22.
[39] Pope John XXIII, Pacem in terris, Encyclical Letter on Establishing Universal Peace in Truth, Justice, Charity, and Liberty, 1963, 9.
[40] Pacem in terris, 11, 12, 14.
[41] Evangelium vitae, 7.
[42] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed., no. 2259 (Washington, DC: Libreria Editrice Vaticana—USCCB, 2000).
[43] Evangelium vitae, 21.
[44] Ibid., 21.
[45] Ibid., 19.
[46] Ibid., 12.
[47] Ibid., 12.
[48] James 1:27 (New American Bible Revised Version).
[49] Pacem in terris, 95.
[50] USCCB Committee for Pro-Life Activities, Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics, Dec., 1998, 21.
[51] Evangelium vitae, 9.
[52] Living the Gospel of Life, 21.