Posted By site administrator on January 19, 2012
(Editor’s Note: This blog was written for the Humanity Project by Dr. Laura Finley, Vice President of the Humanity Project Board of Directors. Dr. Finley is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Barry University.)
As a new Board Member for the Humanity Project, I wanted to offer a short piece on an area in which I have some expertise. That is the connection between dating and domestic violence and bullying. For six years I have worked in the field of domestic violence advocacy, in addition to authoring several peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on the issue. I currently serve as Chair of the Board of Directors of No More Tears, a non-profit that provides individualized assistance to victims of domestic violence and their children, and am editing the Encyclopedia of Domestic Abuse for ABC-CLIO Press, which will be published in 2013. I offer this piece to provoke thought about the similarities between these phenomena and to promote the Humanity Project’s strategy for prevention.
Both bullying and dating violence are very common among school-aged youth, with estimates between 25% and 30% of teens being involved in an abusive relationship and 30% of young people experiencing bullying. Both are, at root, about the need one person feels to obtain and maintain power and control over another. Perpetrators of dating violence and bullies both use a variety of tactics to do so, including but not limited to verbal harassment, emotional abuse, intimidation, unwanted sexual behavior or harassment, cyber-threats, use of peer pressure, and more. Far from isolated incidents, bullying and dating violence are patterned behaviors.
Although not exclusively, both dating violence and bullying often enter the school walls, yet too often educators are not adequately prepared to respond due to inadequate or non-existent training. Additionally, peers are witness to the abuse and bullying in the majority of cases, although many young people are hesitant to speak out. Victims of both problems can suffer emotionally and physically, and many experience great difficulty in school. Victims may be isolated from peers, have difficulty concentrating, and may act out or withdraw as a way of dealing with the abuse. In fact, several studies have found bullying to be predictive of later involvement in abusive dating and/or domestic relationships. Useful strategies to address both phenomena, then, involve training educators to recognize warning signs and to know the school’s protocol once either form of abuse is identified. Also important is the training of students to understand how they can help if a friend or peer is being abused or bullied. Research has repeatedly documented the effectiveness of the bystander approach. This approach addresses students not as would-be victims or perpetrators, which tend to alienate young people, but rather as would-be bystanders who can stop bullies or abusers by speaking up and interrupting the behavior. The Humanity Project’s Anti-bullying Through The Arts program is based on a bystander approach, which is the key to its success.
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Tags: anti-bullying, Anti-bullying Through The Arts, Barry University, bullies, bullying, Dr. Laura Finley, helping kids, helping others, Humanity Project, Humanity Project Board of Directors, school bullies, school bullying, The Humanity Project
The Humanity Project is a relentlessly optimistic organization. We base that optimism not on blind hope but rather on sensible evidence. Not long ago, for instance, we wrote a blog about recent scientific research into the state of the world’s people, a very optimistic study indeed. It found that more of us are better off today than in the past. Fewer wars, less poverty, greater access to clean water and other encouraging facts. Despite the massive problems remaining on our planet, things are improving. At the Humanity Project, we also look around for ourselves to find sources of optimism. Sometimes the people we meet give us realistic hope — and in this week’s blog we wanted to pass along a recent example of this. The students at South Plantation High School in Plantation, Florida are collaborating with us on two major projects. We’ll be announcing those efforts to the public very soon. Stay tuned. For now, though, we can honestly tell you that we are finding the experience inspiring so far. These young people are smart, engaged, curious … and caring. They’re working side-by-side with the Humanity Project to help us help others, drawing on our ideas about cooperation and social connection to make a meaningful difference in the lives of their peers. We look into their inquiring faces and see the face of humanity’s future. And it really is cause for optimism, believe me. Many of these youths will go on after graduation to break out in new directions and discover new paths, sharing the best elements of themselves with the rest of us. We need those contributions — and we look forward to seeing them take shape in the years to come.
