All Posts Tagged With: "Bullying"

Nova Scotia may review handling of Rehtaeh Parsons case

Rehtaeh Parsons (CP)

Nova Scotia’s Justice Department is looking for ways to review a grieving mother’s questions about the RCMP’s handling of her daughter’s allegations of sexual assault, an incident the girl’s mother says led to the teenager’s suicide.

After initially saying there would not be a review, Justice Minister Ross Landry changed his position late Tuesday night, asking his department to present him with options for a review.

Leah Parsons spoke out Tuesday about the case of her 17-year-old daughter, Rehtaeh, who was pulled off life-support Sunday night after she hanged herself last week.

Parsons said she is dissatisfied that the RCMP concluded there were no grounds to charge four boys over allegations they sexually assaulted Rehtaeh about 18 months ago.

In a statement, Landry says he hopes to meet with Rehtaeh’s mother to discuss her experience with the justice system.

“This situation is tragic, I am deeply saddened — as I think are all Nova Scotians — by the death of this young woman,” he said in the statement.

Continue reading Teen killed herself after sex assault, bullying: mother

Inherited behavioural tendencies lead to victimization

A new study suggests a child’s likelihood of being bullied in elementary school is partially dictated by genetics.

The study published in the journal Child Development found genes helped dictate behaviours that most often led to a person being ostracized or victimized by fellow students.

Those behaviours included aggression, impulsiveness and hyperactivity.

The study surveyed nearly 800 pairs of identical and fraternal twins three times between kindergarten and grade four.

Researchers found that identical twins, who have the same genetic makeup, are more likely to have similar classroom experience than fraternal twins whose DNA is not a perfect match.

The study says the research demonstrates the importance of intervening to nip problematic behaviours in the bud at an early age.

Red Hood Project is response to death of Amanda Todd

Children’s entertainer and advocate Raffi says he was “shaken” and “angry” when he heard about the death of Amanda Todd, a British Columbia teen who committed suicide in October following years of Internet sexual exploitation and bullying by her peers, and that’s why he co-founded the Red Hood Project.

Billed as a movement to make social media safe for young users, the project includes a website, a Facebook and Twitter page, and a letter the beloved “Baby Beluga” singer-songwriter co-wrote and sent to Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg on Nov. 14.

The letter, which includes Todd’s mother’s signature, says that the 15-year-old was blackmailed through Facebook and urges the social media company to correct “the security failures that made such victimization possible.”

“Of course education of parents and young users is important, we recognize that, but we think the onus ought to be on those businesses — social media companies who create the risk in the first place — to do all that they can,” Raffi Cavoukian, who goes by just his first name onstage, said in a recent interview.

Continue reading Children’s singer Raffi advocates for social media safety

Information came through reporting tool on school website

Eight girls are facing charges in a bullying case at a high school in London, police in the southwestern Ontario city said.

The arrests were made as part of an investigation that revealed a student at the school had been the target of physical, emotional and cyber bullying, police said.

The eight suspects are each charged with criminal harassment and have been released from custody on a promise to appear in court.

Police could not say Friday when the hearing would take place.

They said information about the alleged bullying came from direct statements and through an anonymous reporting portal on the school website.

Continue reading Eight girls arrested for bullying in London, Ont.

One woman reflects on her high school torment

The author at age 15

When I read about Amanda Todd’s suicide, I was affected, not only because someone so young decided to take her life, but also because of how it reminded me of my own adolescence.

To the right is a photo of me at Todd’s age. By the time that picture was taken, I had been bullied practically every day for five years. It started with some older girls who thought my name, Ravanne, sounded funny. They would chase me, scream at me, and throw food at me. Although concerned classmates stood up for me, it never stopped.

As early as sixth grade, I was depressed and socially anxious. When I entered junior high school, I was afraid to talk to new people out of fear that they too would laugh at me. I did make some friends, but for every friend I made, at least two people would obsessively bully me.

Continue reading I was bullied every day—then things got better

How I bullied to fit in at school

Mean Girls (Paramount Pictures)

This essay first appeared in The Ryersonian.

When I think back to Grade 7, most things are a haze. I had just started at a new school and I was well into my awkward stage. It was more than 10 years ago and my memories have since blurred into a combination of desks, colour-coded notes and the new uniforms that I had to wear; but I remember one thing clearly. That year, I became a mean girl.

We’re not talking the typical Regina George style bully either. (For those who don’t know, George was one of the Mean Girls in the eponymous film starring Lindsay Lohan.) I was my very own brand of villain.

In my tween years, I was not popular crew material. My hair was pulled tight, my front teeth jutted out like the bow of a canoe, bridled back by multicoloured braces and my eyebrows resembled two fuzzy caterpillars inching their way back together.  It was not my best look.

Continue reading Confessions of a former mean girl

Rhode Island legislators say Facebook causes bullying

The U.S. state Rhode Island has passed an “anti-bullying” law that creates a state-wide ban on the use of social networking sites anywhere on school property. As The Huffington Post points out, that means students won’t be able to access the legislature’s own Facebook page, which could make it difficult for the government to extend its fan-base beyond the eight people who have “liked” it so far.

Ontario Catholic schools will create anti-bullying clubs that definitely won’t be called ‘gay-straight alliances’

Let’s embark upon a little thought experiment, shall we? Suppose Johnny B. Seventh-Grader is being bullied mercilessly for his fiery red hair. “Ginger!” the kids call him. “Freak of nature!” they say. “You have no soul!” And so forth. Johnny, feeling ostracized and alone, looks to his school’s administration for support. Naturally, one would assume, resources would be available for our redheaded friend. After all, the school—a public institution—is part of a society where reds have the right to live freely from discrimination.  Redheaded people can work in Canada, they can own property, they can vote, hell—they can even marry! So the school, you would expect, would be compelled to foster an environment of inclusion. Johnny’s principal hears his plight, and, in an effort to change the culture of taboo brewing around redheads, she creates a school club called, “It’s OK to be R**.” What’s wrong, Johnny? Don’t you feel more accepted?

The Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association (OCSTA) is doing the same sort of semantic dance when it comes to naming its new anti-bullying groups, created in response to requests for gay-straight alliances in Catholic schools. A reporter from Xtra, a national gay and lesbian newspaper, spoke with OCSTA president Nancy Kirby, who told her the new groups will not be called gay-straight alliances:

“When I look at a gay-straight alliance, I see an activist group,” [Kirby said]. We are answering the students’ request for support and assistance, not for activism. Students don’t want to become activists; they want to be supported in being bullied by their peers.”

Is standing up against anti-gay bullying not activism? “In some ways it could be and in other ways it isn’t,” she says. The groups will all have a “common name.”

That’s right—no activism allowed! On a side note, Kirby should probably look into St. Joseph Secondary School, where a lot of this GSA talk originated, because the school apparently has a Solidarity Action Committee “committed to creating a just world by working for peace, fairness and equality everywhere.” Sounds like trouble to me…

Continue reading Don’t say ‘GSA’

Study confirms what nerds have believed for years

University of California researchers say that popular students are more likely to bully their peers than “social outcasts.” An increase in social status is linked to an increase in aggression, for both males and females, confirming what nerds like me have believed for years: it’s the cool kids who make high school a nasty place.

The study, which was recently published in American Sociological Review, used data from The Context of Adolescent Substance Use survey, which is based on 3,722 eight, ninth and 10th-grade students at 19 different public schools in North Carolina. A student’s popularity was determined by their position in the school’s “web of friendships,” and the authors of the study defined aggression as physical, verbal, or indirect behavior directed toward harming or causing pain to another student. The study followed students throughout a school year.

However, the researchers found that students at the top of the social hierarchy were generally not as aggressive. Those in the top 2 percent of a school’s social hierarchy–along with those at the bottom– were found to be the least aggressive.

“If an adolescent at the top of the social hierarchy were to act aggressively towards his or her peers, such action could signal insecurity or weakness rather than cement the student’s position,” said Robert Faris, an assistant professor of sociology at UC Davis. “And, it’s possible that, at the highest level, they may receive more benefits from being pro-social and kind.”

As for those students at the bottom of the pecking order, they simply don’t have the power to act out aggressively.

The fact that there’s a correlation between popularity and bullying doesn’t seem too surprising. In high school I experienced plenty of ‘correlations’ with popularity. Like the negative correlation between popularity and chess club membership.