Critical Analysis of Bullying as a Formative Influence

There are several outcomes that can occur when dealing with bullies, victims, and bully-victims. For victims, it is most likely for one to suffer psychological problems, while bullies tend to remain bullies throughout their lives and commit domestic violence, or they become criminals. Cedric Cullingford and Jenny Morrison, authors of “Bullying as a Formative Influence: the Relationship between the Experience of School and Criminality,” studied the effects of the classroom and schooling on criminals. They conducted interviews with twenty-five offenders, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, who were at the time incarcerated. The point of their study was, “To explore the correlation that has been found between bullying and the development of subsequent criminality and to investigate the sources of deviant behavior”(Cullingford 548). The study had many findings, all which explain how the young offenders were affected.
In all research that has been done, it is always important to include what may constitute as bullying. The three issues that Cullingford et al. includes are harmful actions that are repetitive, unequal power, and intentional. Before reviewing any article, it is important to acknowledge a researchers definition of what is being studied. After defining, bullying, Cullingford et al. goes on to conduct the research and then discusses the results. The first finding was that the most memorable thing about school is bullying and aggression. This idea is present in Joan Ryan’s article, “Why Girls are Bullies?,” because she opens her article with a few statements on bullying and how it has affected generations of women and is carried on in adult women, even though they have left school.
Another finding is, the young offenders tended to accept the bullying as part of growing up. One offender stated, “Calling each other names and that, well, I’m not saying it’s nice, but it’s harmless really, just kids being kids at the end of the day isn’t it?” (Cullingford 551). Most teasing experienced by children is damaging even though most people except it and believe it is harmless. This is supported by Robin Bright’s article, “It’s Just a Grade 8 Girl Thing: Aggression in Teenage Girls.” In the article, Bright talks about approaching the homeroom teacher, who said that this type of bullying was perfectly normal for girls her daughter’s age. She believed it was just a part of growing up. Unfortunately, this is the view that many people take on bullying, but these harmless antics do have long term affects on children.
Mark Chapell et al. talks about bullying committed by teachers and coaches. When bullying is committed by these two groups of people, it reinforces children to bully their peers and isolate them. In this study, Teachers were involved, in less obvious, ways of bullying. Usually teachers in grammar schools and high schools are able to figure out students capabilities within three weeks or so. When a teacher calls on a student knowing very well that they are not good at reading or spelling, it embarrasses the student. One male offender said, “They embarrass you cause they know, probably you ain’t very good at reading and that , they’ll just pick you out of the whole class and say stand up and read that paragraph to the class and all that and you say, no I’m not doin’ it and they’ll say right, if you’re not doin’ it you’re goin’ to the exclusion room, so I just grabbed my bag and just walked out, and everyone was takin’ the piss and that” (Cullingford 552).By calling students out on something they are not capable of doing, teachers embarrass and isolate them. Then, other peers laugh at their learning disabilities, which isolate them even more. Cullingford et al. goes on in the study to say, “Teachers are involved in generating labels and defining particular pupils as ‘different,’ not always aware of the wider consequences of their behavior towards particular pupils” (553). Most of the offenders were excluded more than at once in the classroom because of their lakc of academic competence, and they excluded themselves even more by refusing to participate in classes. Exclusion is a severe consequences of bullying.
These victims of bullying also had a hand in bullying as well. Bully-victims are able to bully others and then suffer victimization from others. A majority of the twenty five subjects had retaliated in some way and it was considered bullying. Most of them were not able to diffuse sitations. They would retaliate aggressively. The problem with bullying through retaliation, is the other students would acknowledge that the victim would get angry so they would pick on him or her even more. This negates what Ma Xing has to say about students who do not defend themselves. She found in her studies that children who did not stick up for themselves or retaliate were picked on even more because they would become and easy target.
Cullingford et al. sums up his findings in four points. The first is that focus needs to be put on the hurt felt by the victim in order to distinguish something as bullying. The second is that there is no distinction between the experience of being a bully and being a victim. Then, there is the idea that all children are affected by bullying at one point in time, and finally, the young offenders’ experiences were different from others and their peers teased them even more when certain forms of retaliation were used. The final finding of this study was the victims never saw themselves as victims. Because as said earlier, most people except bullying, the offenders did not think there was anything wrong with what was happening; they believed it was a part of growing up.
Cullingford and Morrison’s study shows the affects that bullying has when it is not acknowledged as that. People tend to except the actions and do not understand the repercussions. They are harmed by students and teachers and even though it might be unintentional, it is still harmful. When these students start to retaliate they are singled-out and picked on even more. What seems like simple childish games, as one offender puts it, are really hurtful things.

Cullingford, Cedric, and Jenny Morrison. 1995. “Bullying as a Formative Influence: The
Relationship between the Experience of School and Criminality.” British
Educational Research Journal 21:5. pp. 547-560.