School Bullying Council

Never get between an Englishman and his chips.

McDonald’s is spending a lot of money at the Olympics (around $100 million) for an exclusive sponsorship deal and the right to tell the other 800 caterers on the Olympics grounds that they can’t sell “chips” (that’s French fries to you Yankees) during the Games. The only nod to British eating habits and national pride is to allow these caterers to sell traditional fish and chips (and, no, people won’t be allowed to order fish and chips, hold the haddock).

Why would McDonald’s expect that this would not cause the furor that it has, in fact, caused? “McDonald’s has turned the London Summer Olympics into a no-fry zone,” “’Chipgate’ scandal rocks Olympics,” were just two of the headlines. Sebastian Payne, writing in the Spectator, labeled the Games as the “Censorship Olympics.” He said that the “Soviet-style roadlanes are bad enough, but the right to sell a bag of chips to anyone who wants one is fairly fundamental.”

McDonald’s is not the only company flexing its corporate sponsorship rights. Visa has been accused of cashing in by replacing ATMs with many fewer machines that only accept its cards. Although Visa has always used its Olympics deal as part of its long-running “only card accepted” campaign, this move is upping the ante. To protect Heineken’s sponsorship, all other drinks will be sold unbranded—you won’t be able to order a Guinness at the Games—you’ll have to order a pint of stout.

The Olympics organizing committee (IOC) has recruited hundreds of uniformed Olympics officers tasked with roaming the streets of Britain looking for any use of Olympic brand equities not officially sanctioned. This is not just the unauthorized use of the Olympic rings but also the use of banned words like “gold”, “summer” and “London” if they are construed to connect to the games. Under legislation passed by the government, these “brand police” have the right to enter shops and offices and levy heavy fines against violators. Grandmothers giving dolls to church donations, florists in Stoke-on-Trent, lingerie shops in Leicester and butchers in Dorset have all been swept up in this dragnet.

Over the years, the IOC and its global sponsors have been frustrated by ambush marketers who have been extremely creative in finding ways to associate with the Olympics without paying for the privilege. Nike, American Express, and Pepsi have all successfully played this ambushing game and the IOC has responded by tightening the rules and enforcing its rights.

But this escalating battle between sponsors and their ambush-minded competitors is now officially out of control. Sponsors have become so focused on stopping ambushes that they’ve forgotten about the people living in the country hosting the games. They are just collateral damage in this epic battle. As Tom Chivers in The Telegraph said, this is the moment when “corporate sponsorship lost its mind.”

It’s gone too far. People don’t like monopolies and they don’t like bullies. The IOC and its sponsors, blinded by the battle with their ambushing enemies, are acting like both. They need to back off and think about things from the public’s (their consumer’s) perspective.

Otherwise, the money they are spending will not generate the goodwill it is intended to. And that would be a waste of the almost one billion dollars they are spending.

[Image: Flick user Alfonsina Blyde]

http://www.fastcompany.com/1843470/when-olympic-brand-bullying-backfires

THE conflict between the Philippines and China over the Scarborough Shoal and Spratlys is not going away, despite the Aquino administration’s efforts to de-escalate the territorial dispute with Beijing.

In an interview on the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), President Noynoy Aquino said his administration has not been engaged in a media war as alleged by China, nor has it entered into international arbitration to settle the issue.

“We’ve been bending over backwards, we try to look at it from their perspective, and we try to see, hopefully that they look at it from our perspective and really achieve some reasonableness in terms of the actions of both parties.”

PNoy added: “I don’t think I have been as belligerent as some sectors are saying. I should be tougher. But I think we have given them all of the necessary means and steps to avoid having the ‘loss of face’ aspect, trying to come up with something that is doable immediately. And we’re waiting for appropriate response from their side.”

But solving the conflict diplomatically has been an increasing challenge. ABS-CBN News reported that last week, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert Del Rosario spoke out against Chinese “duplicity” and “intimidation” in the South China Sea, noting that China failed to honor an agreement to pull out all ships from the shoal.

Exasperated all the more by failed efforts to have member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) talk about the Scarborough Shoal and come up with a joint communique, Del Rosario walked out. He protested against the supposed bias of host country Cambodia in favor of China.

It was the first ever for the 10-member organization, which is known for harmony and consensus in resolving crisis situations. Critics point out that the Cambodian government’s fear of offending China “somehow managed to trump all the others’ desire to send Beijing a stern message about its behavior in the South China Sea.”

If in case the sea dispute escalates into a shooting war, PNoy said on ANC that his government has been preparing for contingencies.

“We are preparing contingencies for that but we don’t think that is a likely possibility at this point, or [a] likely probability at this point. We will not add to the conditions that will set about such a situation. We will always endeavor to de-escalate and pursue that option of talking about this dispute and resolving it peacefully.”

But many Filipinos concede that should an all-out war erupt between China and the Philippines, the Aquino government is bound to lose without the help of the US military. While the Obama administration has repeatedly stated that it will not take any side on this issue, the Philippines is very much counting on the United States’ help as stipulated by the Mutual Defense Treaty, if China will attack the Philippines militarily.

Some kababayans, however, point out that Filipinos can retaliate against China by hitting it where it hurts most — economically.

As we reported on Balitang America, influential Fil-Am community leader Loida Nicholas Lewis is taking her boycott-China campaign on the road.

“I don’t want war to break out and we can influence world opinion against China if we just stick together and send emails, Facebook, Twitter to all our friends, Filipinos or Americans, that they should boycott made in China goods because China is acting like a bully,” Lewis explained.

Balitang America further reported that upon learning about Lewis’ call to boycott Chinese products, Chinese netizens have reportedly responded by calling for their own boycott against her 27 TLC Beatrice retail stores in China.

Lewis responded, “I sold it all several years ago so I don’t own it anymore. So it’s a good thing they know our tiny little country can affect them.”

Fil-Am organization US Pinoys for Good Governance (USP4GG) has been in the forefront of this fight against China’s so-called bullying over the Spartlys islands, and are staunch supporters of this call for boycott of Chinese-made products.

USP4GG President Rodel Rodis said, “The real target of China is the Recto Bank, because that’s where they discovered oil — about 200 billion gallons of oil, enough to take care of the energy need of China in the next century. If that oil is preserved for Filipinos [to]use, we will not need to send OFWs. We would be able to have a prosperous future for our people.”

Rodis acknowledges the difficulties of boycotting goods “made in China,” especially because of the high saturation of these products in the global market.

In my interview with Atty. Rodis on Balitang America, however, he said that “it is a matter of being conscious…There are alternatives to China-made products.”

Rodis clarified that the boycott is only for goods made in China, and not against the Chinese people, nor businesses owned by Chinese in the United States, the Philippines, and elsewhere around the world.

He also told Balitang America that Filipino-American community leaders are seeking to expand the boycott beyond the Filipino-American community.

“We are already in touch with the Vietnamese and Taiwanese communities…We are also concerned with those boycotting Chinese products for health reasons,” Rodis added, referring to reports in recent years that found toxic substances such as Melamine in certain food products manufactured in China.

Responding to concerns about possible further retaliation from China against the Philippines, Rodis said Filipinos should not worry, reminding kababayans it was China that started the move to boycott the Philippines (he was referring to the Philippine bananas issue). He added that Chinese nationals were recently discouraged from traveling to the Philippines.

“Huwag tayong matakot sa gagawin nila. Hindi natin sila kaya militarily,” he said. “Anong gagawin natin, susuko na lang?”

What do you think? Will you heed the call to boycott goods made in China to assert our sovereignty over the oil-rich Scarborough Shoal and protest against China’s bullying? Or as Rodis asked, “Susuko na lang ba tayo?”

* * *

Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos

http://www.asianjournal.com/op-ed/gel-santos-relos/16765-will-you-boycott-goods-from-china-to-protest-against-chinas-bullying.html

FacebookA judge refused to lift the house arrest for one of the youths charged with bullying Lennon Baldwin, who is pictured above.

MORRISTOWN — The trial for two 17-year-old students accused of bullying a 15-year old Morristown High School freshman, who later killed himself, is scheduled to begin Tuesday.

The non-jury trial will be held before Judge Michael Paul Wright in the Family Division of Superior Court in Morristown. The two are unnamed because they are being tried as juveniles.

The alleged bullying included assaulting Lennon Baldwin, persuading him to tell school officials the assault was a joke and then robbing him in a Morristown parking garage after one of the youths was suspended from school.

Although bullying itself is not a crime, the state’s tough new anti-bullying law, enacted in September, requires school officials to combat bullying incidents — even if they occur off school grounds — and to report incidents that involve criminal activities to law enforcement.

The law was enacted after the 2010 suicide of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, a gay Rutgers University freshman who was spied on via remote webcam during an intimate encounter with a man.

The Morristown trial, coming four months after the two teenagers were charged, seems swift compared with adult cases, which often take several years to reach the trial stage.

But the state sets different standards for juvenile cases and aims to resolve them within 90 days, according to court officials, so the timing here actually exceeds state guidelines.

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The alleged crimes involving Baldwin began on March 6, when a video camera at the high school captured one of the juveniles assaulting him, according to Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi.

Baldwin acquiesced to the student’s demands and told the dean of students the boys had just been horsing around, Bianchi said, but the school suspended the juvenile anyway.

On March 9 — the day after the suspension — the alleged assailant and a second teenager robbed Baldwin and told him it was punishment for the suspension, according to the prosecutor.

The two juveniles were taken to the Morris County Youth Detention Facility on March 22 and 23, Bianchi said, and were released under house arrest on March 27. Baldwin killed himself for unknown reasons at his Morris Township home the next day.

The juvenile accused of assaulting Baldwin at the high school and also participating in the parking garage incident faces charges including conspiracy to commit robbery, conspiracy to commit theft and simple assault.

The second juvenile is accused of robbery, terroristic threats and conspiracy to commit robbery.

Robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery — both second-degree crimes — are the most serious charges faced by the juveniles, and each carries a maximum sentence of three years at the Jamesburg Juvenile Detention Center. The youths have no prior records, so if convicted, they would be eligible for parole if their sentences involve incarceration and not just probation.

Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Samantha DeNegri will be handling the trial for the state. Public defenders Patricia Kay and Ana Tent represent the teens.

Also charged in the case is Michael Conway, 19, who is not accused of participating in the robbery but is charged with lying to police about the incident. He is being tried as an adult in Superior Court in Morristown, where his next court date is scheduled for July 31.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/07/trial_of_2_students_accused_of.html

Posted

July 18, 2012 00:22:15

Video: Bullying death sparks federal inquiry
(Lateline)

The family of a young woman who killed herself after being bullied has criticised the head of an employers’ group for saying new laws are not needed to deal with workplace bullying.

In 2006, 19-year-old waitress Brodie Panlock took her own life after being relentlessly bullied while working in a Melbourne cafe.

The young woman was verbally abused, spat on and held down by her co-workers while they poured fish sauce on her.

Her colleagues and the cafe owner were later fined more than $300,000 and the Victorian Government introduced changes to the Crimes Act known as Brodie’s law.

Under the law, workplace bullies can face up to 10 years in jail.

Then earlier this year Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a federal parliamentary inquiry into workplace bullying.

But Australian Federation of Employers and Industries chief executive Garry Brack says he remains opposed to the introduction of new anti-bullying legislation.

“If there are criminal incidents, there’s already a law there in the Crimes Act that can deal with this sort of stuff,” he told Lateline.

“We don’t want to see an expanded piece of legislation that makes it more difficult for employers to deal with incidents between human beings in the workplace which at best are very, very difficult to deal with at any time.”

Last week, Mr Brack appeared before the parliamentary inquiry and was asked if Brodie’s law was a political knee-jerk reaction by the Victorian Parliament.

He said there was no need to change the laws and the original case had been complicated by a workplace affair.

“There is a political response reflected in that legislation revolving around a tragedy where there was a love affair and that obviously went south and there’s a workplace environment which it seems may have been a place in which the circumstances were exacerbated,” he told the inquiry.

But Brodie’s family say their daughter suffered relentless, ongoing bullying in the workplace from a group of co-workers and the affair was only a minor part of the case.

“A loss of life; and we’re not just playing around with words – he’s put it off to the side that someone has had an affair or something along those lines. We’re talking about brutal bullying,” Brodie’s father Damian told Lateline.

But Mr Brack says the affair between the young woman and her manager is important context.

“It is a tragedy that it occurred, a young lady lost her life in the circumstances, but the fact is that part of the complicated environment in which all of that occurred was a love affair between the boss and the young lady concerned,” he said.

Nation-wide issue

Brodie’s mother Rae says Mr Brack has missed the point and anti-bullying laws are still needed in other states.

“I mean, bullying goes on in every state; it just doesn’t happen in Victoria, and we just want this to be a deterrent for serious cases of bullying,” she said.

South Australian Labor MP Amanda Rishworth is chair of the parliamentary inquiry and she says education is a key issue.

“I think that education is a particularly important issue and education for employees, but also for management to make sure they’ve got policies and procedures to actually deal with workplace bullying,” she said.

“To take a preventative attitude rather than let it become a problem and have to deal with it when you’ve got two employees or a supervisor and an employee that are not able to work together. To see this as a preventative issue I think is really critically important.”

The inquiry will report to Federal Parliament in November.

Topics:
bullying,
education,
work,
community-and-society,
melbourne-3000,
vic,
australia

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-18/employer-group-questions-need-for-workplace-bullying-law/4137282

No one believes children should be bullied in school, no matter what the genesis of the bullying. But to think that somehow Congress could stop playground taunting, middle-school teasing, or insults leveled through social media is illogical. Yet Representatives Sheila Jackson Lee (D–TX) and Lamar Smith (R–TX) think they can do just that by expanding Juvenile Accountability Block Grants to include school bullying.

The proposal includes a “sense of Congress” provision that states “that the use of best practices in the effort to combat bullying should be encouraged.” It also establishes accountability-based programs designed to prevent bullying, including cyber bullying.

Interest in bullying prevention is not new. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights took up the topic last fall and recommended more federal intervention in bullying prevention. Several members of the commission dissented from the report’s recommendations, arguing that the federal government is an inappropriate vehicle for bullying prevention. “I do not believe that controlling unacceptable student behavior in schools is—as the cliché runs—rocket science,” said commission vice chair Abigail Thernstrom. She continued:

I have spent much time in both orderly and disorderly schools. In those that are well run and have a culture truly devoted to education, no student even thinks of harassing peers or teachers—the latter often being a serious problem. The inmates do not run the asylum where there are clear messages about who is in charge, and about acceptable and unacceptable behavior. In orderly, disciplined schools, there is no running in the halls, fights between students, disrespectful language used in talking to other students or to teachers.…

School culture is something that only schools can set. Values cannot be imposed from above or outside. It is very difficult to see how the federal government can play a major role in stopping bullying in hundreds of thousands of schools across the land.

The Heritage Foundation’s Todd Gaziano, also a member of the commission, noted that some advocates of federal anti-bullying legislation claim it is necessary because state laws fail to prevent bullying:

If so, what makes them think more federal laws would work? For example, every state prohibits theft with severe penalties, but thefts still occur. Does that mean state theft laws are “not working?” Would a general federal theft law prevent them?

Teachers and principals are in the best position to establish discipline standards in their classrooms and schools, and they need more authority to do so. As federal intervention in education has grown, so too has congressional micro-management of schools. In order to give teachers and principals the authority to set discipline standards, that congressional overreach needs to be rolled back, and states should be allowed the flexibility to put education funding where it is most needed.

Federal policymakers should work to free states from the many regulations dictating how they spend education funding and allow states to put that money toward any lawful education purpose under state law. Proposals such as the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (A-PLUS) Act do just that and would allow states to prioritize programs like bullying prevention if they deemed it a priority.

Better still, states could allow funding to become portable, following a child to any school of his or her parents’ choice, where they can be confident of the culture and values that will provide a positive learning environment. And school choice could very well be the best possible anti-bullying program.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/07/10/an-anti-bullying-agenda-for-congress/

”Who is that man who’s staring at you so angrily?” asked a customer of Evelyn Lee in the department store where she was a sales associate.

It was her boss — the same one, she said, who criticized her within customers’ earshot on topics that didn’t earn lectures for other employees. He threatened to fire her, took away her hours and denied her the chance to earn more by opening sales accounts.

“It did suck the fun out of work,” said Lee, 61, of Rialto. “There were times it made me angry.”

Lee’s treatment is a case of workplace bullying, in the news lately following a Riverside County grand jury report on a division of the county’s human resources department.

The Bellingham, Wash.-based Workplace Bullying Institute defines workplace bullying as “repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons … by one or more perpetrators.” It includes verbal abuse, threatening conduct or sabotage that interferes with someone’s ability to work.

“It’s only a focus on the negative and it’s unjustified based on the performance,” said Gary Namie, a psychologist and the institute’s director. “It’s about this unearned, uninvited domination.”

According to the grand jury report, a group of recruiters in a county temp worker program were derisively referred to by their supervisors as “the wild, wild West” and singled out for harsh treatment, even though other county departments were satisfied with their work.

The report found workplace bullying was “pervasive” in the program and “caused fear and intimidation among employees.”

County officials are looking into the grand jury’s findings. They expect to issue a formal response by the end of July.

Not racist or sexist

Research into workplace bullying started in Scandinavia in the 1980s, Namie said. Australia, Sweden, Great Britain and France are among the countries with anti-workplace bullying laws, but to date, no U.S. state has one, according to the institute.

Workplace bullying is different in most cases from racial or sexual harassment, Namie said. Anti-discrimination laws apply only if the harasser and target are of different races or genders, he said, adding that right now, there’s no legal recourse for 80 percent of the workplace bullying taking place.

Often, workplace bullying targets are veteran workers whose skills and status make bullies feel threatened or jealous, Namie said. “People will slide into (the bully) role very easily” if it helps them get ahead, he said, adding higher-ups often ignore or encourage the bullying.

Spreading rumors, telling others to shun someone, closed-door berating sessions and using staff meetings to embarrass workers are forms of bullying, Namie said. Bullies can also deny access to training or technology that targets need to do their job, he said.

The grand jury report on county HR described documents that “showed disrespect to employees beyond what would be considered reasonable.” Employees who admitted inadvertent errors were “later reprimanded and accused of making the mistakes intentionally,” the report read.

1 in 3 bullied?

Thirty-five percent of adult Americans reported being bullied at work, according to institute-commissioned surveys conducted in 2007 and 2010. Seventy-two percent of bullies are bosses and bullies are more likely to be men and 64 percent of bullying is same-gender, the surveys found.

Victims of workplace bullying suffer from a range of physical and mental ailments, according to the institute. “(The stress) changes the brain,” Namie said. “People get sicker and sicker. Meanwhile they try to tough it out.”

Howard Golds, a partner in the labor and employment practice group of the Riverside firm Best Best Krieger, said “equal opportunity bullying” is a problem that’s often mistaken for discrimination.

“We see employers who are sued for discrimination and what’s really going on is you have a supervisor who doesn’t conduct themselves very well,” he said. “Oftentimes you have a situation, when the facts emerge, the person charged with discrimination treats everyone (badly).”

Jack Brown, chairman and chief executive officer of Stater Bros., one of the Inland region’s largest employers, said he’s not aware of workplace bullying among the supermarket chain’s 18,000 employees.

Managers and union shop stewards are at every store and Stater Bros. has a “very, very strong harassment policy,” Brown said. “We permit no use of unbecoming language between employees or certainly between supervision and employees.”

In an email, Tracy Silveria, spokeswoman for Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents about 5,800 county workers, wrote her union “is very concerned about workplace bullying and has worked proactively to help members identify, report, and correct incidents of bullying.

“We welcome working with Riverside County human resources in addressing some of the issues that the recent grand jury report identified, and will continue to advocate for a positive work environment free of bullying behavior.”

Law needed?

Namie’s institute wants states to pass “healthy workplace bills” to crack down on workplace bullying. The bills would legally define an abusive workplace environment and allow abused employees to sue, provided they meet certain legal standards.

“It’s going to take a law to get these employers to do what they should be doing anyway,” Namie said.

Versions of the bill have been introduced in 21 states — California being the first in 2003, according to the institute. But so far, no state has passed healthy workplace legislation, Namie said.

Suzanne Lucas, a human resources professional who runs “Evil HR Lady,” a blog on HR topics, maintains workplace bullying legislation isn’t needed.

“Basically, legislation won’t stop the bullying and will be an added expense on businesses,” she wrote in an email. “The best thing to curb bullying is to have a robust job market. If you can get another job easily, you can just leave if bullying begins …”

“Additionally, definable (workplace bullying) is debatable and largely relies on the feelings of the victim. If there’s a good, legal bullying definition out there I’ve yet to see one.”

Lee lost her job at the department store after it went out of business.

“It was definitely easier to come into work on the days my boss wasn’t there,” she said.

Follow Jeff Horseman on Twitter: @JeffHorseman

http://www.pe.com/local-news/topics/topics-health-care-headlines/20120708-workplace-bullying-experts-say-protection-needed.ece

Stuart Bradford

For many teenagers navigating the social challenges of high school, the ultimate goal is to become part of the “popular” crowd.

But new research suggests that the road to high school popularity can be treacherous, and that students near the top of the social hierarchy are often both perpetrators and victims of aggressive behavior involving their peers.

The latest findings, being published this month in The American Sociological Review, offer a fascinating glimpse into the social stratification of teenagers. The new study, along with related research from the University of California, Davis, also challenges the stereotypes of both high school bully and victim.

Highly publicized cases of bullying typically involve chronic harassment of socially isolated students, but the latest studies suggest that various forms of teenage aggression and victimization occur throughout the social ranks as students jockey to improve their status.

The findings contradict the notion of the school bully as maladjusted or aggressive by nature. Instead, the authors argue that when it comes to mean behavior, the role of individual traits is “overstated,” and much of it comes down to concern about status.

“Most victimization is occurring in the middle to upper ranges of status,” said the study’s author, Robert Faris, an assistant professor of sociology at U.C. Davis. “What we think often is going on is that this is part of the way kids strive for status. Rather than going after the kids on the margins, they might be targeting kids who are rivals.”

Educators and parents are often unaware of the daily stress and aggression with which even socially well-adjusted students must cope.

“It may be somewhat invisible,” Dr. Faris said. “The literature on bullying has so focused on this one dynamic of repeated chronic antagonism of socially isolated kids that it ignores these other forms of aggression. It’s entirely possible that one act, one rumor spread on the Internet could be devastating.”

In a series of studies, some still awaiting publication, the U.C. Davis researchers asked 3,722 eighth to 10th graders in three counties in North Carolina to name their five best friends. Then the students were asked whether they had ever been a target of aggressive behavior by their peers — including physical violence, verbal abuse and harassment, rumors and gossip, or ostracism — and whether they had engaged in such behavior themselves.

The researchers used the data to construct complex social maps of the schools, tracking groups of friends and identifying the students who were consistently at the hub of social life. “It’s not simply the number of friends the kid has, it’s who their friends are,” Dr. Faris said. “The kids we’re talking about are right in the middle of things.”

Using the maps, the researchers tracked the students most often accused of aggressive behavior. They found that increases in social status were associated with subsequent increases in aggression. But notably, aggressive behavior peaked at the 98th percentile of popularity and then dropped.

“At the very top you start to see a reversal — the kids in the top 2 percent are less likely to be aggressive,” Dr. Faris said. “The interpretation I favor is that they no longer need to be aggressive because they’re at the top, and further aggression could be counterproductive, signaling insecurity with their social position.

“It’s possible that they’re incredibly friendly and everybody loves them and they were never mean, but I’m not so convinced by that, because there are so many kids right behind them in the hierarchy who are highly aggressive.”

Over all, the research shows that about a third of students are involved in aggressive behavior. In another paper presented last year, Dr. Faris reported that most teenage aggression is directed at social rivals — “maybe one rung ahead of you or right beneath you,” as he put it, “rather than the kid who is completely unprotected and isolated.”

“It’s not to say those kids don’t get picked on, because they do,” he said. “But the overall rate of aggression seems to increase as status goes up. What it suggests is that a student thinks they get more benefit to going after somebody who is a rival.”

The research offers a road map for educators struggling to curb bullying and aggression both inside and outside of school. One option may be to enlist the support of students who aren’t engaged in bullying — those at the very top of the social ladder, and the two-thirds who don’t bully.

Richard Gallagher, director of the Parenting Institute at the New York University Child Study Center, said the research added to a growing body of scientific literature documenting the role that popularity plays in aggressive teasing and bullying behavior.

“It does highlight that it’s a typical behavior that’s used in establishing social networks and status,” said Dr. Gallagher, an associate professor of child and adolescent psychiatry. “Schools and parents need to be tuned into this as a behavior that occurs all the time. It means that school districts need to have policies that deal with this, and I think it means also that we need to turn to the adolescents for some of the solutions.”

Dr. Gallagher said that although results had been mixed, some research showed that schools could reduce bullying and aggression by enlisting the help of students as well as administrators.

“It’s not likely to eliminate it completely, but it’s likely to decrease its occurrence,” he said. “The programs that have been successful are the ones that get kids to stop being passive bystanders who go along with teasing or bullying. Efforts have been made to get the popular kids to say, ‘This is not cool.’ ”

Dr. Faris said he planned to conduct new research that would match the social maps with yearbooks to better document a school’s social hierarchy. A related study, he added, also suggests that it’s not just popularity that influences aggressive behavior, but how much the student cares about being popular.

“Historically, all the attention has been on the mental health deficiencies of the bullies,” he said. “We need to direct more attention to how aggression is interwoven into the social fabric of these schools.”

http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=56da112436fb9e0dba3afafdc486ed90