The theoretical and empirical links between bullying behavior and male sexual violence perpetration

Bullying experiences and male sexual violence (SV) perpetration are major public health problems, and while extant literature suggests that they may share some developmental correlates, there is no established empirical link between being a perpetrator or victim of bullying and SV perpetration in the literature. Nonetheless, some SV prevention programs in the U.S. include bullying prevention components for elementary and middle-school aged children. Research is needed to test the hypothesized links between bullying experiences and SV perpetration to determine whether bullying prevention programs are likely to prevent SV perpetration. The purpose of this paper is to present results from a review of research on each of these topics and to discuss the potential shared and unique risk and protective factors within a social-ecological framework. The paper concludes with suggested directions for future research

Understanding the Complexity of School Bully Involvement

Bullying perpetration and victimization are issues of increasing concern for researchers, educators, clinicians, parents and youth today. Bullying broadly refers to aggressive behaviors including physical aggression (hitting, shoving, tripping, etc.), verbal aggression (teasing, name-calling, threatening) as well as relational aggression (rumor spreading, exclusion, isolation from clique). Bullying is thought to differ from normal peer conflict in that it is often repeated and involves a difference in power between the bully and victim. Bullying behaviors also extend to the use of the internet and cell-phones to harass and intimidate recipients. Bullying through these mediums is commonly referred to as cyberbullying. Although initially studied in the context of schools, bullying research has since been extended to sibling relationships, workplace interactions and dating and intimate relationships

Updated Perspectives on Linking School Bullying and Related Youth Violence Research to Effective Prevention Strategies

Bullying, a subset of aggression, has been an international focus of scholarship for several decades and has been declared as public health concern globally (Espelage, 2015; Hymel & Espelage, 2018; Kann et al., 2018). An abstract literature search with the terms “adol*” and “bully*” yielded 382 peer-reviewed journal articles from 2001 through 2010, and an astounding 1585 articles from 2011 through 2020. Within the last decade, there has been a concerted effort among scholars to reach a consensus on how bullying should be defined, operationalized, and assessed, how it differs from other forms of aggression (e.g., dating violence), and how it relates to other forms of violence across early and late adolescence (Rodkin et al., 2015; Volk et al., 2017). In 2011, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) convened a group of international scholars and unanimously agreed that “Bullying is any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying may inflict harm or distress on the targeted youth including physical, psy­chological, social, or educational harm” (Gladden et al., 2014, p. 7)

Does Peer Rejection Moderate the Associations among Cyberbullying Victimization, Depression, and Anxiety among Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder?

While the consequences of cyberbullying victimization have received some attention in the literature, to date, little is known about the multiple types of strains in adolescents’ lives, such as whether cyberbullying victimization and peer rejection increase their vulnerability to depression and anxiety. Even though some research found that adolescents with disabilities show higher risk for cyberbullying victimization, most research has focused on typically developing adolescents. Thus, the present study focused on examining the moderating effect of peer rejection in the relationships between cyberbullying victimization, depression, and anxiety among adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. There were 128 participants (89% male; ages ranging from 11–16 years old) with autism spectrum disorder in the sixth, seventh, or eighth grade at 16 middle schools in the United States. Participants completed questionnaires on cyberbullying victimization, peer rejection, depression, and anxiety. Results revealed that cyberbullying victimization was associated positively with peer rejection, anxiety, and depression among adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. Further, peer rejection was linked positively with depression and anxiety. Peer rejection moderated the positive relationship between cyberbullying victimization and depression, but not anxiety. Implications for prevention programs and future research are discussed

Cyberbullying Victimization: Associations with Other Victimization Forms and Psychological Distress

Cyberbullying has gained increasing attention over the past decade, in part driven by significant media coverage on this topic.\u27 While media attention has increased, prevalence rates derived from national and local surveys indicate that cyberbullying is a less common experience among youth than traditional bullying. Nonetheless, a significant number of youth experience both cyberbullying and its deleterious effects, and additional research is needed to guide nascent prevention and intervention efforts. In particular, existing research does not clarify the extent to which cyberbullying overlaps with traditional bullying or other forms of victimization that children might encounter in their schools, homes, and communities. Further, few studies have focused on the extent to which cyberbullying contributes to psychological distress when combined with other victimization exposures. To that end, the goals of the current investigation were to, (1) assess rates of cyberbullying victimization by sex, age, and race/ethnicity; (2) examine the overlap between cyberbullying victimization and traditional bullying; (3) evaluate the overlap between cyberbullying victimization and other victimization forms, and (4) determine the extent to which cyberbullying victimization alone and in conjunction with other victimization exposures is associated with psychological distress. Given the limited research base on these issues, and at times divergent findings (e.g., with respect to sex differences), the investigation was largely exploratory. However, we expected to find a significant association between cyber and traditional bullying

So you want to study bullying?:Recommendations to enhance the validity, transparency, and compatibility of bullying research

Bullying is a serious problem that affects millions of individuals worldwide each year. In response to this, thousands of research articles have been published on bullying. Unfortunately, much of bullying research remains largely atheoretical in its approach to defining bullying as a unique form of aggression. Another key problem in bullying research is the proliferation of heterogeneity of bullying measures whose validity is sometimes questionable. Combined, these two problems have made progress difficult as comparisons between studies and results are impeded by a lack of commonality. As a solution to these problems a discussion of the issues surrounding defining and measuring bullying is offered. This paper aims to promote thoughts and insights about the critical issues and concepts facing those who seek to define and measure bullying for research, intervention, or policy work. Although suggestions for best practices are offered, the overriding goal is to promote all practices that enhance the validity, transparency, and compatibility of bullying research. The time seems right for a general call to action for researchers to individually produce data that are both theoretically and empirically more communicable to the broader bullying community

Towards net zero: making baselines for international carbon markets dynamic by applying ‘ambition coefficients’

This paper discusses options to increase mitigation ambition in crediting mechanisms that serve the Paris Agreement (PA), such as the Article 6.4 mechanism. Under the Clean Development Mechanism and other crediting mechanisms, baselines have been specified in the form of greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity factors and linked to business-as-usual developments. This means that with increasing production of goods and services through carbon market activities, absolute emissions may increase or fall only slowly. At a global level, such an approach widens the ‘emissions gap’. To enable continued use of emissions intensity baselines in crediting mechanisms while being in line with the PA’s goal to pursue efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C, we propose to apply an ‘ambition coefficient’ to emissions intensities of technologies when establishing the baseline. This coefficient would decrease to reflect increasing ambition over time, and reach zero when a country needs to reach net zero emissions. Due to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, the coefficient would fall more quickly for developed than for developing countries. The latter would be able to generate emission reduction credits well beyond 2050, while for the former, crediting would stop around 2035 or before. An ambition coefficient approach would generate certainty for carbon market investors and preserve trust in international carbon markets that operate in line with the agreed, long-term ambition of the international climate regime

Bullying and Students with Disabilities: The Untold Narrative

The documentary Bully was released nationwide in theaters in March 2012. Originally titled The Bully Project, the filmmakers followed five families whose lives had been turned upside down by bullying. Two of the families in the movie lost their sons, Tyler and Ty, to suicide, and three of the youth in the movie,Alex, Kelby, and Ja'Meya, were bullied in school and on the school bus. The movie shows the devastating consequences of bullying and the depressingly poor response on the part of adults. What the movie does not address is the mental health history of one of the boys, who commits suicide, as well as the developmental disabilities affecting another boy in the movie, who was born prematurely (Bazelon, 2012). Understandably, this is a difficult narrative. The filmmakers did not want to delve into the complexity of mental health issues and bullying for fear of creating a story line that those who are bullied are obvious victims. However, by not addressing the issues of ADHD, bipolar disorder, Asperger syndrome, and developmental disabilities, an important narrative was missed. Bullying is a complex phenomenon, and both mental health and physical health difficulties play into involvement in bullying. While there is no narrative that those who are bullied somehow deserve such egregious treatment, we shirk our professional responsibilities if we do not shed light on the compelling evidence that youth with disabilities are at great risk for involvement in bullying-both for bullying others and for being bullied (AbilityPath.org, 2011; Rose, Monda-Amaya, & Espelage, 2011). The purpose of this article is to review the research on bullying and students with disabilities and to propose an inclusive narrative: when differences are celebrated rather than used as fuel for maltreatment, a world will be created where bullying is not tolerated. This will be a better world for everyone

Best available technology and benchmark base-line setting under the Article 6.4 mechanism

This study, commissioned by the Swedish Energy Agency, analyses lessons learned and explores benefits and challenges of applying benchmarks derived from “best available technology” assessments in international market-based cooperation. While there is limited experience in international carbon markets, it is proposed as a baseline setting approach for the Article 6.4 mechanism to increase the mitigation ambition of the mechanism and the share of mitigation that is retained by the host country