Bullying and Academic Performance

Bullying and Academic Performance

A school is a social place aside from a learning institution where some adolescent students are victims of peer harassment, which affects the main reason they are in school. Generally, many students, if not all, go to schools to pursue an academic career (Mbah, 2020). The education journey is rich with important goals but, more often than not, challenging because of the social construct issues that lay the grounds for bullying in the school environment. Mbah finds that since the 1990s, schools have been characterized not only by learning but also by peer harassment of victims. Bullying is one of the social problems, and statistics show that in every three people, one or more has experienced bullying socially, verbally, physically, or altogether. (Mbah, 2020). Many research studies have shown that bullying has both indirect and direct impacts on the victim and the perpetrator and may lead to poor academic performance, especially because of these impacts. Therefore, bullying has been empirically proven to cause emotional, psychological, and social problems that ultimately may affect the victim’s normal activities, including academic performance.

Adolescents have always tried to find themselves and their worth in society. Society has dictated what constitutes self-worth, and academic excellence is one of them. Many parents consider academic achievement as the solitary most important success indicator for their children, and they often overlook the factors of psychological and physical development (Yu et al., 2006). Yu et al. (2017) find that most parents and teachers praise students who perform well in class, and those who do not meet these standards are openly or subtly considered rebellious, slow, or inattentive. Based on this, adolescents often attribute their self-worth to academic performance. When adolescents do not get the necessary self-worth in their daily lives, they tend to find alternative ways to enhance their self-worth, like indulging in the online world, joining gangs, or bullying others (Yu et al., 2017). The slide into internet addictive behaviors is often a sound ground to becoming a bully or to be bullied. This diverts them to what brought them to school as they try to cover up for what they are not good at.

Academic advancement is a significant task for adolescents (Xiong et al., 2020). Many societies consider this a great contribution to self-worth. For instance, in Chinese culture, becoming a scholar is seen as being at the top of society. With this, Chinese society has a rigorous exam-based model that makes educational accomplishment more crucial to a person’s self-worth (Xiong et al., 2020). A research study that compared different kinds of achievers discovered that academic achievers who were also great at athletics performance and those who were mere academic achievers showed higher self-esteem than the pure athletic achievers only and low academic achievers/non-athletic (Yu et al., 2006). When academic excellence is not achieved, adolescents tend to find compensatory means that would contribute to their self-worth (Yu et al., 2017). Research also shows that bullies resort to bullying so that they can gain dominance, popularity, and superiority to compensate for their low achievements. This is based on the self-worth orientation theory, where there are compensation mechanisms where one resource is lacking, and other resources take the compensatory role (Xiong et al., 2020).

Bullying perpetrators look for specific characteristics in their targets. Self-worth orientation theory shows that self-worth is centrally derived from support systems, including social status, personal achievement, and trust and acceptance from others (Xiong et al., 2020). Thus, adolescents perceive social support as a moderator of the effect of academic performance on bullying behavior. Adolescents who look gullible and dress differently from others may be easily targeted because of their differences and excellence in other areas, like the academic section. Xiong et al. (2020) find that the perpetrators have usually studied their targets and identified areas they could attack, such as academic strength, dress, looks, age, social status, self-perception, and extracurricular activities. Xiong et al. (2020) research study further show that juvenile delinquents who did not have support from their peers, schools, and families in their normal life often turned to socially deprived groups to retain their identity. Kowalski & Limber (2013) found that when the road to pursuing self-worth in the real world was obstructed, juveniles have a tendency to resort to the virtual world on the internet to uphold their self-worth and manipulate other people’s psychological status to manipulate, exercise domination and power over them.

Human beings are socialized and reasonable beings, and self-worth is the incentive that drives human behavior (Yu et al., 2017). Perceived social support is, therefore, a crucial source of self-worth. Research shows that when children are in middle school, social support acts as a buffer that prevents or reduces psychological pressure and happenings of bullying and aggression and also moderates the effect of low academic performance on bullying. However, Xiong et al. (2020) find that social support can also contribute to bullying as a popular behavior as opposed to undesirable behavior. Adolescent bullies who have strong social support have been found not to value academics as much, but they use bullying to retain their social status (Reijntjes, 2010). Thus, the purpose of bullying is to pursue self-value, acceptance, and respect. Even when the target outshines them in the academic area, the perpetrators can shine in the social status area.

In conclusion, bullying is a form of finding self-worth while destroying others’ self-worth, affecting them in the area they consider important. When adolescents find out that they can no longer perform well academically, research has shown that they find alternative means, such as gaining social support to undermine those who excel academically to dominate or be superior to them. As seen in middle school, social support attenuates the effect of low academic achievement on bullying. However, among adolescents, especially in high school, social support has proven to aggravate the influence of low academic attainment on bullying.

References

Kowalski, R. M., & Limber, S. P. (2013). Psychological, physical, and academic correlates of cyberbullying and traditional bullying. Journal of Adolescent Health, 53(1), S13-S20.

Mbah, R. M. (2020). The perception of students about school bullying and how it affects academic performance in Cameron (Doctoral dissertation, Memorial University of Newfoundland).

Reijntjes, A., Kamphuis, J. H., Prinzie, P., & Telch, M. J. (2010). Peer victimization and internalizing problems in children: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Child abuse & neglect, 34(4), 244-252.

Xiong, Q., Shi, S., Chen, J., Hu, Y., Zheng, X., Li, C., & Yu, Q. (2020). Examining the link between academic achievement and adolescent bullying: a moderated moderating model. Psychology research and behavior management, 13, 919.

Yu, C. C. W., Chan, S., Cheng, F., Sung, R. Y. T., & Hau, K. T. (2006). Are physical activity and academic performance compatible? Academic achievement, conduct, physical activity and self‐esteem of Hong Kong Chinese primary school children. Educational Studies, 32(4), 331-341.

Yu, Q., Zhang, L., Wu, S., Guo, Y., Jin, S., & Sun, Y. (2017). The influence of juvenile preference for online social interaction on problematic Internet use: The moderating effect of sibling condition and the moderated moderating effect of age cohort. Computers in Human Behavior, 68, 345-351.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

attached are the outline and proposal for this paper

Bullying and Academic Performance

Be sure to use 3 or 4 scholarly resources to help support your position. Also, tie in relevant psych theory in your discussion. Make predictions on the topic in the conclusion; please use in-text citation.