School bullying in the Jamaican context through an ecological lens

Abstract

Childhood bullying is a grave breach of children’s human rights and a serious public health issue. The phenomenon has warranted research attention in developed societies and shown to have serious short- and long-term implications for individuals, families, and society as a whole. This article provides an overview of the school bullying phenomenon in Jamaica. Using the scant data from that context, we conclude that there is a high prevalence of bullying in Jamaican schools. Furthermore, a separate body of literature, albeit meager, has indicated an elevated incidence of mental health challenges among Jamaican children. Taken together, there is a compelling need for comprehensive anti-bullying policies and programs to reduce the level of violence to which children are exposed and involved. We offer theoretical and data-driven anti-bullying suggestions that have proven useful in preventing and reducing bullying in schools, and perhaps ultimately the wider society.

Keywords

bullying children culture ecological theory Jamaica youth

Introduction

Bullying is a global phenomenon that transcends geographic borders and demographic groupings. Bullying is not only a public health problem but also a serious breach of children’s human rights (Elgar et al., 2015; Nansel et al., 2004; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 2016). As implied in Article 19 under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), protecting children from bullying should be a human rights imperative of all societies (UNESCO, 2016; United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 2014a). The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the prevailing bullying literature with the aim of bringing attention to the prevalence and scope of bullying and peer victimization within the Jamaican context. Notably, Jamaica lags behind many countries regarding research on school bullying, and despite recent local interest in its occurrence, pertinent research activity has not been as intense as it ought to be (Hudson-Davis et al., 2015). Therefore, little is known about its prevalence, scope, and consequences in Jamaica because the bullying has not been viewed as the serious problem contemporary social scientists purport it to be (Hudson-Davis et al., 2015; Ruprah and Sierra, 2014). Therefore, much of the information presented here is extrapolated from international studies. We provide a background of the Jamaican context and summarize the scant literature on the prevalence and scope of bullying in that setting. Pursuant to that, we review the pertinent international literature on the consequences of bully involvement and use ecological systems framework to contextualize and organize the ways multiple potential correlates of bullying within the Jamaican context. Finally, we discuss the implications of bullying in that setting and offer suggestions regarding evidence-based anti-bullying programs.

Definition of bullying

Bullying is any pervasive harmful or aggressive behavior of an individual or group toward another. Its purpose is to inflict harm or discomfort on the target and constitutes a real or perceived imbalance of power, with the power favoring the perpetrator (UNESCO, 2016; UNICEF, 2014b). Bullying, a form of youth violence, is broadly delineated into four categories: physical, verbal, social, and cyberbullying. Physical bullying involves inflicting harm to another’s body or damaging his or her property. Verbal bullying is the use of words to instill emotional pain; it includes hurtful comments, insults, and teasing. Social bullying involves behaviors that are meant to sabotage or damage a person’s social standing or reputation; examples are malicious rumormongering and social exclusion. Cyberbullying encompasses the use of electronic or digital communication to intimidate others; often it is done via emails, text messaging, and social media sites (UNESCO, 2016). Bullying can occur in any context (e.g. home, school, workplace), but the research literature on bullying has overwhelmingly focused on bullying within the context of school. Likewise, this review is centered on peer bullying among Jamaican school-aged children and adolescents. Unless otherwise specified, we use the term bullying to refer to school bullying. This article is particularly concerned with the exposure of Jamaican children and young people to various forms of violence and their potential contribution to bullying.

Background and context

As in many societies worldwide, bullying in the Jamaican setting has historically been (and continues to be) regarded as a normal childhood rite of passage and therefore not considered violence per se (Hudson-Davis et al., 2015; Major-Campbell, 2016). Reportedly, there is a cultural tradition of physical, verbal, and psychological abuse that is deemed innocuous and necessary for building character and mental toughness (Jones et al., 2008). Therefore, customs such as “… name calling and the labeling of others as ‘sissies’ and informers if they complained that others have hurt them” (p. 407) invariably goes without question and what Major-Campbell (2016) blamed for cultivating “the monster of bullying” in Jamaican society. In fact, participants in one study of school-aged children (UNICEF, 2015) underscored the virtues of bullying: it “will make the victim stronger, toughen them up, and build them” (p. 25). However, contemporary family and child professionals have advised strongly against bullying being regarded as harmless conflictual interactions that help children build character and mental strength. They have advocated instead for bullying to be regarded as violence and viewed as a predictor of long-term deleterious psychosocial outcomes (Gini and Espelage, 2014; Nansel et al., 2004; Ruprah and Sierra, 2014; UNESCO, 2016).

Prevalence and scope of bullying

Findings on bullying prevalence vary widely as a function of factors such as definition of the concept, age of children studied, and the frequency of the bullying behavior. However, there is consensus among researchers that a significant number of children and youth are involved in bullying. Worldwide, an average of 33% of school-aged students between 13 and 15 years report being victims of bullying on a regular basis, and in Europe and North America, 31% of adolescents aged 11–15 years admitted to bullying others at school in the past couple of months (UNICEF, 2014b). However, the sparse Jamaican data on bullying appear to indicate that the Jamaican prevalence rates exceed those reported in many other societies. For example, Ruprah and Sierra (2014) using data from the Global School Health Survey to compare rates of bully victimization in seven Caribbean countries reported that the Jamaican sample registered the highest rate (40%) of bullying. Hudson-Davis et al. (2015) employed a convenience sample of 153 elementary-aged students, nine teachers, and 26 parents from three Jamaican public schools to capture their views on the prevalence of bullying at their respective schools. In that study, 65% of students indicated that physical bullying was a daily occurrence at their school and 67% reported that verbal bullying occurred daily. Overwhelmingly, teachers (90%) agreed that children experienced physical and psychological bullying daily at their school. Notably, all (100%) the parents considered bullying a major problem and bemoaned the fact that school was no longer fun for children because of bullying. Findings from a national study (UNICEF, 2015) of bullying in grades 1–12 also indicated very high rates of bullying in Jamaican schools; 65% of the 1867 students surveyed reported having ever been bullied and 70% of those who indicated having been bullied experienced those episodes over the past school year. School personnel confirmed students’ reports of bullying in that 80% of school staff knew of children who were being bullied in their respective schools and nearly all (93%) noted that such incidents had taken place in the last school year. Furthermore, an inordinately high proportion (93.4%) of students indicated that they had witnessed their peers being verbally (57%) and physically (31%) bullied at school. Undoubtedly, the suggested high rates of bullying within the Jamaican context coupled with international research findings on the adverse effects of bully involvement are cause for concern.

Consequences of bullying involvement

The empirical literature has shown that the adverse short- and long-term impact of bullying on both victims and perpetrators are enormous. Fleming and Jacobsen (2010) studied bullying victimization of middle-school students in 19 low- and middle-income countries and found that across all countries, compared to their non-bullied peers, students who reported being bullied more often reported feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and suicidality and higher rates of health risk behaviors such as substance use and abuse. A meta-analysis of 34 cross-sectional studies of bullying (Gini and Espelage, 2014) indicated robust positive associations among peer bully victimization, suicidal ideation, and suicidal attempts among children and adolescents. Across 25 countries, any bully involvement was associated with greater health problems and poorer emotional and social adjustment (Nansel et al., 2004), and in Copeland et al.’s (2013) US sample, any bullying involvement was associated with long-term adverse outcomes including poor general health, low educational attainment, poor wealth status, and adverse psychosocial outcomes in adulthood. Hemphill et al. (2014) reported from their study of bully perpetration and victimization in Australia and the United States that bullies were four times more likely than their non-bullying peers to engage in non-violent antisocial behaviors in adulthood and two times more likely to engage in violent behaviors in adulthood. Victims of bullying, on the other hand, were three times more likely than the comparison group of non-victims to experience internalizing symptomatology such as depression. According to the American Society for the Positive Care of Children (ASPCC, 2016), compared to their non-bullying peers, a bully perpetrator is six times more likely to be incarcerated by age 24 years and five times more likely to be engaged in serious criminal activity in adulthood. It is instructive that two-thirds of children who are victims of bullying themselves become bullies (ASPCC, 2016).

As noted earlier, research on bullying in the Jamaica context is scant, and thus, inferential findings on the consequences of bully involvement are limited. However, two studies asked school-aged participants about their perceptions of the impact of bullying. In one study (UNICEF, 2015), nearly half (46%) of students thought bullying was a significant contributing factor to violent crimes (e.g. homicides), fighting (19.07%), violence (12.43%), and suicide (8.14%). In the other study (Hudson-Davis et al., 2015), 81% of students felt that bullying affected victims’ academic performance and 85% thought that bullying might make students want to skip school. Overwhelmingly, teachers (88%) thought victims had worse outcomes than perpetrators.

We could locate no research linking bullying and Jamaican children’s socioemotional functioning. However, it is worth noting that in 2010, nearly one-third (31%) of those treated for attempted suicide in Jamaica’s public hospitals were children and youth under 19 years old; 21.1% females and 23.1% males aged 13–15 years admitted to attempting suicide (UNICEF, n.d.). Moreover, a separate body of research has shown that mental distress is extraordinarily high among the Jamaican populace. For example, 20% of Jamaican students are reportedly at risk of suicide (Morgan, 2015) and 41% of the Jamaican population purportedly suffers from varying degrees of personality disorders (Hickling and Walcott, 2013). In Wilks et al.’s study (cited in Hickling and Walcott, 2013), almost half (49%) of respondents in one community survey reported “feeling down or depressed.” Clearly, a definitive link has not been shown between the prevalence of bullying in Jamaica and the mental state of society. However, given the cultural tradition of bullying in that society and the documented evidence of the immediate and prolonged detrimental effects of bullying globally, it is plausible that bullying may contribute to the observed maladjusted functioning of children and adults (Hudson-Davis et al., 2015; UNICEF, 2008, 2015). Moreover, owing to the reported high prevalence of bullying in the Jamaican context, it is conceivable that children who are bullied would present similar mental health challenges as shown globally. Undoubtedly, there is a pressing need for local empirical studies on the associations between bullying and child outcomes.

In addition to the human toll of bullying, the estimated financial costs are staggering. However, deciphering the true cost of bullying is problematic because bullying is often subsumed under the rubric of general school violence. For example, it is estimated that the United States spends an estimated US$32.41 billion or 4.3% of its total education expenditure on school violence. In India, school violence, mostly due to teacher bullying in schools in the form of corporal punishment¹ of students, costs that economy an estimated US$7.4 billion (7.42% of its education budget) in foregone social benefits (Ellery et al., 2010). The cost is even more burdensome for developing and struggling economies where the cost of school violence often exceeds expenditure on education. For example, in Ecuador, the economic impact of school violence is substantially higher (1.5 times) than the country’s annual education expenditure (Ellery et al., 2010). However according to some estimates, despite the arduous cost, instituting effective violence-prevention programs would more than pay for themselves (Ellery et al., 2010; UNESCO, 2016).

No cost data have been located for school bullying in Jamaica, but in 2006 the country spent an estimated JMD$30 million on violence-related incidents that occurred in its public schools (Dunkley, 2013). Although not disaggregated by forms of violence, a more recent estimate places the overall cost of violence to Jamaica society at 7.1% of its gross domestic product (Editorial, 2016).

Theoretical framework

Ecological systems theory, proposed by Bronfenbrenner (1979), is a useful framework for organizing and integrating the various nested mechanisms of human interactions (Smith, 2016b). The model is particularly beneficial because unlike models that seek to explain individual components of human development and outcomes (e.g. biological, psychological, sociological), it amalgamates the various elements of individual development and places them within the cultural milieu of his or her existence (Smith, 2016b). Thus, the framework allows for the consolidation of the complex and interconnected factors that contribute to the perpetration, victimization, and maintenance of bullying. According to Barboza et al. (2009), the ecological perspective “provides both a vehicle for better understanding the complex features of bullying and also for crafting sensitive and effective interventions at multiple contextual levels” (p. 119).

Ecological systems theory delineates four levels of inquiry: individual, relationship, community, and society. At the individual level, the model addresses the biological and personal characteristics that promote or inhibit bullying. Variables at this level include the physical and social characteristics such as gender, age, and history of exposure to violence. At the relationship level, the social alliances that support the perpetration or victimization of bullying are considered. Factors such as the interactions between and within the family and school contexts are implicated. Major contributors at the community level include the neighborhood climate and opportunity structures. Last, the broader societal sphere encompasses factors such as cultural beliefs and values, and national policies and laws—or lack thereof—that promote aggression and violence. For the sake of parsimony, in this article we collapse the four levels into two: the proximal and distal contexts. The proximal context includes personal characteristics and the relationships within the subsystems in which the person interacts directly (e.g. family, school). The distal context comprises settings in which the person is not an active participant, but is nevertheless affected by them.

As noted earlier, research on bullying in the Jamaican context is sparse. Hence, the review draws heavily on international research and addresses those ecological factors that have been shown to be consistent across cultures. The information about bullying in Jamaica comes primarily from the one major study we could find (UNICEF, 2015) that examined the bullying phenomenon in that context.

Proximal factors

Individual characteristics

Across cultures, gender presents a heightened risk of bullying involvement, but the findings have been mixed. For example, in Elgar et al.’s (2015) investigation of bullying and physical fighting across 79 countries, boys were significantly more likely than girls (11% and 3%, respectively) to report being involved in at least four episodes of physical fighting in the past year. In that study, bullying victimization was also more common among boys (32.4%) compared to girls (27.6%). However, Hymel and Swearer (2015) reviewed the literature spanning 40 years of bullying research and concluded that boys tended to report more bully perpetration than girls, whereas girls reported more victimization than boys. Moreover, Hymel and Swearer emphasized that while both boys and girls engaged in all forms of bullying, boys more often engaged in direct forms of bullying (e.g. physical bullying), whereas girls more often engaged in relational bullying. However, it is instructive that the limited Jamaican school bullying data have shown a reverse gender trend. In the UNICEF (2015) study of bullying of students in grades 1–12, girls were more likely to be bullied than boys. Of those reporting a lifetime occurrence of being bullied, 67% were females and 63% were males. Of those reporting being victimized within the past academic year, 71% were females and 68% were males. The data were not disaggregated regarding gender by perpetrations, but 33% of the sample admitted to participating in bullying others.

Undoubtedly, bullying is evident throughout the life span, beginning in the early childhood years, but research suggests that bully involvement peaks during the middle-school age and declines somewhat toward the end of high school (Hymel and Swearer, 2015; UNICEF, 2014b). However, unlike findings from other international studies, the incidence of bullying in Jamaican school-aged children appears to be highest in the earlier grades. In the UNICEF (2015) study, the highest incidence of ever being bullied was in the first grade (73%) and gradually declining to 25% in grade 12. However, some literature has suggested that bullying changes qualitatively as children grow older. While younger children tend to use more overt/physical behaviors, older children and youth move to more covert bullying activities such as relational and cyberbullying (Barboza et al., 2009; Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network (PREVNET), 2015). In the Jamaican study, 14% of the sample indicated that they were bullied via exclusion or being ignored. However, a breakdown by age was not reported.

Family context

The extant literature has consistently delineated the family context as a salient factor in bullying. For example, a few studies (e.g. Bowes et al., 2009; Hemphill et al., 2014) have found family environments characterized by high parental warmth and involvement, family cohesion and support, and low conflict to foster resilience to bully involvement. On the contrary, violent home environments typified by child maltreatment and domestic violence have been associated with promoting bully perpetration and victimization (Bowes et al., 2009). It may be that positive family relationships engender good coping mechanisms, social skills, and socioemotional strength, which in turn promote the capacity to facilitate healthy interactions (Bowes et al., 2009; Duncan, 2011).

The harsh family circumstance of many Jamaican children has been well documented. For example, several sources (e.g. Jones and Brown, 2008; Meeks-Gardner et al., 2008; Smith, 2016a, 2016b; Soyibo and Lee, 2000) have described the homes of many Jamaican children as highly volatile, repressive, and low nurturing, factors that have been shown to thwart optimal child development. In fact, the ubiquity of corporal punishment and other abusive and violent family interactions (e.g. domestic violence) have been implicated as central to elevating the rates of aggression observed in Jamaica children, particularly boys (Smith, 2016a, 2016b); for example, an investigation of child discipline across 24 developing countries reported that Jamaican caregivers registered the highest prevalence (84%) of violent discipline to their children (Lansford and Deater-Deckard, 2012). In Soyibo and Lee’s (2000) study, 45% of children reported that they witnessed domestic violence and 39% indicated that family members were injured in those violent encounters.

Indeed, the research literature has shown that negative family interactions inhibit children’s sense of autonomy, engender low self-esteem and self-efficacy, and foster social and cognitive incompetence, all traits that have been linked to bully involvement (Duncan, 2011; Smith, 2016a, 2016b, 2017). Specifically, low self-efficacy may give rise to feelings of helplessness brought on by the perceived inability to defend the self (or other victims) from aggressors (Smith, 2016b). One study (United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 2005) found that many Jamaican children lacked the competence and skill to confront perpetrators of violence against them.

The Jamaican UNICEF (2015) study did not directly investigate the home environments of bullies or victims of bullying. However, when teachers were asked about their opinions of the home life of bullies, they profiled bullies as coming from family settings that, among other things, were volatile and hostile. Bully victims were viewed as having weak family support. It is worthy of note that the profile of the home life of bullies and victims presented by Jamaican teachers is supported by findings from international research (Duncan, 2011).

School environment

Research has consistently shown that similar to the family context, school environments that are warm, responsive, and welcoming experience less bullying than ones perceived by students to be hostile and non-caring (PREVNET, 2015). Additionally, a strong body of literature has attested to the negative effect of a hostile school bullying on children’s academic success, mental health, and future aspirations. Among Kosciw et al.’s (2016) US sample, bullied children compared to their non-bullied peers were more likely to miss school on a regular basis, drop out of school, had lower grade point averages, and lower levels of self-esteem. In addition, in comparison with non-bullied peers, victims of school bullying have been shown to suffer higher rates of depression and suicidality and experience various social and mental health challenges later in life (Copeland et al., 2013; Gini and Espelage, 2014).

According to McEvoy (2005), peer bullying is bad enough, but when school personnel happens to be the source of bullying, school becomes even more unbearable for children because their expectation of protection is severely limited. Hence, a school culture characterized by harsh disciplinary methods not only instills fear in children but also implicitly endorses and legitimizes bullying and violence. In Nepal, a sizable proportion (14%) of students dropped out of school because of fear of their teachers (Ellery et al., 2010). Rojas (2011) maintained that educational environments in which severe discipline is prevalent are fertile grounds for teaching students that conflicts are best resolved by the imposition of will through physical and verbal aggression.

In Jamaican schools, corporal punishment of children is a convention and used as both disciplinary and pedagogical strategies (Smith, 2016a, 2017). In one study, 75% of 11- to 12-year-olds reported that they were “beaten” by teachers (Samms-Vaughan et al., 2000). In another study (Pottinger and Nelson, 2004), 80% of the Jamaican teachers admitted that they often used corporal punishment to discipline children and 75% attested to humiliating pupils in front of their peers. In a more recent study of elementary school children (Baker-Henningham et al., 2009), 93% of students reported that they were physically punished at school. Findings from a retrospective study of Jamaican university students recalling their experiences of teacher and peer bullying in elementary school concluded that “Educator but not peer bullying was associated with specific outcomes including students becoming oppositional, losing trust in others, and being depressed” (Pottinger and Stair, 2009: 312). Baker-Henningham et al. (2009) found that both peer aggression and physical punishment by teachers at school were negatively associated with students’ academic performance and success. Undoubtedly, teachers’ explicit and implicit support of bullying provides a potent model for children to accept bullying and violence as a legitimate interaction mode (Rojas, 2011; Smith, 2016a, 2017). One assessment of school climate in Jamaica (USAID, 2005) indicated that “Teachers seem to lack the skills to negotiate and manage the social and contextual issues that affect student learning …” (p. 41).

Distal factors

Community climate

According to social organization theory (Edwards et al., 2014), neighborhood disadvantage increases the likelihood of “bad behaviors” among its residents and heightens the probability of disorder, bullying, and violence. For example, neighborhood quality is related to rates and severity of inter-parental violence and child abuse (Smith, 2016a, 2016b), which in turn strongly predicts school bullying involvement (Bowes et al., 2009; Jones and Brown, 2008). Reyes-Portillo (2013) investigated the effect of school neighborhood disadvantage on school bullying and found that neighborhood economic disadvantage was associated with increased levels of bullying perpetration and victimization.

It is instructive that in addition to their unsafe school environment, Jamaican children residing in disadvantaged neighborhoods reportedly receive more frequent and violent mistreatment at home. In Jones and Brown’s (2008) report, parents bragged about the severity of the punishment they administered to their children to protect them from future misdeeds:

Some parents in community discussions in the inner city have said that they have to “Mash up de [the] rod on dem [them]” while their children are young, between 4–11 years. Their perception is that this is the only chance they have of preventing them from taking up guns, drugs, or sex in the extremely challenging social environment of their communities. (p. 2)

Jamaican parents in one study (USAID, 2005) perceived themselves to be powerless to protect their children from community violence, sexual abuse, and various other neighborhood safety issues.

Violence in the media

Like in many open societies worldwide, violence is pervasive across the Jamaican media landscape. Even a cursory perusal of the local newspapers, television news, and radio talk shows reveals a worrying representation of aggression and violence at all levels of society. In fact, the media have been sternly criticized for sensationalizing violence and for being insensitive and irresponsible in their reporting of violence, a dynamic that allegedly desensitizes children to violence and bolsters their belief that violence is acceptable (Kunkel, 2007; Smith, 2016b; UNICEF, 2006, 2014b). Individuals who are desensitized to violence see violence as a normal part of life, thereby losing the ability to empathize with suffering of the victim or the cruelty of the perpetrator (Kunkel, 2007; UNICEF, 2006).

In a study of violence in urban Jamaica (Meeks-Gardner et al., 2003), 90% of the adolescent participants reported that they watched television sometimes or often; 75% believed that the violence on television was bad for children to watch, and 82% believed that violence made children and youth more violent. Considering the saturation of television programs via cable and satellite, mostly from the United States, it is logical to assume that Jamaican children, like their US peers, are constantly inundated with media violence, the harmful effects of which have been well documented. For example, Kunkel (2007) delineated three adverse effects of media violence on children. It (1) engenders children’s learning of aggressive attitudes and behaviors, (2) desensitizes or increases callousness toward victims of violence, and (3) increases or exaggerates the fear of being victimized by violence.

Societal and cultural norms

Arguably, like other forms of violence, bullying is bolstered by cultural norms and governmental policies and laws (Jones et al., 2008; Smith, 2016b, 2017). As such, society’s implicit or explicit tolerance and acceptance of violence show tacit approval of bullying (Rojas, 2011; Smith, 2016a). Cultural observers (e.g. Jones et al., 2008; Rojas, 2011) have argued that one of the most emblematic signs of a society’s power structure is the cultural acceptance that some people are inferior to others and that violence is permissible as a control tool. Examples of this relate to the teacher–student, older–younger, or male–female relationships (Jones et al., 2008; Rojas, 2011; Smith, 2016a, 2016b).

Evidence of Jamaican cultural values and beliefs about bullying, power, and violence were shown in Ferguson and Iturbide’s (2013) study where Jamaican adolescent boys construed aggression and bullying others as central to their masculinity. In that study, boys boasted about their bullying endeavors and prided themselves on their ability to “beat up” others as they pleased. In a recent address to the nation, the Jamaican Prime Minister acknowledged the Jamaican society as a “culture of violence.” However, successive governments have been blamed for their contribution to the culture of bullying and by their refusal to enact legislation to mitigate the acceptance of bullying and violence. For example, the pervasiveness of the harsh corporal punishment of children in their homes and schools has led to the society being labeled as a “culture of beating children” (Smith, 2016a) and what Meeks-Gardner et al. (2008) referred to as the social and cultural sanctioning of child abuse. It is such practices that have led family and child professionals to lament the government’s resistance to the UNCRC’s mandate to outlaw corporal punishment in all contexts of society (Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, 2016). It is worth noting that corporal punishment is banned in early childhood settings serving children under the age of 6 years and in alternative care settings such as institutions for children in conflict with the law,² but remains legal in other educational institutions and at home (Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, 2016; Smith, 2016a). However, even in contexts where the practice is prohibited, the corporal punishment of children is administered openly in some environments and surreptitiously in others (Smith, 2016a). Hence, there is a strong need for the government to assiduously enforce and demand compliance to existing laws that do exist. It has been duly noted that pertinent laws are often broken with impunity because the authorities are viewed as ineffective in enforcing the law (USAID, 2005).

Discussion

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the school bullying phenomenon in the Jamaican context and to delineate the potential risk factors that contribute to its occurrence. Using ecological systems framework as an organizing structure, the review suggests that many of the risk factors reported in international studies do exist in the Jamaican context and may contribute to the reportedly high prevalence of bullying in the Jamaican setting. Also, the review points to a critical need for pertinent research regarding the prevalence of bullying and its relationship to the psychosocial functioning of Jamaican children and youth. Owing to the dearth of pertinent local research, most of the assumptions about the dynamics of bullying in Jamaica have been inferred from international studies. Thus, extrapolations from those studies have led Jamaican stakeholders to call for the bullying phenomenon to be seen as the serious problem it is and for urgent attention to be paid to its occurrence (Hudson-Davis et al., 2015; Major-Campbell, 2016; UNICEF, 2015). Hence, those stakeholders have called for anti-bullying programs in schools (UNICEF, 2015).

However, some authors (e.g. Farrington and Ttofi, 2009; Harriot and Jones, 2016) have warned against instituting anti-bullying programs that lacked strong scientific confirmation of effectiveness. Nevertheless, considering the serious nature of bullying and the urgency with which the problem must be attacked, there is little need for authorities to wait for local studies to materialize to take an action plan against youth violence. For example, Sutton and Ruprah (2017) contended that until those studies are available, school personnel and policymakers can utilize pertinent information from international studies to adapt evidence-based program that have proven success in other settings. In particular, Sutton and Ruprah while underscoring the value of programs with confirmed effectiveness across cultures and socioeconomic groups suggested continual testing and evaluation of the impact of the programs in the particular setting. Hence, “Efforts and resources should be focused on evaluating such interventions so that they may be redesigned, strengthened, or scaled up” (Sutton and Ruprah, 2017: 93).

Globally, the gravity of the detrimental effects of bullying is so acute that the United Nations (UN; Moschos, 2016; UNESCO, 2016) directed member nations to move with haste to make anti-bullying a priority, not only on moral and ethical principles but also as a human rights obligation (Moschos, 2016). Accordingly, member nations are reminded of Article 4 of the UNCRC (UNICEF, 2014a), which aptly affirms governments’ responsibility and obligation to take all necessary measures to ensure that children’s rights are respected and protected. Therefore, the UN maintained that any response to bullying demands comprehensive strategies that involve the entire education community: the learner, school, education sector, and society (UNESCO, 2016). As such, “Governments, parliaments, universities and all field specialists should work together to ensure that children should be offered a safe, democratic and attractive school environment that develops their full potential” (Moschos, 2016: 7). Additionally, Moschos specified the role of the school authority in creating a non-violent and healthy school climate: “School principals and teachers [should] use non-violent teaching and learning strategies and adopt classroom management and disciplinary measures that are not based on fear, threats, humiliation or physical force” (p. 29).

Regarding program effectiveness, researchers (e.g. Farrington and Ttofi, 2009; Jones et al., 2012) have maintained that the most effective prevention programs, inter alia, offered training for school staff, involved parents as active participants, and included social skills learning components embedded in them. Indeed, the pertinent literature has shown that social competency training enhances emotional regulation and perspective taking, boost communication and problem-solving skills, promote positive self-esteem, foster self-efficacy, and lessen conduct problems. All those factors have been judged advantageous to positive interpersonal relationships and conflict resolution (Duncan, 2011; Smith, 2016a; UNICEF, 2006; USAID, 2005). According to Ellery et al. (2010), despite the hefty cost of instituting antiviolence programs, “Eradicating violence from schools takes commitment and resources. But failing to invest in it costs more” (p. 11).

Conclusion

Bullying appears to be a serious problem in Jamaican schools. The local data, albeit scant, combined with cross-cultural research signal a compelling need for comprehensive national anti-bullying policies and programs with an eye to reducing the level of violence to which children are involved and exposed. The literature advocates intervention strategies that involve students, parents, and school staff as well as the broader society to ensure a safe and fear-free environment where all students can learn. A reduction in violence in schools may ultimately lead to a reduction in problematic interpersonal interactions in the wider society.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biographies

Delores E Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of Tennessee. Her research focuses on psychosocial development across the life span with particular emphasis on childhood and adolescence periods. She is particularly interested in understanding the effects of fundamental cultural processes on children’s socioemotional adjustment and functioning. She also studies family violence and peer victimization within the cultural context.

Colton T Kilpatrick is a Master’s Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of Tennessee. His primary research interests relate to the development of men, specifically men with marginalized identities. His current research focuses on previously incarcerated men and their life satisfaction and overall health.

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