Bullying Among Adolescents
The assignment:
You will be making your own academic intervention for this paper utilizing previous research to support your ideas. I know this may sound daunting, but I want you to have some fun with this. Pick a topic/ problem you are passionate about and the writing will be a lot easier. You will have to have 3 key parts of your intervention, so make sure you have an intervention that can accommodate this. Before starting this paper, or even the outline, your topic should be approved by me. This will probably be a quick email that you send me. It would be helpful to have some idea about what your 3 key aspects of your intervention would be at this point so I could offer feedback, but this is not required. You should have approval from me by Friday August 4th.
Picking a topic/problem: The topic you pick should be (at least a little bit) related to academic/education issues. This could include bettering achievement scores, focusing on mental health in children with a school-based intervention, or tackling a systematic issue that affects a certain group. But basically, anything that would help a child in school (which covers a lot) would be an appropriate topic. Here are some (very broad) topics that should get you started if you are feeling stuck:
- Chronic Absenteeism
- Access to Educational Resources
- Parental Involvement in Schooling
- Teacher Interventions
- Summer Decline in Low-Income groups
- College Prep
- School Readiness
- Access to STEM courses
- Anxiety in classrooms
- Bullying
- Student Relationships to each other
- Teaching Social Skills
- Fostering a School Community
- Health/Wellness Issues
- ADHD Interventions
- Impulse Issues
- Drug and Violence Prevention
Creating an Intervention: In order to “create” an effective intervention, you first should see what others have done. I truly do not want you to reinvent the wheel, you should be using past interventions/studies to help figure out what has worked before. You will need 3 key parts of your intervention, with research backing up each part.
Below, I outlined the 5 sections that your paper should have to help you format your ideas. Unless stated, these sections can be as long or as short as you think is effective, but make sure to have all of the elements. In certain sections, I have also given an example and how I would tackle each section. Obviously, you cannot steal my example.
1) INTRODUCE: State your issue you want to target, your target population, and a short summary of your intervention. This should be sort of like an abstract, giving the reader a very short summary of what they are about to read. This should be no longer than a paragraph. Be sure to use an effective hook and conclusion.
2) WHAT is the issue you want to target?
- Why this issue? What are the poor outcomes that can come from this issue being left untreated? These can be long term/ short term issues but make sure you have at least 2-3 poor outcomes.
- Be sure to include at least 2 peer reviewed journal article sources in this section.
- § A great way to find sources for this would be to search for “TOPIC adverse effects in AGE GROUP”
- Concrete example:
- § Tackling math skills in preschoolers because it is key for school readiness/ future success.
- I would then give citations/ examples of what school readiness is and why it is so important for future success.
- § Tackling math skills in preschoolers because it is key for school readiness/ future success.
3) WHO are you targeting in this intervention?
- What group of people do you want your intervention to be for?
- Identify the population in need!
- Why them?
- § What systematic/ cultural barriers are in place or why might this specific group benefit?
- At least 1 peer reviewed journal article!
- Concrete example:
- § Tackling math skills in preschoolers because it is key for school readiness/ future success. I would then give a citation of why preschoolers may benefit the most!
4) DESCRIBE your intervention: this should be the longest section, with effective transitions between paragraphs.
- Describe fully what you want to do.
- Name at least 3 key parts of your intervention! Make sure to have at least 1 empirical article as EVIDENCE supporting each part (3 studies in total).
- § To get these empirical articles:
- Find other interventions that have done a similar aspect and cite that
- Find an empirical article that has found results that your idea has “worked”
- § While you are only required to have 1 article for each key part, your argument could be strengthened by having 2 or more sources instead.
- § To get these empirical articles:
- Concrete example:
- § Topic/Intervention: “Parents teaching preschoolers key math skills with an iPad app and sensitive parenting”
- § 3 Key parts: Parental teaching of math skills, iPad app teaching math, and sensitive parenting
- § Then find studies that support each point
- Data saying why parental teaching of math works.
- Examples of when teaching math with an iPad works.
- Why sensitive parenting is important.
5) CONCLUDE:
- Provide a VERY short summary of your intervention again and try to persuade someone why this intervention could work!
- Spend most of this section thinking about how this could positively impact this group of children and society in general.
- Make sure to have an effective conclusion that makes the reader want to see your intervention in action!
Citations: As you can see above, you should have at least 6 peer-reviewed articles citated in your paper. Never(!) buy an article or access to an article, as you can use the UMass library system to access it. You can always email me for help or if you find the abstract of a paper which you think would be interesting but cannot find it.
Specific writing goals:
- Your intervention should be clearly laid out very early in the paper.
- Arguments to support your intervention should be clearly stated and supported with evidence from the literature.
- Organization is especially key for this paper. Check that each paragraph has a topic sentence and that all the material in each paragraph relates to it.
- Use parallel construction at least once.
- In longer papers, it is especially useful to use a variety of sentence lengths to maintain the reader’s attention.
- Use headings, if appropriate, to facilitate organization.
- Cite your sources correctly.
Bullying
Student’s Name
Institution
Course Name and Number
Lecturer’s Name
Due Date
Bullying
Bullying is a common and increasing phenomenon among school-aged children and adolescents. It involves repeated harmful actions by peers who feel superior to their counterparts. This behavior can be physical or verbal, and its nature depends on gender. Boys, for instance, use threats or physical intimation irrespective of their victim's gender. In contrast, bullying by girls is more verbal than physical, especially when the target is another girl. Today, the advancement of technology and the introduction of e-learning in schools have created another form of bullying: cyberbullying. Many children and young adults using electronic devices have experienced this behavior. Surveys indicate that more than half of all school-aged children have experienced violence and aggression, with more than 10% being bullied regularly (Källmén & Hallgren, 2021). The growing prevalence of bullying in schools has attracted the attention of educators, scientists, and policymakers. They aim to create awareness of this phenomenon and establish appropriate interventions for the problem. This paper will address bullying among adolescents aged 12-15.
The Issue
The targeted issue is bullying in schools. Tsitsika et al. (2014) described bullying as an aggressive behavior intended to demonstrate authority and control over another person. As noted, bullying can be physical, verbal, or online. Research on the causes of bullying shows that this aggressive act has roots in several psychological and sociological factors exposed to individuals (Källmén & Hallgren, 2021). Some factors that make children become bullies include peer rejection and failure in school, exposure to violence, aggressive behavior, poor upbringing, and neglect. In the same context, children with low self-esteem and self-confidence are more vulnerable to bullying, as their peers can take advantage of them. Equally, they are likely to bully others into dealing with self-esteem and confidence issues.
Bullying is a severe issue among school-aged children and young adults. It has negative outcomes for the victims. This problem presents a significant threat to individuals' physical and mental health. Depression, anxiety, antisocial personality, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), avoidant personality, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and somatic problems are some of the psychological problems encountered by bullied children (Ran et al., 2023). Some victims may contemplate suicide rather than continue to bear such punishment and harassment. Bullying also inflicts physical pain and injury on the victims. These negative outcomes threaten the child's well-being if appropriate intervention for the problem is not established. Addressing this problem helps promote adolescents' physical and mental health and improve their academic performance.
Target Audience
The intervention for bullying targets adolescents aged 12-15 years. According to a study by Ran et al. (2023), this population is the most vulnerable to bullying. The study indicated that the prevalence rate of school bullying victimization among adolescents aged 12-15 is about 37-42% (Ran, et al., 2023). This prevalence is attributed to the brain development of adolescents. According to Källmén & Hallgren (2021), teenagers have undeveloped brains compared to adults. This situation makes it difficult to control their emotions. As a result, bullies may develop aggressive behaviors toward their peers. The undeveloped brain also reduces the ability of many adolescents to handle peer pressure. These individuals can easily be influenced by their peers to bully others. For victims, their low-self esteem is attributed to immature brains. Low self-esteem among adolescent students reduces their ability to defend themselves, allowing senior students to dominate and control them.
Intervention
Bullying Building a safe and supportive school climate by creating anti-bullying rules and advancing social and emotional (SEL) learning will help solve the problem. The three parts of this intervention include: building a safe and supportive school climate, creating anti-bullying rules, and advancing SEL. Schools can employ mechanisms to establish a safe and supportive school climate free from bullying. One of the mechanisms is creating opportunities for connection. It facilitates healing for targeted students. According to Ansary et al. (2015), students prone to bullying can easily cope when they feel connected to peers.
Studies also show that open communication between students and teachers allows students to share their problems freely (Ran et al., 2023). In the classroom, educators must create a platform for students to air their grievances and feel heard. A good starting point is classroom meetings. They can help teachers stay informed about the children’s experiences at the school. Outside of the classroom, teachers should facilitate opportunities for positive reinforcement by assisting children to participate in after-school activities that match their interests and hobbies (Ansary et al., 2015). Such practices will create a positive and safe school climate that fo...
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