Bullying is defined as exposure of a person to repeated negative actions whether physical, verbal, and/or psychological for long period of time. This often happens due to a power struggle (either real or imagined) between the target and the bully/bullies. Dan Olweus, a Norwegian researcher, defines negative action as "when a person intentionally inflicts injury or discomfort upon another person, through physical contact, through words or in other ways.” (Olweus, 1993; Olweus, Limber, & Mihalic, 1999).
The fault on bullying often lies within the individual pupils. Bullies are depicted as persons with low self-esteem and unpopular. In reality, bullies are confident and quite popular among their peers. Their common characteristic is their positive belief in using violence as a means to an end. They tend to use alcohol and other drugs, have lax parents, and have abuse histories (Limber, 2002; Olweus, et al., 1999).
There are systemic issues that may encourage behavior problems that lead to bullying. In schools, inequality, non-recognition or misrepresentation of culture exists due to the practices and processes of carrying out the curriculum and methods of assessing students, teaching approaches, peer culture and organizational norms. Recent studies show that three educational practices are particularly important in creating inequality of respect and recognition among students: for those not in the dominant culture to be silent or invisible which leads to demoralization or being condemned by others, a systemic unfairness in the syllabi, organizational practices of schools, texts, subjects and separating students into different classes or schools (Fraser 2000; Lynch and Lodge, 2002; Harding 2003; Said 1991; Young, 1990).
Research and intervention on bullying is focus on individuals because it is believed that group treatment for bullies is neither effective nor advisable. Peer contagion is cited as one of the reasons. Recent findings in studies conducted show that there is strong possibility that group treatment for antisocial behavior often results in participants learning to more ways to engage in negative behaviors because the interactions between participants offer new ideas or learning experiences (Dishion, 2004).
Treatment of low self-esteem for bullies is not recommended since bullies do not have low self-esteem. Doing so will only contribute to more confident bullies (Limber, 2002; Olweus, 1993). Arbitration between targets and bullies is also not an effective treatment for bullies. Mediation is often seen as equality of power between parties (the victim and the bullies). Equality is not something a bully believes in hence the reason for bullying. Mediation could also imply that the victim shares part of the blame for being the target of bullying. There is a tendency for mediation to consider bullying as a conflict that needs resolution. The implication would provide erroneous notions to the victim and the bullies since it seems bullies are not held totally accountable for their aggressive behavior (Limber, 2002).
