What percentage of kids are bullies? Take a guess.
Today's Boston Globe, has a short item,
Preschoolers more likely to become bullies if they watch lots of TV. In it, there is a line about how many kids are considered bullies (these days).
To find out, select with your cursor the text from HERE
Overall, about 13 percent of the children turned out to be bullies. TO HERE.
That strikes us as high. We would have guessed 1/2 to 1/3rd the reported figure.
posted by Quiddity at 4/06/2005 08:30:00 AM
I'm a former school teacher so it was no surprise to me. In fact, I would consider that number to be a little low as some bullying behavior never gets reported.
The term is somewhat misleading if used without qualification. I could make a case that "bully" should only refer to those kids who actively go way over the line with unprovoked physical assaults on other students. If that were the def, in my class in the late 50s we had 2 bullies.
I could also make a case that you should include occasional hitting, watching bullying without intervening, objecting, or reporting the assaults, teasing (including fairly viscious teasing) and such. If you use that def we probably had about 90% bullies.
Somewhere in the middle is what I'd actually use.
