It occurred to me recently that although bullying is universal, most of us never hear about it happening in, say, the Amazonian regions of South America. I wondered why that was. Here's what I discovered.
Studies and reports on school bullying are conducted in European, North American and other wealthy, highly populated areas. None were done in countries such as Peru until recently. I'm choosing Peru at random, here, as a representation of its similar neighbouring South American countries.
Isolated, underserved communities are often ignored and yet, overall, bullying is just as serious an issue in schools of less-affluent nations. In fact, I would say more so in many cases, because victims have less chance of moving away from their small towns and cities after finishing school. In other words, they might be stuck for life with these perpetrators of harassment. I found an online extensive 2020 study conducted by psychologists and financed the University of Córdoba (link below); however, more work needs to be done.
This is what the research, which concentrates mostly on cyberbullying, concludes: bullying is prevalent among teenagers in Peru. More than a third of all high school students are victims. This is slightly higher than percentages in European and North American schools.
The perpetrators cyberbully their targets anonymously and, because of the nature of online posts, this means that the denigration and humiliation of their victims is a round-the-clock, seven-days-a-week assault (which is true of such online bullying everywhere). Worse, these posts on Twitter and other media remain online for years, perhaps decades, and are available to a wide audience. This fact increases and prolongs the distress of the victims.
Cyberbullying has become a global issue, and disadvantaged regions should not be forgotten by organizations that are tackling the problem.
One of the conclusions of this particular study was to recommend education strategies that boost self-esteem and empathy in children starting in early childhood, before the high school years, because it was discovered that cyberbullying begins in older children. As well, there was a recommendation to teach pro-social skills such as empathy and acceptance—again, beginning in early childhood—as a way of reducing the prevalence of bullying later on.
I hope this research will result in support for Peruvian schoolchildren via counselling and intervention, because I know all too well from my childhood experience of living in a small town and being bullied continually by the same kids until relocating to city far away at age 15, that the misery, isolation and low self-esteem that such treatment causes, is all too real.
I would also hope that studies done by other nations share their finding with the Peruvian researchers, and vice versa, because it's evident that bullying of all kinds is a global problem.
See:
"Bullying and Cyberbullying in Adolescents from Disadvantaged Areas: Validation of Questionnaires; Prevalence Rates; and Relationship to Self-Esteem, Empathy and Social Skills"
Study conducted and published in August 2020 by Jacinto Martínez, Antonio J. Rodríguez-Hidalgo and Izabela Zych.
