NAME: MAIMUNAH BINTI MUHAMMAD

OPTION

: 8 PISMP TESL 1

IC NO: 920722-14-5896

MATRIX NO

: 2012121340144

CRITICAL ESSAY: BULLYING

1.0

Introduction: Why do we call it as illness?

Why do we call the condition when pupils cause problem in schools as social illness?

Are the pupils who misbehaved, played truant, or bullying, sick? For me to discuss critically
on the topic Bullying, we should excavate deeper into the anatomy of the term, social
illness. Illness is defined in many ways as the state of being physically and mentally ill
(Turnbull, 2010); it is also known as blight or a plague for its infectious nature (Soanes,
Spooner, & Hawker, 2002). In other words, we should understand that illness is a form of
infestation which inflicts negative effect physically and mentally towards its victims and
people around them. That is why social problem such as bullying is identified as a form of
illness because it is an issue that negatively affects a persons state of being in a society
(Pearson, 2015). Guerrero (2005) supported this statement by sharing his opinion that social
illness is a social condition that has negative consequences for individuals, our social world,
or our physical world.
If the outcomes pose only positivity, there would be no issue. A social illness such as
bullying might adversely affect ones life and wellbeing, alongside the prosperity of that
individual's family and companions. Issues can undermine our social establishments, for
instance, it may result disputes among family members, and also threaten the education
system in terms of the increasing expense of school tuition and programs. Thus, bullying is a
form of social illness especially because it threatens the physical and social wellbeing of an
individual and people who are involved directly or indirectly with the crisis.
2.0

Bullying: Definition and Current Issue

Although definitions of bullying vary, most agree that bullying includes a form of

attack or intimidation with the intention to cause fear, distress, or harm, and it is a real or
perceived imbalance of power between the bully and the victim with usually repeated
attacks or intimidation between the same children over time (Farrington & Ttofi, 2010;
CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012). In my belief, it is a social disease
that involved a sort of social food-chain relationship between the bully (who is the predator)
and the bullys victim (who considered as prey). As reinstated by CDC (2012), bullying is a
form of youth violence in which the aggressor will inflict physical and mental pain towards

the victims in an excessive and unjustified vendetta with unwarranted approach.

Nevertheless, the act of bullying and the mischief it causes have normally been given little
thought in schools. Ong and Linfor (2003) supported that this problem are not giving it
enough attention in schools because bullying is believed to be a natural and unfortunate
part of growing up.
The predominance of bullying cases all around the world has recently led to
extensive investigation in view of the significant role of bullying as an antecedent to the
infamous episodes of school brutality across nations. It is currently recognise that bullying is
a common social issue among youth which pose harmful and lasting effect on the children
who needed special attention and assistance from adults. De Voe, et al. (2005) stated that
bullying is an issue that continues to get attention from researchers, educators, parents and
students. A study published in April 2001 in the Journal of the American Medical Association
noted that almost 30 percent of the 15,686 public school students surveyed reported
occasional to frequent involvement in bullying, either as a bully, a target, or both (Nansel,
2001). Edwards (2004) supported this by saying that almost every day 160,000 students are
afraid to go to school for fear of bullying.
In the context of Malaysian schools, Noran-Fauziah (2004) has demonstrated in her
study that around 90% of lower-secondary and primary school pupils in Malaysia were
psychologically bullied while 50% of them agreed that they had been bullied physically.
Meanwhile, Abdul-Latif (2005) carried out a study on 480 pupils in Johor and found that
22.7% of them had been bullied once. 2.5% of students said they were bullied once to twice
a week, while 5.6% said they were bullied once or twice per month and 11.9% said they
were rarely bullied (once or twice a year). Moreover, a study made by Mahadi (2007) among
students of religious school in Sarawak, found that verbal bullying is the most dominant form
of bullying among students and most often the pupils became bullies because they wanted
to show that they were strong while older pupils did it to brag.
Bullying is a problem that can affect a students future life (De Voe, Kaffenberger, &
Chandler, 2005). Through our video presentation, we described the bullying behaviour as
explained by the researcher Ken Rigby (Rigby, 2003) who proposed a definition of bullying
as:
A desire to hurt + a hurtful action + a power imbalance + repetition (typically) + an unjust use
of power + evident enjoyment by the aggressor + a sense of being oppressed on the part of
the target

Today, the connection between bullying and later delinquent and criminal conduct can never
again be disregarded. If students are in fear for their own safety, they are unable to
concentrate on learning.
2.1

Types of Bullying
Amidst the pupils school careers, numerous pupils are involved with teasing or

forceful behaviour as either a culprit or the target. School staff must be heedful of childrens
insults that happen every now and then and recognize pupils who needed the support when
they involved in dispute or show drastic emotional changes. This is because, according to
Ong & Linfor (2003) again, bullying becomes a concern when hurtful or aggressive
behaviour toward an individual or a group appears to be unprovoked, intentional, and
(usually) repeated. Bullying among youths may take place in a variety of hostile acts that are
carried out repeatedly over time. The acts involve a real or perceived imbalance of power,
with the more powerful child or group attacking those who are less powerful. There are many
forms or types of bullying and each type are similar in terms of its effect and harm. The three
forms of bullying are:
1. Physical
2. Verbal
3. Psychological
According to Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquence (2001), bullying may be physical
(hitting, kicking, spitting, pushing), verbal (taunting, malicious teasing, name calling,
threatening), or psychological (spreading rumours, manipulating social relationships, or
promoting social exclusion, extortion, or intimidation). Similar statement are made by DavidFerdon and Hertz (2009) explained that bullying is an aggression that is physically (hitting,
tripping), verbally (name calling, teasing), or psychologically and socially (spreading
rumours, leaving out of group) conducted. These three types of bullying were depicted in my
group video presentation which showed that bullying can come in many ways and types.
In a case study entitled Bullying Among Secondary School Students in Malaysia by
Norshidah-Mohamad Salleh & Khalim-Zainal (2014), it was identified that verbal bullying was
the most widely performed type of bullying. It is in my understanding that verbal bullying is
the easiest form of harassment where insensitive, prejudice, and oppressive sentiments are
effortlessly inflicted to the targeted victims through oral or written words. This is because,
verbal communication is symbolic and its meanings are established through its use in two
forms of meanings which are connotative (the emotional and imaginative association
surrounding a word) and denotative (the strict dictionary meaning of a word) meanings
(Brada, 1993; Gaoni, 2006). If we look back at Mahadis (2007) studies stated in previous

section of this writing, pupils from religious school in Sarawak predominantly experienced
verbal bullying whereby exertion of power and boastfulness over the weaker or younger
pupils existed within the social dynamic of the studied school. Even though this bully does
not show a direct effect towards the pupils, it must be controlled because it may affect the
victims emotional and psychological state. This is due to the fact that bullying is associated
with low self-esteem (Khalim, 2014; Khalim & Norshidah, 2007; Khalim, Johari, Fazilah,
Mansor, & Norshidah, 2014). From my groups video presentation on the topic Bullying, the
protagonist, Aminah who was the bullying victim became emotionally and psychologically
breakdown due to the recurring taunts from Bong, the bully. Victims of bullying will have the
sense of fear to attend school and it is possible that they will become resentful and bully
others one day.
Moreover, in the 21st-century globalised and rapidly modernised world that the pupils
are currently living in, bullying is taking place through technological media which we called
electronic aggression or cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying is when a minor, is tormented,
threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another minor,
using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones (D'Silva, 2015).
David-Ferdon and Hertz (2009) further explained that this electronic aggression could
transpire through e-mail, a chat room, instant messaging, a website, text messaging, or
videos or pictures posted on websites or sent through cell phones and electronic devices.
This new phenomenon has continuously made into the headlines all over the world. Shots
from our video revealed a sneak peek of cyber-bullying when Bong, the bully, humiliated
Aminah, the victim, by posting her embarrassing picture on Instagram. According to
Malaysia Computer Emergency Response Team (MyCERT), there have been 516 reported
cases of cyber harassment in the year 2014 from the 512 reported cases in 2013, a rise
from 300 reported cases in 2012 (Syafique Shuib, 2014). While a study made by
CyberSecurity Malaysia, the Education Ministry and DiGi Telecommunication Sdn Bhd in
2013 on 9,651 primary and secondary school students nationwide, found that 13% of the
1,255 respondents admitted being victims of cyber-bullying while 26% or 2,509 confessed
they had once been bullied online (Abu-Bakar, 2014). The reason behind this is because
young generations nowadays have various outlets to express themselves from blogging to
online forums or what is popularly known as social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram. Often, the bullies hide behind the comfort of their gadget screens and hold
no reservations about overly-expressing themselves in their posts peppered with vulgar and
thoughtless jokes or sarcasms.
3.0

Factors of Bullying

In discussing negative behaviours such as bullying which involve individual

psychological principles, Sigmund Freuds psychoanalytic theory stated that there are three
internal elements that often collide and try to assert themselves (Woolfolk, 2012). These
three elements are the Id, Ego and Superego and these three factors often conflict with each
other (Siegfried, 2014). Bullies are controlled by the Id and Ego. The Id refers to base
elements such as pleasure while Ego refers to the elements that affect the individual
understands the values and principles of human societies and cultures, but choose to violate
(Woolfolk, 2012; Siegfried, 2014). We usually understand that most bullies do it just for the
enjoyment and most do it even when they know that bullying is against school rules and
religion and would attract disciplinary action if school authorities caught it.
Normally, school bullies are forceful and impulsive, and their conduct may be caused
by their physical strength or powerful social position. However, factors deciding bully
behaviours do not rest only on single elements such as strength or social standings. As
described by humanistic theory, the development of behaviour through external influences
such as peers, family, and the environment and so on, affected an individuals ability to
choose how to behave (Woolfolk, 2012). Numerous impacts discussed below may explain
few reasons why some pupils bully at school:
3.1

Family dynamics
According to University of Georgia, Professor Arthur Horne (2000), children raised in

a home where family members use put-downs, sarcasm, and criticism, or where they are
subjected to repeated frustration or rejection, or where they are witnesses to the abuse of
another family member come to believe the world is hostile and see striking back as their
only means of survival (Horne, Newman, & Bartolomucci, 2000). Family is the very first and
important layer of social interaction which a child endure lessons from. A family that uses
aggression as a relationship instrument shows a kid that harassing is an adequate approach
to identify with others and to get what he/she needs. Furthermore, Frutos (2013) said that
within the most common variety, the nuclear family, the effects on bullying could be complex.
The relation among their members is different as regard the number of siblings, whether they
are male or female, the position occupied in the family, age differences between family
members, whether the siblings are older or younger, how great the difference in age is
(McHale, Updegraff, & Whiteman, 2012). When the number of children increases this
automatically brings about a transformation of behaviour control and changes the method
used to implant rules. Despite the fact that my group did not specifically identified the reason
behind the act of bullying acted by Bong in our video presentation, we still stressed on the
fact that family, especially the parents, play major roles in the development of the children

and how their involvement in curbing this behaviour provide encouraging support to the
children.
3.2

Effects of Media
Media images and messages influence the way one perceives bullying. This is

supported by Bandura (1986), in Social Learning Theory, which states that learning occurs
through observation. Bullying and harassment are often portrayed as humorous or as
acceptable behaviour in which media glorify bullying in certain reality TV shows, some talk
shows, shock jocks on the radio, and popular movies and video games which focused
more on embarrassment, humiliation, and the destruction of others as entertainment.
Images of violence in the media may also be seen as a justification for violent and abusive
behaviour in real-life relationships. Psychologist David Perry of Florida Atlantic University
proposed that youths see images or popular role models in the media that support the idea
that success can be achieved by being aggressive (Perry, 1987). In certain circumstances,
their peers or the effects of watching violent films influence bullying behaviour and extensive
exposure to these violent films will eventually lead to violent act coming from the pupils.
The development of media leads to cyber-bully due to the fact that technology has
made it possible for bullies to exert power by using cyberspace. By using the Internet to
communicate and socialize, bullies can deliver hurtful images or messages, threats, and
obscenities easily and effortlessly and, at the same time, gain the attention of a bystander
audience. Deputy Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Dr Abu Bakar
Mohamad Diah said one of the key factors of the increase in cyber-bullying was the
preponderance of Internet users sharing personal information, including passwords, on
social networking sites (Abu-Bakar, 2014). With the fast and anonymity elements which the
internet offers, bullies can execute the acts of antagonism with no sense of liability towards
their action. Bullies can post revolting remarks or post photos on certain people with
welcomes to other people who visit the site to include their comments.
4.0

The Effect of Bullying

There are many short and long-term adverse effects from bullying, both to the victims

and the bullies. As Rigby (1999) said, bullying others and being victimized has negative longand short-term consequences on the general health and well being of the youngsters
involved. He further explained his own statement by saying that a poor mental and psychical
condition might be linked to experiences of victimization at school (Rigby K. , 2000). Despite
the short video, our group showed how bullying could lead to Aminahs death and Bong
imprisonment due to the effect of physical and emotional bully. In many reported news and

recorded studies made all around the globe, physical and psychological effects are shown to
be the two main comrades of bullying, especially towards the bullying victims. In 2004,
numerous reported cases of bullying in Malaysian schools proved that this social illness
should be given serious attention. An example could be taken when one of the pupils from a
secondary school in Kuala Lipis, Pahang, was almost diagnosed of paralysis after a group of
form five and form three pupils kicked the victims back using police cadets shoes and
shove him into a closet. The persecuted pupil suffered severe spinal cord injuries which
nearly lead him to permanently paralyse from his waist down to his lower body (Dina-Zaman
& Indra-Nadchatram, 2007). Another case in Batu Pahat reported a bullying case where the
targeted pupils suffered from a kidney failure, spleen and damage to his liver and gall
bladder after being beaten by a group of senior students (Salleh, 2004).
However, we have to understand that physical injuries could lead to an adverse effect
on ones psychological and emotional health. Norshidah-Mohamad Salleh & Khalim-Zainal
(2014) reinstated that bullies usually tried to boost their self-esteem by victimizing others
through attempts of dominating their victims in order to feel powerful and appreciated.
Contrarily, the victims of bullying feel the loss of appreciation and self-confidence. It is
through my understanding that healthy self-esteem is one of the basic needs of human
beings (CDC, 2012; Horne, Newman, & Bartolomucci, 2000), and the inability to meet or
satisfy these needs will have a profound negative impact on the growth and development of
the children. Nevertheless, we also have to consider the effect of bullying on the perpetrators
themselves, which are the bullies. According to Baldry (2004), bullying others is an indicator
of maladjustment and therefore it might also be related to poorer health because of the
stress attached to it. Parents of bullies tend to be less supportive of their children than
parents of children not involved in bullying. This leads to poorer parent-child relationships
and greater feelings of insecurity and anxiety (Baldry & Farrington, 1998).

5.0

Conclusion: Solution
Bullying is destructive and damages self-esteem. It needs to be disciplined and dealt

with immediately in children and teenagers. From our video, we listed numerous activities
which could help in the stopping bullying culture such as organising anti-bullying campaigns,
counselling and guidance from teachers and teamwork with parents. Khalim (2014) stated
that comprehensive school-based programs are the most effective way to address the
problem of bullying in schools. Another solution to this issue is to understand that teachers
must play the prominent role in schools whereby they need to be sensitive and vigilance to
any form of bullying occur in the school compounds. Teacher must be able to conduct

programs or activities which helped in accessing the bullys emotional empathy and moral
development. In a research made by Higbee (2009), he presented a behavioural approach
to bully prevention by utilising a school-wide intervention in positive behaviour support (BPPBS) teaches students to withhold the social rewards hypothesised to maintain bullying.
From certain reinforcement and guidance, the bullying incidents can be reduced and at the
same time re-educate the bullies to stay away from bullying acts. Moreover, the school
needs to move resolutely with parents, the State Education Department and the Ministry of
Education which would provide support to teachers in order to curb bullying more
successfully. As suggested in the Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013) on its ninth shifts,
school board, parents and community must collaborate more in education programs. The
school, parent and community should play more proactive roles by promoting an aggressive
student-specific plan. This may be initiated by the Counseling Unit or the Moral Education
Unit in collaboration with Disciplinary Unit in various schools.
In conclusion, bullying is a social illness which needs to be eradicated. Nevertheless,
I learned that the success rate of curbing this illness could only be achieved through
extensive collaboration between the children, teacher, parents, community, and the
government. As a teacher, I understand now that the concept of bullying expands further
than just physical bully. It involved interrelated forms of bullying from physical, verbal and
psychological aggression which lead to trauma and emotional regression. Thus, I should
train myself to be a teacher which could handle and identify these issues in school
effectively.

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