欺负行为在学生中的盛行以及由此引发的常见症状 毕业论文外文翻译

Bullying Among School Children:Prevalence and Association with CommonSymptoms in ChildhoodObjectiveTo estimate the prevalence of bullying among girls and boys in school and examine its association with psychological and psychosomatic symptoms.Bullying is defined as the intentional and unprovoked abuse of power by one or more children to inflict pain or cause distress to another child on repeated occasions. Being a common and neglected form of child abuse, it not only has adverse effects on the vi ctims’ academic performance but also on their physical and psychological health, the various forms of bullying being calling names,physical abuse, teasing, spreading rumors, provoking, social exclusion and threatening. Minimal studies have been conducted on this field in India. Bullying is highly prevalent in India but no steps have been taken to combat this potentially hazardous social evil. Hence, this study was undertaken to assess the prevalence of bullying in schools and its association with common childhood symptoms and to throw light upon the seriousness of the problem.This study has shown that bullying is highly prevalent in schools in this part of the country and the prevalence of bullying noted in the present study(60.4%)could be one of the highest amongst studies carried out worldwide. This estimate is higher than that reported by Kshirsagar et al. who found the bullying in Maharashtra to be 31.4%.Similarly,in a study done in Newham,London,the rate was found to be only 22.4%.Glen M Glew et al. in his study found the prevalence to be 19.1%. Also,the prevalence among boys(63.9%)was more than among girls(53%),more so in exclusively boy’s schools than coed schools. The age factor was directly related to bullying and it was found to be increasing with age from 8–13 years then decreasing in older children,which can probably be attributed to older children being more influenced by the world around them. This is in tally with the observations of Roberto Forero et al. wherein the prevalence of bullying increased from the 6th year(31.1%)to the 8th year(35.8%)and then decreased in the 10th year(32.4%).It was seen that the most common forms of bullying were non-physical,like calling names(57.9%),followed by making fun of one’s looks(15.5%)and degrading(15.2%)where as physical forms of bullying like hitting formed only12.5%.A similar finding was made by Kshirsagar et wherein the commonest forms were calling names,followed by making fun and lastly causing physical hurt. But it must always be remembered that even non physical forms of bullying can lead to harmful effects. A pattern was noted in the forms of bullying among girls and boys wherein physical abuse and making fun of one’s looks was more common among boys while isolating and complaining to the teacher was more common among girls. This is probably because of the outgoing and aggressive nature of boy as compared to the softer nature of girls who are silent sufferers who prefer complaining rather than take matters into their own hands.A very characteristic finding was noted regarding the person the victim confided in.The victims’confidence in heir friends increased with age whereas that in their teachers decreased with age.A large fraction of students chose not to confide in anyone.This shows that many students do not take any action about getting bullied either due to fear or ignorance.Bullying is not a harmless phenomenon,but is associated with physical and psychological problems.Majority of the students reported feeling sad and depresses(39.7%)about being bullied.Of all the victims 47.3%complained of health problems while only 20.2%of students who were not bullied complained of any problems.According to the study done by Kshirsagar et al. all the bullied children reported at least one symptom,while only 52.5%of the children who were not bullied complained of any health problems.The most common physical manifestation in the present study was seen to be headache and tummy ache followed by loose stools and fever.Headache and falling sick frequently was found to be the most common symptoms even by Kshirsagar et al. Hence,doctors should always consider bullying as a possible reason for unexplained symptoms in children and give the appropriate psychological support.It was alarming to note that only a meager amount of 20 teachers participated in the interview and a significant number of them refused to even admit that bullying was prevalent in their school.This probably is because of the fear of bad reputation in the minds of the teachers leading to denial of the social evil.A majority of the teachers chose to punish(58.6%)instead of counsel(5%)which highlights the inadequate training the teachers have concerning the methods of preventing bullying.The knowledge of parents regarding their children beingbullied was also found to be very less,wherein only 38.9%parents agreed that their child was being bullied as compared to the 60.4% prevalence as found out on interviewing the students.In the study carried out by Kshirsagar et al. only 24%of the parents said that they were aware of their child being a victim of bullying,which indicates that most bullied children did not report this to their parents thus taking away an important source of support.It was also shocking to find that parents were asking their children to compromise in a significant number of cases(47.5%)which shows that they do not consider bullying to be a problem in the first place!It was seen that the victims of bullying do not actively participate in class,had an evident decrease in general performance,developed inferiority complex and found it difficult to get along with other students.Teachers play a key role in preventing and intervening with bullying at school,but they have very little training on how to effectively deal with such problems.Hence,teachers must be educated about ways in which they can control bullying and they should also work together with clinicians to deal with the symptoms on bullying and victimization.Keeping in mind that bullying is a serious problem,it is essential to conduct extensive research to highlight the high prevalence of bullying on our country and to deduce methods of dealing with it.Teachers,parents and pediatricians must take this issue seriously and encourage and give moral support to the victims to be bold,counsel students tenderly and should inculcate in the childrens minds the spirit of working in harmony.ConclusionsBulling is a major problem among school children and must be taken seriously.In the present study,the prevalence of bullying was found to be 60.4%which is alarmingly high and could be much higher in the bigger picture.The hazards include psychosomatic symptoms which are potentially harmful for the normal development of the child.Teachers must be trained to deal effectively with both the bullies and the bullied.They should be able to take appropriate measures like giving moral education, counseling and surround the child with positive and sportive thoughts.Pediatricians treating children with unexplained healthrelated symptoms should always consider bullying as causative agent and work in harmony with theteachers and parents to help the child.A better future can be carved out for the younger generation by eradicating this problem and for this a lot more research needs to be done in our country.Correlates of Body Satisfaction and Self-Concept in Third-and Sixth-Graders The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between body satisfaction and self-concept in elementary school children. Participants were twenty-three boys and twenty-eight girls from the third and sixth grades of a rural public school.Demographic information,body satisfaction scores,self-concept scores,and measures of parental attitudes were obtained from the participants through a questionnaire. It was hypothesized that body satisfaction and self-concept would be related in elementary school children. It was expected that this relationship would be impacted by grade,sex,and parental attitudes. A significant relationship existed between body satisfaction and self-concept in girls,but not boys. No grade differences were detected in the relationship. Body satisfaction was significantly correlated with body criticism from peers among sixth graders. A parent's body satisfaction appeared to be a significant predictor of the body satisfaction of his/her opposite sex child for both third-and sixth-graders.Eating problems are a growing concern for health professionals. Each year,millions of people in the United States are affected by serious and sometimes life-threatening eating disorders. Although most eating disorders are found in teen and young adult women,other segments of the population are experiencing a rise in these disorders. There is presently an increasing prevalence of eating disorders among men(Blackman, 1996). Perhaps more alarming,is the expanding body of research demonstrating the existence of eating problems in elementary school children. tudies have shown a fear of fat,drive for thinness,dieting,and other body shape concerns and behaviors in this young age group(Smolak and Levine,1994). The short-and long-term physical and psychological consequences of eating disorders demand that this trend in children be halted. Researchers are currently examining factors involved in the development of eating problems.Rodin(1992)suggests that extreme body concern may be a major source of the widespread eating problems. The size and appearance of one's body has become so important to some individuals that they judge their self-worth solely interms of their body. Several research efforts have supported Rodin's theory. A study by Nassar,Hodges,and Ollendick(1992)found a relationship between the self-concept and eating attitudes of young adolescent girls. Fisher,Schneider,Pegler,and Napolitano(1991)discovered that adolescent females who reported more unhappiness with their weight were more likely to have lower self-esteem. An investigation by Koff,Rierdan,and Stubbs(1990)revealed that body satisfaction and self-concept were associated in male and female adolescents. The research efforts in this area have mainly focused on the body attitudes and self-concepts of adolescents and young adults. Few studies have looked at these variables in children,yet research on the attitudes of children toward body figures suggests that self-concept and body satisfaction may also be related in this younger age group. Children express negative attitudes toward chubby body figures(Kirkpatrick and Sanders,1978). If children's attitudes about others are based on body shape,it is likely that their attitudes about themselves will be related to their own body shape. While few studies have examined the relationship of these two factors in children,initial work indicates that a significant relationship exists in this younger population(Folk et al.,1993;Lawrence and Thelen,1995).The relationship between body satisfaction and self-concept may not be the same for all children. For instance,societal standards that place great importance on body size as a determinant of female beauty encourage all females to be extremely attentive to the appearance of their bodies(Adams et al.,1993),while the standards for males are less stringent. The effects of this societal double-standard can be seen in the body concerns of females as compared to males. Murray,Touyz,and Beumont(1995)found that females as a whole were significantly more likely than males to report that other people influenced their body shape-and weight-related attitudes and behaviors. Thelen,Powell,Lawrence,and Kuhnert(1992)found that among fourth-and sixth-graders,girls indicated more concern about being or becoming overweight,more dieting behavior,more restrained eating behaviors,and a greater desire to be thinner when compared to boys. It follows that young girls will place more importance on their bodies when forming self attitudes than will boys.Parents have been implicated in the body attitudes and eating behaviors of their children. Evans and le Grange(1995)looked at body satisfaction in a smallsample of eating disordered mothers and their children,and normal mothers and their children. The results showed a strong relationship between the children's body satisfaction and their mothers'satisfaction with their own weight and shape. In the present study,children's reports of their parents'appearance-related behaviors were used as an indicator of the parents'body satisfaction. Earlier research suggested that children are accurate in reporting others'behaviors(Aloise,1993).Other research suggests that parents influence their children's body attitudes through explicit messages. Thelen and Cormier(1995)contend that parents directly communicate the type of attitude they hold about their child's body to the child. hese researchers found daughters'body weight,desire to be thinner,and dieting patterns were positively associated with their parents'reported encouragement of the daughters to control weight. Levine,Smolak,and Hayden(1994)found that weight/shape-related teasing and criticism by family were related to drive for thinness and disturbed eating patterns in middle school girls.Body criticism from parents may also influence a child's total self-concept. Killeen(1993)reported that children's self-esteem reflects their own view of how their parents evaluate them in specific and general areas. If a child perceives that his/her parent is critical of his/her body,then this perception may influence the total self-concept of the child. It may be expected that body criticism from parents would be associated with a child's own body satisfaction and,in turn,total self-concept.Peers may also influence children's body satisfaction and self-concept,especially as the children enter adolescence. Time spent with parents,emotional closeness,and yielding to parents in decision making all decrease during the pubertal period(Paikoff and Brooks-Gunn,1991). At the same time,adolescents seek acceptance from and intimacy with their peers. As a result,adolescence is typically a time of growing peer influence and diminishing parental influence,especially on matters of personal taste and life-style(Myers,1992). The increasing influence of peers may also be expected to be reflected in the body satisfaction of older elementary school children:children who receive more criticism from their peers may have lower levels of body satisfaction and self concept.DISCUSSIONThe three main hypotheses of the study were all,at least partially,confirmed.The central hypothesis of the study was that the body satisfaction of elementary-school-aged children would be significantly correlated with their total self-concept,particularly for girls.This hypothesis was supported.Girls with high body satisfaction scores tended to have high self-concept scores.In fact,for girls,49 percent of the variance in self-concept is explained by variance in body satisfaction.For boys,however,the correlation did not reach statistical significance.These findings support the idea that girls place more importance on their bodies when forming self-attitudes than do boys.This tendency may stem from Western society's belief that physical attractiveness is more important in women than in men(White,1992).Similarly,Thelen et al.(1992)reported that in fourth-and sixth-grades,girls show a stronger association between body satisfaction and self-concept than do boys.It appears that body satisfaction does play a role in the self-concept of this younger population.It is clear from the results of these studies that body attitudes are related to how young children view themselves.The existence of this relationship may explain why so many elementary school children are expressing body shape concerns and dieting behavior(Smolak and Levine,1994).The second hypothesis was that the frequency of body criticism a child receives from others would be negatively correlated with his/her body satisfaction.In general,the results of the study provided mixed support for this hypothesis.As predicted,criticism from peers is significantly correlated with a child's body satisfaction.These results coincide with research by Levine et al.(1994)which looked at body criticism and body satisfaction in an older population of females.Levine et al.found that the amount of peer teasing middle school girls received about their body weight and shape was the best predictor of these girls'body dissatisfaction.Also as expected,the older children in the present study appeared to be more sensitive to peer criticism than were the younger children,probably as a reflection of the increasing influence of peers on young adolescent children.It was also found that girls'body satisfaction is more strongly related to criticism from peers than is boys'.Although this result had not been predicted,it does not seem to be particularly surprising given the double standard within our culture that places greater value on physical appearance for femalesthan for males.Unexpectedly,the present study did not find significant relationships between parental criticism and body satisfaction.This is in conflict with the findings of Levine et al.(1994),who found that weight/shape-related teasing and criticism by family were related to body concerns in middle school girls and Killeen(1993),who found that children's self-esteem reflects their own view of how their parents evaluate them in specific and general areas.The reason for the failure of the present study to find a significant correlation between body satisfaction and parental criticism is unclear.The pattern of results for peer criticism fit the predictions based on previous research and theory;so,it is possible that the Body Criticism Scale used in this study is not sensitive to the types or amounts of parental criticism measured in the previous studies.Further studies are needed to establish the extent of the validity of this instrument.The third hypothesis held that a child's perception of a parent's body satisfaction would be positively associated with the child's body satisfaction.It was found that,overall,parents who were perceived to have high body satisfaction tended to have children with high body satisfaction.However,the present study revealed an interesting pattern where mothers'body satisfaction predicts body satisfaction in their sons,while fathers'body satisfaction predicts body satisfaction in their daughters.These findings,both the overall relationship and the cross-sex parent/child pattern,seem to be congruent with the results of the study by Evans and le Grange(1995),who found a relationship between children's body satisfaction and their mothers'satisfaction with their own weight and shape.Evans and le Grange found the relationship to be strongest among eating-disordered mothers and their children,more than three-quarters of whom were male.Furthermore,while most researchers have argued that the mother/daughter relation ship is the most important familial relationship for eating disordered girls(Sights and Richards 1984;Pole et al.,1988),new findings suggest otherwise.Phares(1997)found that the father/daughter relationship appeared to be problematic in families with an eating-disordered daughter.Maine(1991)also concluded that fathers contribute to their daughters'eating problems.The cross-sex effect found in the present study adds to this new body of research and may provide further support for an important link between fathers and daughters.Futurestudies should explore the opposite-sex parent/child relationship to confirm these results and determine in what other age groups this relationship might exist.The findings of this study may have implications for the treatment of children and adolescents who have low self-concepts,and possibly even for the prevention and treatment of eating problems.It is evident that body attitudes and overall self-evaluations are associated in elementary school children,especially girls.Since this relationship has been implicated in eating problems,prevention programs focusing on health and body acceptance should be implemented at an early age.The findings of this study would suggest that treatment programs focus on the body satisfaction of the opposite-sex parent as it is perceived by the child,since parents who are reported to express dissatisfaction about their own bodies tend to have children with lower body satisfaction.This may,in turn,put children at risk for lower self-concept,and may increase the odds that they will develop eating disorders.This proposed sequence(from parental body dissatisfaction to child body dissatisfaction to low self-concept and then eating problems)needs to be tested in future studies with larger sample sizes,perhaps utilizing path analysis.欺负行为在学生中的盛行以及由此引发的常见症状目的检验欺负行为在校园男女生中的盛行率以及由此引发的生理和心理的症状。