That’s especially true when it comes to social climate. Small schools are nurturing, but typically more conformist. Large, diverse schools have more physical fights in the halls, but also provide more opportunities for students to find their niche. Private schools reinforce certain values — religious and educational — yet can breed intolerance.
Turns out that my theory about these trade-offs has some validity, according to the results of a recent survey of 43,000 high school students by the Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics.
The survey asked teenagers about their attitudes and conduct in terms of bullying behavior. It found public school students were more likely to participate in physical violence while private school students were more likely to have teased or taunted someone, and more likely to have felt bullied themselves.
Among the survey findings:
- 52 percent of public school students say they have hit someone in anger in the past year, compared to 47 percent of students in a religious private high school and 41 percent of students in a secular private high school.
- 60 percent of religious school boys have “bullied, teased or taunted” someone at least once in the past year, compared to 55 percent of boys in public or secular private schools. Girls in religious schools also were more likely to have verbally bullied someone than girls in the other two categories.
- 23 percent of religious-school students have “mistreated someone because he or she belonged to a different group,” compared to 21 percent of public school students and 15 percent of secular private students.
Overall, boys were more likely than girls to agree with these statements: “I’m prejudice against certain groups,” “It’s sometimes OK to hit or threaten someone when I am very angry,” “I have bullied, teased or taunted someone,” “I have used racial slurs or insults,” and “I have been under the influence of illegal drugs or alcohol at school.”
Not only were boys more likely to agree with the statements, there was a substantial gender gap in some of the response. Boys, for instance, were three times more likely than girls to “strongly agree” with the question on prejudice. Boys also were 50 percent more likely to have bullied or teased someone twice or more in the past year or hit someone because they were angry.
In fact, it appears from the survey that gender is the biggest identifier of bullying behavior. There isn’t much difference in civility — or lack of it — when comparing different regions of the country. Seniors are more civil than freshmen, but not by a huge margin. Student leaders, college-bound students, honor students, female athletes and those in youth activities reported more civil behavior than those who did not fall into those categories. Male athletes, however, were slightly more likely to have bullied than male non-athletes.
Officials at the Josephson Institute said the real take-away of the survey is not the sociodemographic differences, but the fact that bullying is so pervasive in American high schools. They point out that about 50 percent of high school students say they bullied someone in the past year, and nearly half of all students say they have been bullied themselves.
“If the saying, 'Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never harm me,' was ever true, it certainly is not so today,” Michael Josephson, founder and president of the Institute, said in a press release accompanying the study’s release.
“Insults, name calling, relentless teasing and malicious gossip often inflict deep and enduring pain,” he added. “It's not only the prevalence of bullying behavior and victimization that's troublesome. The Internet has intensified the injury. What's posted on the Internet is permanent, and it spreads like a virus — there is no refuge.”
Julie Mack’s column on students and school success appears Tuesdays in the Kalamazoo Gazette. Contact her at 269-388-8578 or email@example.com.