Bullying vs. Drama -- Does the Name Matter?

Bullying vs. Drama — Does the Name Matter?

What academics and policymakers call “bullying” is what kids call “drama” — and the distinction has implications for school and student safety.

Under pressure to maintain control over the bullying problem in schools, some adults are overlooking their greatest resource: the kids themselves. The New York Times reports that one of the biggest hurdles faced by anti-bullying campaigns is that the people in charge fail to understand or take into account the points of view of the very people these campaigns are trying to help.

Even the words employed by these programs can do more harm than good. While labels such as “bully” or “victim” seem commonsense, children, especially preteens and teenagers, might be loath to think of themselves as such.

For a teenager to recognize herself or himself in the adult language of bullying carries social and psychological costs. It requires acknowledging oneself as either powerless or abusive.

Failing to account for such attitudes creates a disconnect between people to aim to fix the problems and those they want to help. In their Times Op-Ed, Danah Boyd and Alice Marwick explain how their initial research of student-on-student bullying did get anywhere until they took a close look at the vocabulary their research subjects were using. What Boyd and Marwick thought of as “bullying,” students, instead, called “Drama.” Kids used the term as a type of protective mechanism.

Teenagers say drama when they want to diminish the importance of something. Repeatedly, teenagers would refer to something as “just stupid drama,” “something girls do,” or “so high school.” We learned that drama can be fun and entertaining; it can be serious or totally ridiculous; it can be a way to get attention or feel validated. But mostly we learned that young people use the term “drama”because it is empowering.

Boyd and Marwick concluded that by forcing students to use the bully/victim nomenclature, the researchers were thrusting victimhood on the kids and making them feel weak, without offering them a path towards empowerment and agency.

But in The New Criterion, James Bowman wonders if it wouldn’t be better to take Boyd’s and Marwick’s research findings at face value. It is possible, he argues, that for kids “bullying” and “drama” are really two distinct things, and therefore, the problem of bullying is really not as widespread as it seems.

Teenagers say drama when they want to diminish the importance of something. Repeatedly, teenagers would refer to something as “just stupid drama,” “something girls do,” or “so high school.” We learned that drama can be fun and entertaining; it can be serious or totally ridiculous; it can be a way to get attention or feel validated. But mostly we learned that young people use the term drama because it is empowering.

If school is the best place for children to learn to cope with the conflict they’ll be dealing with throughout their life, over-zealous anti-bullying efforts might instead retard this adjustment process.

Comments

Vistelar Group » Is "Drama" a better word? » » Vistelar Group

September 29, 2011 at 7:57 am

[...] What we call bullying, kids call drama. Regardless of what we call it, we're all better off when we focus on a [...]

Reply
Kath-

October 2, 2011 at 10:19 am

I am willing to bet that the kids interviewed who called it “drama” do so to deflect responsibility, avoid taking ownership of the damage they do, and further minimizing the victim. The victim may call it “drama” because they know all too well that pointing out the problem only leads to more persecution. Call it whatever you want, but as long as kids are dying and suffering, the adults need to take swift and decisive action.

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- Sam
  
  October 2, 2011 at 1:03 pm
  
  Indeed so. bullying does not require physical intimidation _ indeed with the modern tools at their disposal the bully (ies) do not need to be physically present to inflict great and lasting harm. Re-labelling what they do as ‘drama’ is basically a cop-out, a denial of the pathology. Those in authority should not fall into this trap but insist that bullying is just that, pure & simple.
  
  Unfortunately there are those in authority who still see bullying as a rite of passage for the victim, by which they will become strengthened. I strongly suspect that the majority are permanently negatively affected. I also suspect that those who appear ‘strengthened’ go on to take out their internal misery on others in later life either becoming bullies at work, domestic abusers, or worse…
  
  Reply
Sam

October 2, 2011 at 1:10 pm

Oh btw. I speak as a survivor. Bullied from about 13 yrs, still alive at 60 despite some close shaves. Bullying was certainly a factor in my not achieving my full potential.
Bear in mind that everyone has something to offer. Stephen Hawkins would probably have been euthanased by the Nazis, and Albert Einstein could have so easily fallen victim to a pogrom. Look what minds would have been lost. The bullied child today may well have the potential to do great things….if they live that long or are nod so damaged that they never achieve what might be theirs.

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Mike Weakley

October 15, 2011 at 5:01 pm

Bullying is a serious problem affecting millions of children every year. It can interfere with their social and emotional development, as well as their school performance. 19,000 children attempt to commit suicide every year as a direct result of being bullied. To help combat this, I have put together a bully prevention show for schools & libraries called “The STOP Bullyilng Show”. Highlights can be seen here…

http://youtu.be/2qAvD01RD9E

http://www.StopBullyingShow.com

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