New Bullying Definition

We are working on a new free resource for school safety practitioners.  One task we have is to develop new definitions for school safety terms.  I would welcome any feedback on this rough draft definition for bullying.

Bullying

Bullying involves intentional and either repeated behaviors or those behaviors that make the victim feel that they are likely to be repeated which have a harmful affect on the target of the actions.  Bullying can involve physical abusive behavior, verbal behaviors or gestures or facial expressions designed to intimidate, harass or embarrass.  Bullying can also involve a variety of forms of exclusion.  Bullying can occur in live face to face form, spreading of rumors or malicious statements, writings as well as by use of technological means such as communications via social media, text messaging, websites, blogs and other electronic methods of communications commonly referred to as cyberbullying.   See also the definition for cyberbullying.

 

About Michael Dorn

Michael Dorn serves as the Executive Director of Safe Havens International, a non-profit school safety center. The author of 27 books on school safety, Michael’s campus safety work has taken him to 11 countries over the past 34 years.