I attend a kind of laid back private school in the UK, where the premise of the school is to have a friendly, positive environment. There's no school uniform, we address the teachers by their first name and there's only like 600-700 students from reception to year 13, so pretty much everyone is aware of eachothers presence. In my experience, there was a fair bit of subtle bullying, and not so much beating people up and stuff. For me, I joined in year 6, and from about year 7/8 to the end of year 11 people were really being quite mean to me, excluding me and mocking me etc. However, in year 12 we start our A-levels, where we only have 4 subjects and have basically free reign over what we want to study, and a bunch of people left and some new students came, and the bullying completely stopped; I was able to spend time exclusively with the people I liked, and some of the people who left were the worst of the bullies, so I really enjoy school at the moment.
Poll: US vs UK Bullying Experiance- Which is worse?
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Interesting. In my district, the social grouping was absolutely rampant in middle and high school. I can attest to it at the schools I went to, and my friends from other schools would vouch for their experiences.kortin said:
Given my experience in school (though elementary school had no social classing, unsurprisingly), I thought this was a big thing throughout the country. I hope I'm wrong.
I have the opposite opinion. Not having uniforms might group people into "cliques" but in my personal opinion the "vein attempt of making everyone look the same" doesn't hide any differences from the bullies' minds.Matthew94 said:
Yet the uniform doesn't change who you are. This might be complete bullshit, but if I was a bully that was forced to wear the same clothes as any "freak" (basically the group(s) he/she hates) I'd be totally pumped to show everyone how different we are and how much of an atrocity it is to "pretend you people are like me".The Plunk said:
Your personal experience might have been favored by social factors, not the uniform.
Edit: also, I never went to a school where people worn uniforms and while there were people who "stood out" everyone kinda dressed the same and there were no "social barriers" between groups. Nerds and "jocks" dress the same, and goths have no problems talking to anyone.
Then why Comment?Tibs said:
Anyway, I would have to vote for the UK, then again I have no idea what US bulling is like, except from what I have seen on TV. On that basis the UKs "I'll knock you spark blad" and being threatened with a knife and spanner seems worse that "Gimmie your're lunch money" and being wedgied.
Never been routinely bullied myself but I'v seen these things ,among other insistence like these, happen to friends. The worst part is you're to afraid to defend yourself or your friends. the best thing to do is try and talk your way out of it or run. I don't even know if this classes as bullying. Most 'Bullies' in my school would threaten anyone weaker than them just to get in a fight, and by fight I mean getting kicked to death by about 8 different people.
Don't know what american bulling is like, and doubt its like it is in the movies. But if it is, I would much rather be shoved in a locker than stabbed.
Yeah I went to a bad school
It depends on the type of school. My school was pretty nice (UK), even though we sort of had 'cliques' there was quite a bit of crossover. For examples, the 'nerds' and the 'jocks' associated quite a lot. I assume this is something to do with the fact that they only let intelligent people in. Of course, we did have our share of douches, but they never really bothered me, despite being what many would consider a 'prime target' for bullies (ultra-lanky, open about nerdy interests, shit at sports). I heard about some schools in the area that just sounded terrible though.
In the US, however, I think people tolerate bullying a lot more. In the UK, people continue bullying because they don't care about authority, in the US it's more because the authorities don't really care about them.
In the US, however, I think people tolerate bullying a lot more. In the UK, people continue bullying because they don't care about authority, in the US it's more because the authorities don't really care about them.
I went to primary and secondary school in pretty rural areas so I didn't see/experience much bullying per se in that time (in fact I'm rather ashamed to admit that I probably could have been described as something of a bully myself in primary school) though I imagine if I went to school in Bristol (replace with whatever your closest big city happens to be) I would have likely got the shit kicked out of me on a fair few occasions. I realise that anything I have to say about the American high-school experience is purely conjecture; yet I would still posit that the higher crime rates, higher prevalence of socially conservative attitudes, higher emphasis on sports and higher concentration of religious evangelics among other things would make not just bullying, but high school life in general a lot more arduous to deal with. Though of course people's experiences are going to fluctuate wildly depending on what area you grew up in and the size and quality of the school you went to, I'm just saying in regard to the average student I think they'd have a more torrid time in the US.
Really? In America, I would think it would be worse for females, because of the "cheerleader" clique and the stupid, popular female "role models" out there, like Kesha and Paris Hilton.kurupt87 said:
Is it right to assume that schools are grouped in terms of cliques in America like jocks and nerds etc.?
Seems like the number of people who could definitively reply to this with any experience would be few and far between. Anyone else is just pulling assumptions out of a bodily orifice or extrapolating on very little observation that's heavily weighted by their country of choice.
In other words, this poll is just a bunch of garbage. And before anyone goes on with trying to make more assumptions about things, I have not responded to the poll and have no idea how people have been answering, so don't go bandying around any claims of how I must feel about the answers. I have absolutely no idea what they actually are.
But the poll is still garbage.
In other words, this poll is just a bunch of garbage. And before anyone goes on with trying to make more assumptions about things, I have not responded to the poll and have no idea how people have been answering, so don't go bandying around any claims of how I must feel about the answers. I have absolutely no idea what they actually are.
But the poll is still garbage.
Well, I only have experience with one high school in the US, so I can't say what things are like in general, but my high school was pretty different from what you see in most American movies.Jjtricky said:
While people did tend to hang out in their own little groups, there were plenty of people that migrated from group to group. Furthermore, such groups mostly manifested during lunch. During class, people generally chatted with whoever was near them, which often included people from different social groups, and even though I was a creepy, nerdy kid who wore lots of black, I always got along fine with the football players and cheerleaders and other people from that spectrum of the community.
As far as I know, there was very little systematic bullying at my school. In general, people kind of minded their own business. Usually when there was a fight or something, it was between two people in the same social group. The atmosphere was, overall, very laid-back.
Can't say for sure, only went to school in england. I'd say america's "first or last" culture encourages more bullying, but their schools seem more ready to actually do something about it. Here, many schools simply don't seem to care.
I was pretty much bullied all through school. Not much was ever done about it. Hell, they even lied to me repeatedly that the bullies had been talked to. They hadn't so much as been put in detention. To this day, I don't know who I hate more. The bullies, or the teachers. Fuck 'em. They're both soulless in my eyes.
One thing england needs to stop with is focusing on the rights of the bullies. If I had my way, the fuckers would have no rights, but what they really need to do is prioritse the rights of victims. If they need to be chucked out, chuck 'em out. They wanna think about the bully's future, what about the victims? What about them? If it gets bad enough, they won't have a future. If they make it, they'll probably carry the scars for the rest of their lives. Fuck the bullies, let 'em rot.
I was pretty much bullied all through school. Not much was ever done about it. Hell, they even lied to me repeatedly that the bullies had been talked to. They hadn't so much as been put in detention. To this day, I don't know who I hate more. The bullies, or the teachers. Fuck 'em. They're both soulless in my eyes.
One thing england needs to stop with is focusing on the rights of the bullies. If I had my way, the fuckers would have no rights, but what they really need to do is prioritse the rights of victims. If they need to be chucked out, chuck 'em out. They wanna think about the bully's future, what about the victims? What about them? If it gets bad enough, they won't have a future. If they make it, they'll probably carry the scars for the rest of their lives. Fuck the bullies, let 'em rot.
Same here, I don't really remember much "bullying" in my school days either. I remember some fights but those were fights between two girls who had an argument and some idiots who didn't know when to ignore stupidity.eimatshya said:
OT: I think the US has more bullying because of the larger population but that's about it.
While I've never been to the UK, so this is mostly based on weeks of intensive BBC America-based research, I would assume bullying is worse in the US. In my experience, school administrators in America just don't have the necessary balls to do anything about bullying, and I at least hope that the situation is different in the UK. Even if that doesn't hold true, the UK seems to generally have a more tolerant culture than the US. Obviously the cultural differences aren't that huge, but a slight difference can have a pretty big overall impact.
Having been somewhat bullied, albeit mildly compared to others, I would say that bullying unfortunately IS seen as part of the school experience. However, there is a fine line between the banter you may get from classmates if you say go to a same-sex school (I did)but this is mostly in good humor and not really meant to do any damage, but real bullying is rough.
Oh god, I lost my train of thought in this rant..
Oh god, I lost my train of thought in this rant..
Yeah, your about right, but as you get to private schools with the smaller advanced classes, you get more of a mix of nerd,jocks,and everything else getting along somewhatJjtricky said:
Huh... USA here, reporting little to no bullying, at least from my experience.
I come from a pretty big school in suburban Minnesota (center-north of the country). Fighting was almost non-existent. The only instance I can remember is when Batman and Superman got in a tussle in the cafeteria as part of a senior prank. Can't really say I've heard much in the way of homophobia either; the Homecoming King the year before my graduation was openly gay (one of the most popular guys in school too).
Then again, this is only one school out of... a lot.
I come from a pretty big school in suburban Minnesota (center-north of the country). Fighting was almost non-existent. The only instance I can remember is when Batman and Superman got in a tussle in the cafeteria as part of a senior prank. Can't really say I've heard much in the way of homophobia either; the Homecoming King the year before my graduation was openly gay (one of the most popular guys in school too).
Then again, this is only one school out of... a lot.
From what I hear that's how it is in Predominately White schools. I wouldn't know, though.Jjtricky said:
I went to a Black School, there were all of maybe 20 white kids in total. With a small Latin fraction.
There were no cliques, there were just people who hung out with each other. No popular crowd or anything like any of those stereotypes.
The worst thing that ever happened to me was being made fun of sometimes because I was this fat white kid. Though if someone got themselves all worked up and in a trouble maker's mood I would give them the evil eye and then ignore them completely and totally. They wouldn't really bother me much after that.