Canada Terrible at Controlling Bullying-How Does Your Country Rate

What does your country rank at on how it stops bullying for teens and students? A Canadian study found Canada 36th out of 40 countries not able to stop this issue.

As teens we know that this is a serious and annoying problem.

Some would blame it on a culture where violence is glorified while some say it is lack of real policy and monitoring success of any such policy. Either excuse, shame on Canada.

We are being bullied in schoolyards without much being done at the school and board levels.

A recent study found Canada among the worst in the world for bullying-related activities. Canada only came ahead of Israel, U.S and Lithuania. The study was done by Wendy Craig, a psychology professor at Queen’s University, in conjunction with the World Health Organization.

“I was really surprised and horrified. We have this view that Canadians are nice and kind and generous.”

This study involved surveys in 2005/2006 sent out to 200,000 students aged 11, 13 and 15. The researchers defined bullying as “use of power and aggression to cause distress or control another”.

They also asked students in 6 countries, including Canada, to describe bullying-if is is verbal, physical, sexual or racial. Some stats included 14% of 11 year old Canadian boys reported being physically bulled and 30% reported verbal bullying.

The Safe School Act has put this issue in the spotlight over recent years and Ontario alone trains teachers and principals to address and prevent bullying. Bullying Awareness Week has also just finished so hopefully this will raise awareness.

According to some organizations specializing in bullying they claim these steps, however, do little to eliminate the real problem. Debra Pepler, scientific co-director for PREVNet (Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network) says these are unsuccessful and that the lack of monitoring in Canada to see if approaches work contribute to the problem.

So which countries had low rates of school bullying. Norway, Sweden and England. Why? These countries have monitoring programs that are continuous evaluated.

Let us know what you think by commenting below.