Asian Americans most bullied in US schools: study
Asian Americans endure far more bullying at US schools than members
of other ethnic groups, with teenagers of the community three times as
likely to face taunts on the Internet, new data shows.
Policymakers see a range of reasons for the harassment, including
language barriers faced by some Asian American students and a spike in
racial abuse following the September 11, 2001 attacks against children
perceived as Muslim.
“This data is absolutely unacceptable and it must change. Our
children have to be able to go to school free of fear,” US Education
Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday during a forum at the Centre for
American Progress think-tank.
The research, to be released on Saturday, found that 54 percent of
Asian American teenagers said they were bullied in the classroom,
sharply above the 31.3 percent of whites who reported `being picked on.
Online harassment
The figure was 38.4 percent for African Americans and 34.3 percent
for Hispanics, a government researcher involved in the data analysis
told AFP. He requested anonymity because the data has not been made
public.
The disparity was even more striking for cyber-bullying.
Some 62 percent of Asian Americans reported online harassment once or
twice a month, compared with 18.1 percent of whites. The researcher said
more study was needed on why the problem is so severe among Asian
Americans.
The data comes from a 2009 survey supported by the US Justice
Department and Education Department which interviewed some 6,500
students from ages 12 to 18. Asian Americans are generally defined as
tracing ancestry to East Asia, the Indian subcontinent or the South
Pacific.
Officials plan to announce the data during an event in New York on
bullying as part of President Barack Obama’s White House Initiative on
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Interaction
New Jersey parent Shehnaz Abdeljaber, who will speak at the event,
said she was shocked when she saw her son’s middle school yearbook in
which not only classmates but also a teacher wrote comments suggesting
he was a terrorist.
Abdeljaber soon learned that her son had endured similar remarks at a
younger age but had kept silent. She complained to the school principal
but has since pushed for workshops on bullying that involve teachers and
students.
“We need a more creative approach and more interaction with the
youth, empowering them to do something rather than just going through
the framework of authority,” she said.
The Obama administration has put a priority on fighting bullying. The
President joined Facebook for an online anti-bullying conference, where
he warned that social media was making the problem worse for many
children.
Duncan, the education secretary, warned that bullying had serious
effects as it can lead to mental and physical health problems including
dependence on drugs or alcohol.
Duncan also voiced concern about high rates of bullying at schools
against gay and lesbians, an issue that has come into greater focus
since a spate of suicides last year among gay teens who were harassed.
“We’re seeing folks who somehow seem a little different from the norm
bearing the brunt,” Duncan said.
“We’re trying to shine a huge spotlight on this,” he said. A number
of Asian countries have also wrestled with bullying.
Japan stepped up measures in 2006 after at least four youngsters
killed themselves in a matter of days and the Education Minister said he
had received an anonymous letter from a bullied student who was
contemplating suicide.
AFP |