Date of Publication

1-24-2012

Abstract

Introduction: Bullying has recently gained notoriety as a serious concern across all countries. Bullying is generally acknowledged to be a repeated pattern of abuse communicated to a victim by physical, verbal, or written means which results in bodily harm or emotional injury. Victims of bullying have been shown to be at increased risk for suicide, depression, anxiety, headaches, or difficulty sleeping. Puppets in Education (PiE) is a non-profit organization that uses interactive puppet shows and workshops to educate more than 8,000 children per year about disabilities, cultural diversity, and a wide variety of other issues. By performing its shows in classrooms throughout the state, PiE works to model realistic, challenging situations for children and to provide simple and practical strategies for dealing with them. Focusing our attention on the effects of bullying behaviors in schools, our team worked with PiE and several local fourth grade classes to determine the amount of information children retain from the organization’s bullying prevention program, the effectiveness of the program in addressing and preventing bullying behaviors, and the students’ overall perception of the program.

Advisor(s)

Stephen Contompasis, MD, University of Vermont College of Medicine

Deb Lyons, Puppets in Education, Inc.

Agency

Puppets in Education Inc.

Subjects

Early and Middle Childhood, Educational and Community-Based Programs, Health Communication and Health Information Technology, Injury and Violence Prevention

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License

Assessing Bullying Behaviors and the Efficacy of Bullying Prevention in Fourth Grade Classrooms
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