Current Issues Affecting Australian School Children | Desklib

This report discusses the current issues affecting children's learning and development in Australian primary schools, with a focus on cyber bullying. Findings include different types of bullying, roles and factors of bullying, and its impact on learning. Recommendations are provided to stop bullying.

Running head: ISSUES AFFECTING AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL CHILDREN
ISSUES AFFECTING AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL CHILDREN
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In this assignment the current issues which affects children’s learning and development in the
Australian Primary school are discussed. The contemporary issues which affects the children’s
development can be gender equity, social media bullying and hurried childhood. The main topic
of this report is Cyber bullying. The introduction of the report discusses the theoretical approach
of the three theorists Freud, Vygotsky and Erikson. The report therefore uses different models to
develop the understanding of the problems faced in the primary schools.The second part termed
as findings focuses on different types of bullying, the roles of bullying and its factors.The
research also assesses the impact of bullyingon learning and development in Australian Primary
Schools.The recommendations states how bullying can be stopped and what measures should the
school authorities and the parents take to help the victim to overcome his fear. The research
concludes that bullying can negatively affect a child’s learning and development and the society
therefore needs to work out to control its effects on the children in school.

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Table of Contents
INTODUCTION:.............................................................................................................................4
FINDINGS:......................................................................................................................................5
Different Types of Bullying:.......................................................................................................5
Roles of bullying:........................................................................................................................7
Factors of bullying:......................................................................................................................7
Impacts of bullying......................................................................................................................8
RECOMMENDATIONS:..............................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION:............................................................................................................................11
REFERANCE LIST:.....................................................................................................................13

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INTODUCTION:
In this report the current issues which is affecting children’s learning and development in
Australian primary school are been discussed.Cyber bullying is one of the international issues for
school children and young people.Bullying is an aggressive, unwanted behaviour among the
school students that involves imbalance of power with an intention to hurt others. Recent
Australian study suggests that internet usage has significantly increased among the school
children which also resulted in increase in cyber bullying. The Australian primary schools also
faces number of challenges. There are several issues which affect the development of school
children such as poor parental support, disciplinary issues, poverty, and bullying, hurried
childhood and gender equity. All these issues impacts learning and development of children
negatively. Freud’s psychodynamic theory states that the three components of mind are id, ego
and super ego. Psychosocial theory developed by Lev Vygotsky states that personality
development is developed through interaction with family and friends. Cognitive theory attempts
to explain human behaviour by understanding the thought process which is also an approach to
psychology (Cappadocia, Craig & Pepler, 2013). According to Erikson, human beings in each
stage faces a crisis that’s needs to resolved to develop ourselves socially and emotionally.
RATIONALE EXPLAINING THE RELEVANCE OF TEACHERS
Freud’s psychodynamic theory which mainly focuses on internal psychological process
can be applied to many theories of bullying along with defence mechanism and other internal
conflicts causing them to act with high level of aggression (Cavalletto, 2016) Vygotsky’s
Psychosocial approach is also another theory which states that development of personality takes
place throughout the life in eight stages. Lev Vygotsky’s theories stresses the role of social

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interaction in the development of cognition. According to His Sociocultural theory, dialogues
and languages are culturally specific. Erikson, who was a German American developmental
psychologist states there are life challenges in each of the eight stages of an individual’s life. The
cognitive approach states the qualitative changes in the way a child think. In his book Childhood
and Society during 1950, Erikson published his eight-stage theory of human
development(Hinduja & Patchin, 2014). Therefore, it can be said that Cyber bullying has been an
international issue for young people, families and schools.
FINDINGS:
Bullying is an act of intentionally hurting or harming a person by an individual or a group
of people with more power who feel helpless to respond. Cyberbullying is also a type of bullying
which usually takes place over digital deviceslike computers and mobile phones. It can occur
through text messages, online in social media forums such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and
also through different apps. The most important thing that needs to be assessed is to find out
what are the main contributors of cyber bullying and how can this be stopped permanently. It has
been recorded that nearly 43% of the children had been bullied online(Taddeo & Spears, 2015).
The Australian Covert Bullying Prevalence Survey stated that cyber bullying is experienced
among 7418 students. One of the most prevalent of all bullying behaviours that was experienced
by students in school was teaching. According to the research it has been found out that one in
Year4 to Year 9, 27% of the Australian students are reportedly bullied every few weeks. Year 5
and Year 8 students experienced highest school bullying. According to the sources 64% of girls
between the ages 6 to 12 are reported to be cyber bullied(Bullying No Way!, 2018). Secondary
school students are more likely to engage in online bullying than the primary school

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studentsThere are different types of bullying experienced both by adults and children like
physical bullying, social bullying, cyber bullying and verbal bullying. Cyber bulling can be a
covert or an overt bullying behaviour through digital technologies. It includes abusive e-mails,
videos or posts, nasty rumours or imitating others online. There are many challenges in school
education. One of them is identifying children who are at the risk of falling behind. Another
challenge is to reduce disparities among the Australian schools.
Different Types of Bullying:
Bullying have been studied by researchers for many years. Bullying can be of several
types like verbal bullying, physical bullying, cyber bullying, social bullying and prejudicial
bullying. Bullyvariesfrom one person to another and their way of bullying also varies. Methods
and motivations ofbullying are also different for different person.
Verbal Bullying: It includes name calling, terrorizing and abusing. Verbal bullying also includes
insulting someone based on their physical characteristics or on other attributes including religion,
sexuality, culture and race. In case of verbal bullying an individual verbally bullies the other
person o gain power over his or her peers. This kind of bullying can be damaging and can have
psychological effects on the sufferer.
Physical Bullying: This includes hurting or hitting someone, intimidating other person or
mutilating others belongings(Cappadocia, Craig, & Pepler, 2013). Any kind of physical attacks
including punching and kicking are forms of physical bullying. Physical bullying also hinders the
development of a child as it also makes the victim fear schools.
Social Bullying: Social Bullying is one of the most common form of bullying which comes
under verbal bullying. This form of bullying is known as covert bullying. This sort of bullying

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includes spreading gossip along with fake rumours, excluding someone socially online. Social
bullying also causes emotional distress to the victim.
Cyber Bullying: Cyber Bullying is also known as cyber harassment or online bullying. This kind
of harassment takes place using electronic means. The increase of using electronic devices
among the children ensures that cyber bullying is very much effective in causing harm to lot of
students.
Prejudicial Bullying: Prejudices that teens have towards people of different races, sexual
orientation or religions are termed as prejudicial bullying. In case of prejudicial bullying there is
a tendency for kids to target others who are different from them in terms of race or religion.
Roles of bullying:
One of the major roles in bullying is to cause harm to the other person. Power is one of
the major reason for bullying as the bully feels the victim is in control of them. The person who
bullies also obtains satisfaction from harassing others. The power is also based on popularity,
intelligence, socio economic status and confidence(Hinduja & Patchin, 2014). Bullying in some
cases also used for enjoyment and fun among the children. The children watching their friends
bullying become bystanders and learn about bullying while observing the behaviour of the
children.
Factors of bullying:
There are many factors which contributes to bullying over the internet. One of the main
reason is the access to free internet and the increased usage of technology among the teens,
which resulted in addiction. Teenagers nowadays basically use internet for managing stress,
depression, loneliness or to escape reality. Sometimes they also reveal a great deal about

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themselves in order to get attention among his friends whereas some of them expose themselves
out of an emotional desire(Olweus, 2013). These teens have a cyber relationship through the
internet which are usually based on fantasy and they end up in emotional disappointment. Most
of the teenagers in schools bully usually for fun. Some of them will also not want to confront
face to face and will start posting rumours on the internet. Creating fake websites and
humiliating others is also common. High rate of suicide in case of young children is one of the
most saddening stories of cyber bullying(McLeod, 2013).. Trauma, abuse or any other factors
imposed by the parents on children is also a factor behind bullying. Peer pressure is also one of
the major contributor to bullying. Sometimes kids in his friends circle pressurizes other kids to
participate in bullying which may include name calling or leaving mean notes. Peer pressure
therefore causes children to do certain things which is extremely wrong in order to get
attention.Different behavioural models that are adopted by students in primary schools are also
important in developing the bullying culture. When proper action is not taken in school, the
culture of bullying develops among school students. Bullying can also have an injurious effect
on student’s learning, health and well being. Bullying can be carried out both in physical as well
as psychological way. Creating a threatening atmosphere for the student, name calling are all
means of psychological bullying. All this things make the child afraid of going to school. Most
of the students bully the inferior ones in order to dominate them and to preserve the conformity
and the solidity of the group. In some cases bad school grades can also be a reason for
bullying(McLeod, S. 2013).. Though not all aggressive boys can be classified as a bully but
according to research made it was found that highly aggressive boys were nominated by their
teachers as bullies. The aggressive behaviour of children is one of the major concerning issues
for schools and it also hampers the student’s academic achievement. Therefore bullying can be

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termed as an instrumental behaviour where someone tries to dominate others where power,
competitiveness and status play an important role. The bullies also have many friends who have
the similar tendency of bullying others. Although it has been seen that some bullies are quite
popular among the peers, their popularity starts decreasing in the higher grade.
Impacts of bullying
Bullying can make children feel lonely, frightened and unhappy. It also lowers the child’s
self esteem and confidence in the society. Because of this reason there is a high tendency of the
children to become introvert, lonely, and isolated within the society. The victims also face trust
issues when they grow older. Bullying therefore negatively affects the emotional aspects of the
children. It can also have long term psychological consequencessuch as withdrawal from school
activities, nightmares, depression or feeling too exhausted. Bullying can also have an effect on
learning and impacts the whole school community. Students who are being bullied often seemed
to miss their schools regularly and they tend to perform poorly in the academics. Behaviours
identified as cyber bullying includes nasty emails or internet postings(Olweus, 2013). It has been
discovered that that bullying and depression has a strong link between them. According to a
recent research that analyzed multiple studies stated that cyber bullying on social media is also
linked to depression. In case of severe depression there is also a higher risk of committing
suicides in schools.According to the Cyber bullying Research Centre, the victims were found to
be suffering from suicidal thoughts and low self esteem. Millions of students drop out each year
due to bullying. Children who are often bullied have a hard time in retaining information which
also leads to lack of concentration( Hemphill et al.,2015). Bullying thereforeaffects the
children’s ability to learn and also affects his ability to trust others. This might not be visible in
younger years but as they grow and starts building relationships with others, they start to mistrust

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people.The victims therefore find it really difficult to make lasting relationships with others in
the society. Primary school bullying also drags down academic results. The negative impacts of
bullying can be a long term or it can also continue into early adulthood. Some of the victims also
reported to have multiple emotional impacts. The bullied victims also reported to feel
frustrated,embarrassed,afraid and terrified. In case of physical bullying, the kid may suffer from
bumps and bruises along with additional physical costs. Some kids have also complained of
headaches and stomach aches. Stomach issues and heart conditions also seemed to worsen whena
child is bullied. Bullied kids are often seen struggling to focus on their schoolwork and slipping
grades is one of the signs. When a child is been bullied, his family also gets affected. Sometimes
the parents also feel powerless to fix the situations and they feel alone and isolated.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
 According to Vygotsky, personality development is influenced through interactions with
friends, family and culture (Jansen et al., 2013). He also stated in his sociocultural theory
that learning is a social process and that the social interaction plays a very important role
for cognition. The Education System of Australia therefore needs to be formulated
according challenges faced by the children in the society. A proper tool of learning and
governing needs to be developed to make sure that there is a strong connection between
the social and cognitive interaction characteristics that are developed within this
educational system.
 The school authorities of Australia also needs to be very strict towards the students who
are engaged in bullying and therefore needs to adopt strict rules and guidelines on
bullying in school premises(Katz et al., 2014).. The primary aim of the school is to

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restore a positive learning environment for all students. An Australian intervention
program for primary schools, Friendly Schools and Families encourages school to
systematically tailor strategies to reduce bullying.
 Aggressive behaviour in young children is quite common and parents must therefore
work to stop these behaviour before they become habitual. Children who spend less time
with their parents are often seen to bully others, therefore it is advisable that the parents
should spend enough time with their children.
 Talking to kids about bullying and helping them understand why it is harmful and how
should they respond is also advisable. Exposure to family conflicts or problems in the
family environment, parental use of drugs and alcohol are some of the factors which
increases the likelihood of the child to bully others. Children reflect the attitudes and
behaviour of the parents. Parents should teach children how to treat others with respect.
Parents, educators and law enforcement all need to take caution in order to prevent
children from cyber bullying.
CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, it can be said that bullying negatively affects learning and development
across primary schools in Australia.Cyber bullying therefore is a very serious problem with
today’s youth. Teenagers mainly have problem with cyber bullying and therefore find it hard to
communicate with others about the problem they faces.Many lives are lost, people are getting
hurt and they are also suffering from anxiety and depression. The parents, teachers, schools and
education boards are not working enough towards changing the attitude and mentality of the
adults and children in the society. The road to recovery from bullying is very challenging and in

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fact the effects of bullying can stick around for a long time. If bullying is not addressed properly,
it can cause a lot of problemfor the children. Therefore, in order to help a child to heal from
bullying, the school authorities and parents must come forward to help him out. Consulting a
councelor will also help the bullied victim to recover fast.

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Katz, I., Keeley, M., Spears, B., Taddeo, C., Swist, T., & Bates, S. (2014). Research on youth exposure
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