Poll: US vs UK Bullying Experiance- Which is worse?

[Master_of_Oldskool]

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.

 

[rangerman351]

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..

 

[rangerman351]

For guys I would think US, for girls I would think UK.

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.

Is it right to assume that schools are grouped in terms of cliques in America like jocks and nerds etc.?

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 somewhat

 

[Peacant]

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.

 

[Bato]

Is it right to assume that schools are grouped in terms of cliques in America like jocks and nerds etc.?

From what I hear that's how it is in Predominately White schools. I wouldn't know, though.

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.

 

[The White Hunter]

Well, that makes me feel better. I mean, I feel bad for you, but better about my situation.

Hey don't worry about this was years ago, I got big and strong and fought back.

Bullying is shit everywhere really.

 

[Aerosteam]

Judging by movies and TV shows, there's a lot more variety in bullying in the US than UK. There's no wedgies, stink bombs, heads shoved in toilets and lethal weapons here in the UK at school.

 

[Offworlder_v1legacy]

here's a chart from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2747624/

Huh, Lithuania, who would have thought.

OT: I'm not from either but from what I understand they both have their bullies in different forms and severities, but from the videos I've seen they're nowhere near as funny as Australian bullies. Trying to be bogans, idiots.

 

[Korolev]

Australia is somewhat like the UK, so the bullying would probably not be as bad as the US. Of course, the bullying problem in Australia have been getting worse since I left school all those years ago.

From what I've heard from my American friends, bullying in the US can be really bad (as in, gang-fights, stabbings, broken bones constantly) or barely a problem (light teasing, etc). So it's really variable and it depends on where you go.

From what I've heard from my UK friends, bullying tends to be relatively light for the most part, and only serious in some very economically depressed areas.

 

[Frankster]

The thing is unless one went to both US and UK schools, all we have to base our impressions on is media representations of bullying and our generalizations/stereotypes regarding the country we don't know.

Most are gonna say US as that's the media representation we have, that US schooling is all cliquey and jocks routinely give wedgies to "nerds" before going out with their blonde cheerleader girlfriend who is gonna dump him for another guy next week when the guy isn't the "star quarterback" anymore.

By comparison media representations of uk bullying is more "mild", but doesn't make bullying actually milder for the rl bullied victims, we get horror stories in uk too after all.

But guess if we are gonna talk sheer numbers, USA wins by default, way bigger country with more people after all.

 

[likalaruku]

Well, if all the stories that say tattling on bullies get you in trouble with teachers & the principal while the bullies get off scott free are true, then I'd say the US. Wouldn't put it past an American bully's parents from trying to sue a victim's parents for slander to make a quick buck either.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Honestly...I'm Australian, so I don't know if I'm qualified, but I think it depends on the type of bullying. For instance, I think homophobia is more prevalent in the US than the UK. But I'm really just throwing stuff at walls here, I don't know. From documentaries or whatever, I'd say bullying in the UK is more vicious but US bullying is more widespread. In Australia, as far as I can tell, there's really nothing serious. At most some racial bullying and some people being dicks, but even then, I didn't see much of it (admittedly I'm white, but I would've at least seen it). As for myself...I was actually teased quite a bit in primary school, which led to a lot of people getting beat up, so I was labelled a bully by some people. Funny how that works.

snip

Australia's low ranking on this doesn't surprise me. In my school there was a noticeable race/class divide

Austria, my friend. I made the same mistake in primary school with an atlas.