Keywords

Bullying -- Law and legislation -- United States, Bullying -- United States -- Prevention, Suicide -- United States -- Prevention

Abstract

The focus of this study was to ascertain what, if any, were the commonalities and differences between and among bully-suicide victims between the ages of nine and eighteen. The focus of this study additionally was to determine to what extent, if any, was there a relationship between parent advocacy, media coverage, and/or a social event related to bully-suicide and the implementation or amending of state anti-bullying legislation. Bully-suicide victims (N = 92) from throughout the United States whose information was available through Internet search engines were included in this study. Further, state legislators (N = 50) who sponsored their states most recent anti-bullying legislation also were included. State legislators who provided direct responses to the request to participate answered four interview questions regarding their sponsorship of anti-bullying legislation. Commonalities between bully-suicide victims were analyzed to determine if particular demographics had an equal likelihood of occurrence. Legislator responses to the interview questions were analyzed for themes using a phenomenological research method. Through an examination of the research results and related literature, the researcher determined that there was a statistically significant deviation from equal likelihood of groups for bully-suicide victims who were male, high school-aged, or targeted due to appearance or sexual orientation. Further, bully-suicide victims were most frequently subjected to verbal bullying. Evaluation of the data also unveiled that parent advocacy, media coverage and social events related to bully-suicide were related to state legislator sponsorship of anti-bullying legislation

Notes

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Graduation Date

2012

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Murray, Kenneth

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

College

College of Education and Human Performance

Department

Educational and Human Sciences

Degree Program

Educational Leadership

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0004198

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0004198

Language

English

Release Date

May 2012

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Education, Education -- Dissertations, Academic

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