[d--b]

Is there a study that compares the difference in bullying between countries?

I have a feeling that bullying was/is particularly common and more violent in the UK compared to the rest of the world.

I am from France, and I always found the portraiture of bullying in English culture quite foreign to me. Repeated beatings, total humiliation, stalking, all these horrific behaviors did seem fairly established in the UK, while they were exceptional in my personal experience (not that it didn’t exist, but their frequency was much lower, and their intensity much milder).

It seems to me like the culture of both boarding schools, and “keep calm and carry on” (for lack of a better word) were a particularly fertile ground for such bad behaviors to spread.

But maybe I am wrong, just an intuition here.

[lend000]

Not from the UK, but such bullying stereotypes seem to be overblown in US media. I'm not saying they don't happen, but Hollywood seems to show some violent bullying happening to virtually every male teen protagonist.

During my childhood, most of the oddballs or introverted kids, myself included, were kind of ignored and had almost no interaction with the athletes and popular kids who were getting into fights with each other.

[lioeters]

It's not overblown, I assure you, it's widespread and "normal". In the US I saw kids getting thrown into dumpsters, or bullied over months - nasty psychological type, as well as physical beatings. Fortunately I was friends with older kids who protected me, but I felt sorry for some of my peers, who I'm sure were affected for the rest of their lives.

From my observation, it seemed bullying is group dynamics - it always involved a cluster of kids beating on a single child they picked out. It also reminded me of animal behavior, as a way of asserting who is part of the pack, and who is an outsider. And I think somehow it's related to the structure of institutions, like schools, sports, and military.

[jjav]

> It's not overblown, I assure you, it's widespread and "normal"

I always wonder how it is in the US. Based on movies and such, bullying is horrible in the US. But how widespread is that? I didn't go to school in the US (other than graduate degree in university) so don't have any direct experience.

I was the prototypical nerd in school (and old enough that it was back when being the D&D/computer/math nerd was not cool at all).

But I never experienced or saw any bullying. I sure didn't get invited to the cool parties and such, but everyone was always nice enough, including the "jock/cheerleader" types. Many decades later now, our whole class is still in contact and in friendly terms.

Maybe I just got lucky with a good class.

[ZeroGravitas]

Apparently in non-anglophone countries it's more accepted that bullying is a group activity, where UK/US focus on a single perpetrator.

I think the group dynamic is more accurate.

[koonsolo]

UK is pretty special indeed. On a holiday I passed by 2 UK boys, maybe one 6 and the other 8. The 8 year old slapped the younger one (I guess brother). The younger boy was almost in tears, while the other asked "Are you crying? Haha you're crying!", while the younger one who just got slapped tried to hold back the tears and said "I'm not crying!".

I'm from Belgium, and this kind of stuff you wouldn't really see here. Getting slapped and then defending yourself that you're not crying.

[orwin]

Its seems milder in France. Also, it seems that 5 to 6% of students are bullied which I find quite weird. Maybe it's because I'm from a very rural area, but i'm pretty sure bullying wasn't a thing, at least physically, and harassment didn't last long ended up in physical fights between two people, or two groups of people (sometime not even by affinity, just because he was in my class and we didn't took shit from underclassmen).

[Areading314]

Nope very common all over the world

[alwa]

I’m curious, what’s the basis for that claim? I’m surprised to learn that the constellation, incidence rate, and intensity of bullying behaviors don’t vary along sociocultural lines. Do you mean that there are no examples of areas or situations that have been more successful than others at addressing these kinds of youth behaviors?

[resolutebat]

Of course there is variance, but I'm not aware of any culture that doesn't have bullying in school. Many places generally applauded for being high-trust, harmonious adult societies (the Nordics, Japan, Australia etc) certainly have a problem with it.

Random example: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-20/trinity-grammar-stude...

[defrost]

Not to advance a position either way here but I will point out that Australia is not a counter example to the thesis that "bullying is ingrained in UK culture".

Canadian, Australian, and other Commonwealth colonies are heavily influenced in education practices by their UK roots.

Nordic countries and Japan make for better counter examples.

One of the best counter examples to the assertion that bullying and anger is ingrained in child rearing across the world might be:

How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/6855333...

recently discussed here on HN.

[zilti]

LOL since when is Australia seen as "high-trust, harmonious adult society"? It is very USA-like in many ways. And the nordics are hardly any different to anywhere else in Europe in that regard.

[coldtea]

Says who? I happens all over the world, but it's hardly very common everywhere, to the degree we hear about it in US and UK. I was very minor and uncommon in my experience.