Perceptions of bullying in child and youth workers and social service workers

Bullying is increasing in schoolyards around the world at an alarming rate and with fatal consequences. The current study examines whether Child and Youth Workers (CYW) and Social Service Workers (SSW) differ in their ability to identify bullying acts, and which form of bullying, covert or overt, is identified more frequently. I hypothesized that CYW would better identify bullying acts than SSW because their schooling is more directed towards working with children. Past research has shown that overt forms of bullying are easier to identify than covert forms. I therefore hypothesized that overt bullying acts would more likely be identified than covert acts. While there were no differences among the groups in their identification accuracy, overt bullying acts were more frequently identified than covert acts. The results suggest that training to identify covert acts of bullying should occur during training, as these types of acts can be equally as damaging to the victim.