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Our multiphase research conducted with a broader research team explores narratives of bullying across young adult literature, the news media, public discourse, and adolescents' experiences, and problematizes oversimplified understandings of the adolescent bullying process.
Introduction
In recent decades, bullying has been acknowledged as a pervasive problem, affecting many adolescents during their formative years. Bullying is typically defined as the aggressive assertion of power involving the repeated targeting of weaker individuals through social, emotional, or physical means (Vanderbilt & Augustyn, 2010). The rise of social media exacerbates the problem with increased avenues for bullying (Modecki et al., 2014). Bullying lays the foundation for a range of shortand long-term risks for all parties involved. Victims of bullying often experience sleep difficulties, anxiety, depression, a loss of self-esteem, and decreased academic performance (Hughes & Lynn Laffier, 2016; Salmivalli, 2010; US Department of Education, 2019). Bullies experience long-term negative effects from their bullying, including elevated risk of school disengagement or dropping out, higher likelihood of criminal behavior, and increased propensity toward substance abuse (Vanderbilt & Augustyn, 2010; Wolke et al., 2013). Finally, bystanders are neither immune to the negative effects of bullying nor "innocent of its occurrence" (Vanderbilt & Augustyn, 2010, p. 315).
During a June 2018 panel, the nine candidates for our local school board demonstrated the problems we see as inherent in current antibullying discourse in schools (WCBC Radio, 2018). Several candidates lamented that bullying is a problem "that is not going to go away," and stated that bullies should be removed from schools. For instance, one candidate said, "Put [the bullies] away into a place where they can still be taught. . . . You cannot make the behavior go away, but you can take the problem out of the mix." Although we unquestionably agree that bullying is prevalent and increasing with ubiquitous social media usage, we have observed that individuals identified as bullies are often subjected to public chastisement and retributive (but publicly acceptable) bullying. They are not perceived to be complex beings capable of both benevolent and malevolent actions, but instead are viewed merely as cruel. We worry that this overly simplified stereotype allows us to overlook the ways we all sometimes engage in bullying behaviors (Mack, 2012). For instance, these candidates suggested...