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Jaden Maldonado

Professor McCann

English 1301.129

15 November 2023

A Rhetorical Analysis on Ways to Stop Bullying in Bangladesh Academic Institutions

“On average 35% of students are being bullied in academic institutions in Bangladesh”

(“Bullying Among University Students in Bangladesh”). There were 32.6 million students

enrolled into fall classes in 2017 (Education Policy Data Center | Making Sense of Data to

Improve Education). That means that 11.4 million students were victims of bullying throughout

the school year. Bullying has been a phenomenon that has plagued students and schools for

many years; however, the number of students being bullied has increased drastically. Bullying

has increased over the last three years because students still have trouble expressing their

emotions verbally and dealing with the stress from the COVID pandemic. Educational

institutions have tried to prevent bullying, yet they have not found the correct ways to completely

prevent bullying in schools. Chowdhury uses this article to bring more light to a topic that was

placed at the back of most people’s minds due to it not being talked as much about and events

that happened around the world. Author Chowdhury is a lecturer at the Southeast University in

Bangladesh and has 7 years teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students while publishing

many different articles. The author Chowdhury uses ethos to establish credibility, logos to show

the statistics from students, and pathos to make readers feel a certain way in “Bullying of

Students in Academic Institutions” to successfully conclude the horrible problems with bullying

and solutions of how it can be stopped in academic institutions in Bangladesh.

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To begin with, author Chowdhury uses ethos to establish her credibility on the topic of

bullying. Chowdhury cites studies from other experts in the field of either education or

psychology to help make her argument stronger. For example, Chowdhury mentions from

different studies that bullying has many factors that trigger students to participate in this act

(125-126). This helps her credibility on the topic by showing the readers that she knows why

most bullies start harassing other peers in the first place. These studies help back up the

information of the different types of ways she demonstrates on how to stop that specific type of

bullying by making the triggers a center point of how the problem can be stopped. Author

Chowdhury also uses her own personal experience on the topic of bullying to establish her

credibility. For example, Chowdhury has been teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students

at a university in Bangladesh for seven years. This builds her integrity by showing the audience

the amount of experience she has in the field of education, which means that she has experience

dealing with bullies and also seeing what being bullied can do to a student overall. Also, this

information makes readers feel secure that the study is from someone that has seen bullying

happen firsthand and has worked with this topic. As has been noted above, author Chowdhury

uses ethos to establish her knowledge on the topic and make readers feel that Chowdhury is a

trust source.

Moreover, author Chowdhury strengthens her argument that bullying can be prevented in

schools with the use of logos. Most students say that bullying is a negative problem in school,

which can hurt not only the students but the school itself. For example, Chowdhury states,

“Around 95% of the participant students reported that bullying was perceived by them as being a

negative issue” (127). This example uses logos to show readers how more than half of the

participating students believe that bullying is something that needs to be stopped because it does
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not belong in school. Also, this makes schools see that students feel that bullying is destroying

schools for them and makes some of the student body not want to show up at all. Although,

academic institutions are not trying hard enough to cut out the problem from the source. For

instance, author Chowdhury mentions how more than half of the participating students said that

their educational institutions have tried to do something to prevent bullying, yet it still is taking

place (128). Logos help this sentence get its message across by making readers see how the

academic institutions are trying to do something, but it is not enough to stop students from being

harassed by their peers. However, Chowdhury gives recommendations to the institutions on how

bullying can be prevented in school, which gives readers more knowledge on how bullying can

be taken down in schools one step at a time. As a result, author Chowdhury uses logos to make

readers see that even if schools are not trying harder enough to stop the problem of bullying,

there are ways that bullying can be prevented in schools.

In addition to swaying readers with the use of logos, author Chowdhury uses pathos to

make readers see the different ways in which bullying can affect students mentally, physically,

and emotionally. Bullying can affect students by making them feel less confident in their work

and themselves while also struggling to maintain healthy relationships with friends and family.

To illustrate this, Chowdhury says how bullying can lead to many horrible conditions such as

anxiety, depression, lowered self-esteem, and suicidal thoughts, which can affect the bullied

victims for the rest of their lives (126). The use of these strong words makes readers feel

empathetic to the victims because readers see that bullying is one of worst experiences a person

can go through while being in school. These strong words also make readers feel hatred toward

the bullies for causing these devastating problems for the victims and their families. Not only

does Chowdhury make use of strong words, but cases of students losing their lives to bullying. In
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particular, Chowdhury mentions how students have had their lives taken by peers due to bullying

reaching an excessive point and nobody doing anything to stop it (123). This statement pulls at

the readers’ heartstrings because nobody wants to see a young life be taken away so early due to

peers’ constant harassment. These deaths give readers a sense of grief over the fact that they

could have been prevented if educational institutions had tried harder to find solutions that will

last in the long run.

Hence, Chowdhury gives different strategies on how bullying can be stopped. For

instance, Chowdhury mentions that a change in the way the classroom customs are being done,

such as teachers using less abusive words while talking to students, can help education

institutions reduce bullying cases (129). This uses pathos by giving readers a sense of confidence

because it shows that institutions can do something to stop these horrendous cases from

happening to young students again. Also, the example makes the reader feel satisfaction that the

problem can be solved with enough effort from the academic institutions. As shown above,

Chowdhury uses pathos to show readers that academic institutions need to do more to prevent

these devastating cases from happening again.

In conclusion, Chowdhury is successful in using ethos, logos, and pathos to argue that

bullying is a horrible experience that many have to suffer through and ways it can be stopped in

educational institutions in Bangladesh with her article, “Bullying of Students in Academic

Institutions.” She is able to do this by providing the audience with different sources from experts

and personal experience on the topic to establish her credibility. While making readers see the

students’ belief on bullying and the many ways it can be stopped through the use of statistics

from her study. Then Chowdhury makes sure to add strong language that evokes the audiences’

emotions throughout the article to make the audience empathize with the victims and show the
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horrible experiences they have to go through. Bullying is a widespread problem that schools

need to try harder to remove completely from academic settings. This article is important

because it spreads awareness of a problem that has been affecting students, staff, the school, and

parents for years. This problem will continue to affect students for generations to come if the

correct solutions are not implemented in the schools. Institutions should be able to make changes

on how they can prevent bullying completely through the use of this article.
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Works cited

“Bullying Among University Students in Bangladesh.” Bangladesh Post,

bangladeshpost.net/posts/bullying-among-university-students-in-bangladesh-108880.

Chowdhury, Faieza. “Bullying of Students in Academic Institutions: A Qualitative Study.”

Educational Process: International Journal, vol. 9, no. 2, ÜNİVERSİTEPARK Limited,

June 2020, pp. 122–32. https://doi.org/10.22521/edupij.2020.92.4.

Education Policy Data Center | Making Sense of Data to Improve Education.

https://www.epdc.org/.