Are more than half of all kids really bullies?

An education columnist is questioning a new survey by the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics that says more than half of all American students have bullied someone in the past year.

The study prompted headlines like "Is your child a bully? Are you sure?" and "Bullying epidemic out of control." The shocking numbers lent urgency to Education Secretary Arne Duncan's warning to educators last week that it's their job to eliminate bullying or face sanctions.

But Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post notes that bullying wasn't the survey's exclusive focus. Instead, respondents were asked if they had "bullied, teased or taunted someone" in the past year.

That's "too broadly drawn," Strauss writes: "It lumps bullying and teasing in the same question, indicating a distinct misunderstand[ing] of the differences in behavior."

A leading expert on bullying, Dan Olweus, conducted a survey of more than 500,000 students in the United States and found significantly lower incidences of bullying than the Josephson poll did. In Olweus' survey, 17 percent of students said they had been bullied two or three times a month during the school year--and just 10 percent said they had bullied someone two or three times a month.

Olweus defines bullying as repeated negative actions over time against someone who has difficulty defending himself.

Teasing, on the other hand, can be a one-time incident meant to annoy the target rather than threaten or harass him or her.

Josephson's study surveyed more than 40,000 students and says it has a 1 percent margin of error.

The Josephson Institute has not yet responded to a request for comment about Strauss' critique.

(Stock photo: Getty)