Bullying less severe for aspies in other nations?

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Hi. Before you lump me in the hate America crowd, lemme tell you somethings I've heard. I read this article about this guy who movied to Germany, and he said when he first came there, he actually had to explain the concept of what a "nerd" was to them. They seemed baffled. They didn't understand elevating football players to Godhood, either.

I wondered, is it a little easier to be an aspie in other nations? From what I've read here, it's just as difficult, but I reason if they don't even have the same severe caste system, aspies might feel less pressure too.

I'm from Germany and when reading posts about that kind of trouble in american schols, I'm happy, that I grew up here.
At least on higher educating schools (called Gymnasium here) bullying (if at all) is kept strictly verbal and is by far not so intense.

If your friend had problems to explain the concept of a nerd, he was only missing the right german term, which is "Streber". not very nice as well, not the most liked guy on school, but at least somehow acceptable.

Sports don't play that great role here. Still the football guys (soccer in us, there is not much real football in germany) will be the ones to get all the girls

I'm from Germany too! And I've always been baffled about stories like novels that play in an american high-school settings - is the "caste system" really that strict over there? I mean, I kind of understand that people with similar interests will probably get along well (I for example usually made friends with the other girls very interested in fashion design), but never to the extent of consciously avoiding people with different interests altogether or even harming them. (Of course, there IS bullying, but it usually extends to single persons, not whole groups of people with certain similarities. Someone who's good at sports is just as likely to be bullied as someone who likes computers a lot.) It's really strange. Must be a cultural thing.

But hey, soccer is important! What else could give us our national identity? Besides, soccer players are HOT. (Nah, for the more literal of you guys: of course I'm kidding. Still, athletic guys ARE usually sort of attractive.)

That's interesting. When I watch American movies about High School and College, with the usual casts of outcasts, jocks, cheerleaders and nerds, I think to myself: "If this is really how kids behave in american schools, thank heavens I'm not attending one."

However I do think that these movies are based on social concepts which all people can relate to, not necessarily only those who might feel they fit in any of the above categories. In the end, I guess it's safe to say that all societies in every country will have this 'caste system'. Maybe one could argue some societies are more severe in there implementation of it.

But it doesn't matter where you go. You will always get, the desirables and the undesirables.

It surprises me that they wouldn't know what a nerd is in Germany, since in the Netherlands we certainly do, and kids who are nerdy certainly do get bullied.

I was just thinking... I'm usually VERY careful about national stereotyping since of course all persons are different, but the Americans I've met were mostly very exuberant and initiated body contact that would not be usual / acceptable in German culture but that might be perfectly normal in America. (Here, it is rather unusual to randomly hug people you've just met. Actually, in some situations it is a serious faux pas. We had an American (most likely NT) exchange student who got several people (most likely all NT as well) seriously angry at her, and she didn't even know what she did wrong.) Germans are usually more... reserved around new people they don't know, and "private space" seems to be defined in a culturally different way. It led me to thinking that maybe less communicative people (Aspies are usually in that category, I guess) stick out less in a crowd.

i'm from australia and i have never been bullied about my aspergers (or anything for that matter), but maybe thats cause im a blackbelt, dunno lol. But people here are acceptionally nicer than alot of americans (been over there, dont flame me over this remark), on a regular basis anyway..i'll put it this way, where i live, if you showed up to a random house without money or a car or food/water or spare clothes, they would help you out..im not so sure you'd be met with as much kindness in america..depending where you are over there though...we dont really have as many rough neighbourhoods or as you call them "ghettos" as you guys do..if any, i've never even seen one.

Where i am, there may be less people, but people tend to have a higher amount of respect for strangers and hence less bullies.

I dont' know if I have AS, but I am definitly a "nerd".

About bullying (I live in Europe): I was bullied from 5 to 9 grade (10-14 y.o.); never before or after.

Comparing my high school experience with the american movies, I see several differences (I don't know if this is true for Europe as a whole, or only to my city):

- There was not much the concept of hierarchy of popularity: the different groups usually ignore each other, more than being rude for each other.

- Our social life is much less "school-centered": we don't have "proms", school sport teams, etc.; many (most?) teenagers have the center of their social life at the street they live, or at the coffee/bar/disco/etc. where they go at night, not at school.

- Another pont I see (even comparing the american and european "teenage movies") is that the stereotype of the "inteligent but social akward teen" (a.k.a. "nerds") is different in Europe: while the american nerds are usually portraited as being interested in science or computers, the european "nerds" are more of the political/philosophical type (look to Adrian Mole, for example) - these could facilitate their integration in a kind of "alternative social life".

- Finnally, America seems much more "anti-intelectual" than Europe

I totally agree. I used to get picked on in school for doing GOOD in certain classes like English, science, etc. However, doing good in GYM class made you popular (of course, that's what I sucked at).

I have wanted to move to Europe for a long time. I have heard that it is actually ok to talk about politics, religion, etc. over there. Here, it is not. In fact, it is not even normal to prefer having friends with similar interests...you just don't talk about anything serious. Everyone here just seems astronomically ignorant and in "la la land" all the time. I think this contributes to our crappy government. People don't pay enough attention to who they're electing or what's going on. They'd rather watch American Idol.

Europe also seems to be more accepting of new/different forms of art. Underground music, for example, is MUCH more popular over there (in fact it seems it's not even considered underground there as they actually have awards shows and stuff for the music I like....while I, in the US, don't ever meet anyone else who likes the same bands I do.) People in the US like the music they are spoon-fed by the media and refuse to take the time to pay attention to anything else or realize that most of the music they listen to is fake and extremely simplistic.

(I could go on.....but I'll spare you all my bitterness LOL)

I'm from Germany. I can't really share that someone's experiences.

I have been bullied severely from grade 5 onwards in school, for 8 years.

For the first 2 years teachers would complain that I 'distratcted' others as they bullied me so much that normal class was not possible on most days. For several of the following years I've been bullied every lesson on every day, students and teachers always focussing on bullying me rather than focussing on school, class-work or whatever people do in school normally.

I was bullied as severely as before in the Gymnasium (Oberstufe!).

I thought that 18-19yo wouldn't bully others, but they really exploited my autistic symptoms and difficulties.

It appears though as if the main bully had mild AS himself even.

I was mostly ignored at school (UK). I never noticed any queen bees or jocks. I also didn't notice many hierarchies. However, I cannot tell how much of that was due to me being oblivious. I rarely saw nerds or anyone else getting bullied.

There was little emphasis on sports. However, at prizegiving, the sports awards always garnered much more applause than the academic awards.

American culture (and sadly Canadian culture too, due to some cultural spill over) Really celebrates stupidity. Just look at reality TV and hundreds of other sitcoms. All designed to make even the dumbest person feel smart in comparison. Intelligence is practically vilified, look at many popular action movies. Smart villain gets killed by dumb guy just doing the right thing. Kids see this and try to emulate it, jocks good, nerds evil. Aspies which tend to do well in academics but poor in social settings feed this stereotype like nothing else short of a an actual movie villain come to life.

Also people feel little guilt over picking on someone smarter than them, to them, that's like picking on a bully. People will think things like: Hey he's smart enough to handle it, he can out think it. I'll just remind him that intelligence isn't everything, he needs to be taken down a peg. It's easy to rationalize as not that harmful, that they're just keeping things even and "equal".

As for other nations or countries, I wished I had been born Japanese as a kid. Anime (hey i said i was i kid at the time) seemed to celebrate the kids that were the top of the class academically, there was some worship of sports figures to, but hey they at least acknowledged academics. Having grown and being some what wiser to the world, I'm not sure how true that was. Anyone had experience in the Japanese school system?

The Japanese have a very strict and complex social system. They have a ton of bullying at school and a high suicide rate currently among teens. From what I saw when over there, and read online Japan makes America seem like NT lite.

Well, at that, probably there are (at least at preteen years) much difference between Europe and America



I am not much certain of this. Yes, in my country most music bands play: 1) the kind of music listenen in the parties of the rural villages (similar to your "country"?); or 2) music that can be considered more or less "alternative". But this is probably because there are no market for national "mainstream rock" - we prefer to listenen american "mainstream rock".


I remember that we don't have also a exact word for "nerd". We have two similar words, but with differences:

One is used simply with the meaning of "student who study much", but not necessarly with the "social akwardness" implyed by "nerd".

The other is used both to "nerds" and to "cheerleaders"/"populars" (it is strange, the same name to both groups...)

I always thought we Germans and everybody else were pretty similar, just A LOT less religious and A LOT less concerned with moral cultural stuff like under-age drinking, letting your minor kids/girls go out at night, not minding being so not super-morale, not backing up random strangers and certainly not going to speak about about stupid unjust laws and all.

We just don't get worked up, not really, though we're concerned and have, say laws against under-age drinking and talk a lot about it. But we don't go like THAT concerned about it that we get angry, just worried and disturbed.

I think that's all cool now, don't care because that's just how different cultures work an all, but when I first got into contact with American culture and people as a kid/teen I was totally spooked by their religious/morale concerns.

But the bullying... yeah, we can do that as well as everybody else I believe. We just don't talk about it.

Bullying doesn't exist at most German school. Every teachers and headmaster will tell you that noooo, their students don't beat each other into a pulp.