literature review bullying in schools

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Anti-bullying interventions in schools: a systematic literature review

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1 Departamento de Enfermagem Materno Infantil e Saúde Pública, Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto, USP. Av. Bandeirantes 3900, Monte Alegre. 14040-902 Ribeirão Preto SP Brasil. [email protected].
2 Departamento de Enfermagem Psiquiátrica e Ciências Humanas, Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto, USP. Ribeirão Preto SP Brasil.
3 Departamento de Psicologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, USP. Ribeirão Preto SP Brasil.
PMID: 28724015
DOI: 10.1590/1413-81232017227.16242015

This paper presents a systematic literature review addressing rigorously planned and assessed interventions intended to reduce school bullying. The search for papers was performed in four databases (Lilacs, Psycinfo, Scielo and Web of Science) and guided by the question: What are the interventions used to reduce bullying in schools? Only case-control studies specifically focusing on school bullying without a time frame were included. The methodological quality of investigations was assessed using the SIGN checklist. A total of 18 papers composed the corpus of analysis and all were considered to have high methodological quality. The interventions conducted in the revised studies were divided into four categories: multi-component or whole-school, social skills training, curricular, and computerized. The review synthesizes knowledge that can be used to contemplate practices and intervention programs in the education and health fields with a multidisciplinary nature.

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Research article
Open access
Published: 14 December 2021

Bullying at school and mental health problems among adolescents: a repeated cross-sectional study

Håkan Källmén 1 &
Mats Hallgren ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0599-2403 2

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health volume 15 , Article number: 74 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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To examine recent trends in bullying and mental health problems among adolescents and the association between them.

A questionnaire measuring mental health problems, bullying at school, socio-economic status, and the school environment was distributed to all secondary school students aged 15 (school-year 9) and 18 (school-year 11) in Stockholm during 2014, 2018, and 2020 (n = 32,722). Associations between bullying and mental health problems were assessed using logistic regression analyses adjusting for relevant demographic, socio-economic, and school-related factors.

The prevalence of bullying remained stable and was highest among girls in year 9; range = 4.9% to 16.9%. Mental health problems increased; range = + 1.2% (year 9 boys) to + 4.6% (year 11 girls) and were consistently higher among girls (17.2% in year 11, 2020). In adjusted models, having been bullied was detrimentally associated with mental health (OR = 2.57 [2.24–2.96]). Reports of mental health problems were four times higher among boys who had been bullied compared to those not bullied. The corresponding figure for girls was 2.4 times higher.

Conclusions

Exposure to bullying at school was associated with higher odds of mental health problems. Boys appear to be more vulnerable to the deleterious effects of bullying than girls.

Introduction

Bullying involves repeated hurtful actions between peers where an imbalance of power exists [ 1 ]. Arseneault et al. [ 2 ] conducted a review of the mental health consequences of bullying for children and adolescents and found that bullying is associated with severe symptoms of mental health problems, including self-harm and suicidality. Bullying was shown to have detrimental effects that persist into late adolescence and contribute independently to mental health problems. Updated reviews have presented evidence indicating that bullying is causative of mental illness in many adolescents [ 3 , 4 ].

There are indications that mental health problems are increasing among adolescents in some Nordic countries. Hagquist et al. [ 5 ] examined trends in mental health among Scandinavian adolescents (n = 116, 531) aged 11–15 years between 1993 and 2014. Mental health problems were operationalized as difficulty concentrating, sleep disorders, headache, stomach pain, feeling tense, sad and/or dizzy. The study revealed increasing rates of adolescent mental health problems in all four counties (Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark), with Sweden experiencing the sharpest increase among older adolescents, particularly girls. Worsening adolescent mental health has also been reported in the United Kingdom. A study of 28,100 school-aged adolescents in England found that two out of five young people scored above thresholds for emotional problems, conduct problems or hyperactivity [ 6 ]. Female gender, deprivation, high needs status (educational/social), ethnic background, and older age were all associated with higher odds of experiencing mental health difficulties.

Bullying is shown to increase the risk of poor mental health and may partly explain these detrimental changes. Le et al. [ 7 ] reported an inverse association between bullying and mental health among 11–16-year-olds in Vietnam. They also found that poor mental health can make some children and adolescents more vulnerable to bullying at school. Bayer et al. [ 8 ] examined links between bullying at school and mental health among 8–9-year-old children in Australia. Those who experienced bullying more than once a week had poorer mental health than children who experienced bullying less frequently. Friendships moderated this association, such that children with more friends experienced fewer mental health problems (protective effect). Hysing et al. [ 9 ] investigated the association between experiences of bullying (as a victim or perpetrator) and mental health, sleep disorders, and school performance among 16–19 year olds from Norway (n = 10,200). Participants were categorized as victims, bullies, or bully-victims (that is, victims who also bullied others). All three categories were associated with worse mental health, school performance, and sleeping difficulties. Those who had been bullied also reported more emotional problems, while those who bullied others reported more conduct disorders [ 9 ].

As most adolescents spend a considerable amount of time at school, the school environment has been a major focus of mental health research [ 10 , 11 ]. In a recent review, Saminathen et al. [ 12 ] concluded that school is a potential protective factor against mental health problems, as it provides a socially supportive context and prepares students for higher education and employment. However, it may also be the primary setting for protracted bullying and stress [ 13 ]. Another factor associated with adolescent mental health is parental socio-economic status (SES) [ 14 ]. A systematic review indicated that lower parental SES is associated with poorer adolescent mental health [ 15 ]. However, no previous studies have examined whether SES modifies or attenuates the association between bullying and mental health. Similarly, it remains unclear whether school related factors, such as school grades and the school environment, influence the relationship between bullying and mental health. This information could help to identify those adolescents most at risk of harm from bullying.

To address these issues, we investigated the prevalence of bullying at school and mental health problems among Swedish adolescents aged 15–18 years between 2014 and 2020 using a population-based school survey. We also examined associations between bullying at school and mental health problems adjusting for relevant demographic, socioeconomic, and school-related factors. We hypothesized that: (1) bullying and adolescent mental health problems have increased over time; (2) There is an association between bullying victimization and mental health, so that mental health problems are more prevalent among those who have been victims of bullying; and (3) that school-related factors would attenuate the association between bullying and mental health.

Participants

The Stockholm school survey is completed every other year by students in lower secondary school (year 9—compulsory) and upper secondary school (year 11). The survey is mandatory for public schools, but voluntary for private schools. The purpose of the survey is to help inform decision making by local authorities that will ultimately improve students’ wellbeing. The questions relate to life circumstances, including SES, schoolwork, bullying, drug use, health, and crime. Non-completers are those who were absent from school when the survey was completed (< 5%). Response rates vary from year to year but are typically around 75%. For the current study data were available for 2014, 2018 and 2020. In 2014; 5235 boys and 5761 girls responded, in 2018; 5017 boys and 5211 girls responded, and in 2020; 5633 boys and 5865 girls responded (total n = 32,722). Data for the exposure variable, bullied at school, were missing for 4159 students, leaving 28,563 participants in the crude model. The fully adjusted model (described below) included 15,985 participants. The mean age in grade 9 was 15.3 years (SD = 0.51) and in grade 11, 17.3 years (SD = 0.61). As the data are completely anonymous, the study was exempt from ethical approval according to an earlier decision from the Ethical Review Board in Stockholm (2010-241 31-5). Details of the survey are available via a website [ 16 ], and are described in a previous paper [ 17 ].

Students completed the questionnaire during a school lesson, placed it in a sealed envelope and handed it to their teacher. Student were permitted the entire lesson (about 40 min) to complete the questionnaire and were informed that participation was voluntary (and that they were free to cancel their participation at any time without consequences). Students were also informed that the Origo Group was responsible for collection of the data on behalf of the City of Stockholm.

Study outcome

Mental health problems were assessed by using a modified version of the Psychosomatic Problem Scale [ 18 ] shown to be appropriate for children and adolescents and invariant across gender and years. The scale was later modified [ 19 ]. In the modified version, items about difficulty concentrating and feeling giddy were deleted and an item about ‘life being great to live’ was added. Seven different symptoms or problems, such as headaches, depression, feeling fear, stomach problems, difficulty sleeping, believing it’s great to live (coded negatively as seldom or rarely) and poor appetite were used. Students who responded (on a 5-point scale) that any of these problems typically occurs ‘at least once a week’ were considered as having indicators of a mental health problem. Cronbach alpha was 0.69 across the whole sample. Adding these problem areas, a total index was created from 0 to 7 mental health symptoms. Those who scored between 0 and 4 points on the total symptoms index were considered to have a low indication of mental health problems (coded as 0); those who scored between 5 and 7 symptoms were considered as likely having mental health problems (coded as 1).

Primary exposure

Experiences of bullying were measured by the following two questions: Have you felt bullied or harassed during the past school year? Have you been involved in bullying or harassing other students during this school year? Alternatives for the first question were: yes or no with several options describing how the bullying had taken place (if yes). Alternatives indicating emotional bullying were feelings of being mocked, ridiculed, socially excluded, or teased. Alternatives indicating physical bullying were being beaten, kicked, forced to do something against their will, robbed, or locked away somewhere. The response alternatives for the second question gave an estimation of how often the respondent had participated in bullying others (from once to several times a week). Combining the answers to these two questions, five different categories of bullying were identified: (1) never been bullied and never bully others; (2) victims of emotional (verbal) bullying who have never bullied others; (3) victims of physical bullying who have never bullied others; (4) victims of bullying who have also bullied others; and (5) perpetrators of bullying, but not victims. As the number of positive cases in the last three categories was low (range = 3–15 cases) bully categories 2–4 were combined into one primary exposure variable: ‘bullied at school’.

Assessment year was operationalized as the year when data was collected: 2014, 2018, and 2020. Age was operationalized as school grade 9 (15–16 years) or 11 (17–18 years). Gender was self-reported (boy or girl). The school situation To assess experiences of the school situation, students responded to 18 statements about well-being in school, participation in important school matters, perceptions of their teachers, and teaching quality. Responses were given on a four-point Likert scale ranging from ‘do not agree at all’ to ‘fully agree’. To reduce the 18-items down to their essential factors, we performed a principal axis factor analysis. Results showed that the 18 statements formed five factors which, according to the Kaiser criterion (eigen values > 1) explained 56% of the covariance in the student’s experience of the school situation. The five factors identified were: (1) Participation in school; (2) Interesting and meaningful work; (3) Feeling well at school; (4) Structured school lessons; and (5) Praise for achievements. For each factor, an index was created that was dichotomised (poor versus good circumstance) using the median-split and dummy coded with ‘good circumstance’ as reference. A description of the items included in each factor is available as Additional file 1 . Socio-economic status (SES) was assessed with three questions about the education level of the student’s mother and father (dichotomized as university degree versus not), and the amount of spending money the student typically received for entertainment each month (> SEK 1000 [approximately $120] versus less). Higher parental education and more spending money were used as reference categories. School grades in Swedish, English, and mathematics were measured separately on a 7-point scale and dichotomized as high (grades A, B, and C) versus low (grades D, E, and F). High school grades were used as the reference category.

Statistical analyses

The prevalence of mental health problems and bullying at school are presented using descriptive statistics, stratified by survey year (2014, 2018, 2020), gender, and school year (9 versus 11). As noted, we reduced the 18-item questionnaire assessing school function down to five essential factors by conducting a principal axis factor analysis (see Additional file 1 ). We then calculated the association between bullying at school (defined above) and mental health problems using multivariable logistic regression. Results are presented as odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (Cis). To assess the contribution of SES and school-related factors to this association, three models are presented: Crude, Model 1 adjusted for demographic factors: age, gender, and assessment year; Model 2 adjusted for Model 1 plus SES (parental education and student spending money), and Model 3 adjusted for Model 2 plus school-related factors (school grades and the five factors identified in the principal factor analysis). These covariates were entered into the regression models in three blocks, where the final model represents the fully adjusted analyses. In all models, the category ‘not bullied at school’ was used as the reference. Pseudo R-square was calculated to estimate what proportion of the variance in mental health problems was explained by each model. Unlike the R-square statistic derived from linear regression, the Pseudo R-square statistic derived from logistic regression gives an indicator of the explained variance, as opposed to an exact estimate, and is considered informative in identifying the relative contribution of each model to the outcome [ 20 ]. All analyses were performed using SPSS v. 26.0.

Prevalence of bullying at school and mental health problems

Estimates of the prevalence of bullying at school and mental health problems across the 12 strata of data (3 years × 2 school grades × 2 genders) are shown in Table 1 . The prevalence of bullying at school increased minimally (< 1%) between 2014 and 2020, except among girls in grade 11 (2.5% increase). Mental health problems increased between 2014 and 2020 (range = 1.2% [boys in year 11] to 4.6% [girls in year 11]); were three to four times more prevalent among girls (range = 11.6% to 17.2%) compared to boys (range = 2.6% to 4.9%); and were more prevalent among older adolescents compared to younger adolescents (range = 1% to 3.1% higher). Pooling all data, reports of mental health problems were four times more prevalent among boys who had been victims of bullying compared to those who reported no experiences with bullying. The corresponding figure for girls was two and a half times as prevalent.

Associations between bullying at school and mental health problems

Table 2 shows the association between bullying at school and mental health problems after adjustment for relevant covariates. Demographic factors, including female gender (OR = 3.87; CI 3.48–4.29), older age (OR = 1.38, CI 1.26–1.50), and more recent assessment year (OR = 1.18, CI 1.13–1.25) were associated with higher odds of mental health problems. In Model 2, none of the included SES variables (parental education and student spending money) were associated with mental health problems. In Model 3 (fully adjusted), the following school-related factors were associated with higher odds of mental health problems: lower grades in Swedish (OR = 1.42, CI 1.22–1.67); uninteresting or meaningless schoolwork (OR = 2.44, CI 2.13–2.78); feeling unwell at school (OR = 1.64, CI 1.34–1.85); unstructured school lessons (OR = 1.31, CI = 1.16–1.47); and no praise for achievements (OR = 1.19, CI 1.06–1.34). After adjustment for all covariates, being bullied at school remained associated with higher odds of mental health problems (OR = 2.57; CI 2.24–2.96). Demographic and school-related factors explained 12% and 6% of the variance in mental health problems, respectively (Pseudo R-Square). The inclusion of socioeconomic factors did not alter the variance explained.

Our findings indicate that mental health problems increased among Swedish adolescents between 2014 and 2020, while the prevalence of bullying at school remained stable (< 1% increase), except among girls in year 11, where the prevalence increased by 2.5%. As previously reported [ 5 , 6 ], mental health problems were more common among girls and older adolescents. These findings align with previous studies showing that adolescents who are bullied at school are more likely to experience mental health problems compared to those who are not bullied [ 3 , 4 , 9 ]. This detrimental relationship was observed after adjustment for school-related factors shown to be associated with adolescent mental health [ 10 ].

A novel finding was that boys who had been bullied at school reported a four-times higher prevalence of mental health problems compared to non-bullied boys. The corresponding figure for girls was 2.5 times higher for those who were bullied compared to non-bullied girls, which could indicate that boys are more vulnerable to the deleterious effects of bullying than girls. Alternatively, it may indicate that boys are (on average) bullied more frequently or more intensely than girls, leading to worse mental health. Social support could also play a role; adolescent girls often have stronger social networks than boys and could be more inclined to voice concerns about bullying to significant others, who in turn may offer supports which are protective [ 21 ]. Related studies partly confirm this speculative explanation. An Estonian study involving 2048 children and adolescents aged 10–16 years found that, compared to girls, boys who had been bullied were more likely to report severe distress, measured by poor mental health and feelings of hopelessness [ 22 ].

Other studies suggest that heritable traits, such as the tendency to internalize problems and having low self-esteem are associated with being a bully-victim [ 23 ]. Genetics are understood to explain a large proportion of bullying-related behaviors among adolescents. A study from the Netherlands involving 8215 primary school children found that genetics explained approximately 65% of the risk of being a bully-victim [ 24 ]. This proportion was similar for boys and girls. Higher than average body mass index (BMI) is another recognized risk factor [ 25 ]. A recent Australian trial involving 13 schools and 1087 students (mean age = 13 years) targeted adolescents with high-risk personality traits (hopelessness, anxiety sensitivity, impulsivity, sensation seeking) to reduce bullying at school; both as victims and perpetrators [ 26 ]. There was no significant intervention effect for bullying victimization or perpetration in the total sample. In a secondary analysis, compared to the control schools, intervention school students showed greater reductions in victimization, suicidal ideation, and emotional symptoms. These findings potentially support targeting high-risk personality traits in bullying prevention [ 26 ].

The relative stability of bullying at school between 2014 and 2020 suggests that other factors may better explain the increase in mental health problems seen here. Many factors could be contributing to these changes, including the increasingly competitive labour market, higher demands for education, and the rapid expansion of social media [ 19 , 27 , 28 ]. A recent Swedish study involving 29,199 students aged between 11 and 16 years found that the effects of school stress on psychosomatic symptoms have become stronger over time (1993–2017) and have increased more among girls than among boys [ 10 ]. Research is needed examining possible gender differences in perceived school stress and how these differences moderate associations between bullying and mental health.

Strengths and limitations

Strengths of the current study include the large participant sample from diverse schools; public and private, theoretical and practical orientations. The survey included items measuring diverse aspects of the school environment; factors previously linked to adolescent mental health but rarely included as covariates in studies of bullying and mental health. Some limitations are also acknowledged. These data are cross-sectional which means that the direction of the associations cannot be determined. Moreover, all the variables measured were self-reported. Previous studies indicate that students tend to under-report bullying and mental health problems [ 29 ]; thus, our results may underestimate the prevalence of these behaviors.

In conclusion, consistent with our stated hypotheses, we observed an increase in self-reported mental health problems among Swedish adolescents, and a detrimental association between bullying at school and mental health problems. Although bullying at school does not appear to be the primary explanation for these changes, bullying was detrimentally associated with mental health after adjustment for relevant demographic, socio-economic, and school-related factors, confirming our third hypothesis. The finding that boys are potentially more vulnerable than girls to the deleterious effects of bullying should be replicated in future studies, and the mechanisms investigated. Future studies should examine the longitudinal association between bullying and mental health, including which factors mediate/moderate this relationship. Epigenetic studies are also required to better understand the complex interaction between environmental and biological risk factors for adolescent mental health [ 24 ].

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Acknowledgements

Authors are grateful to the Department for Social Affairs, Stockholm, for permission to use data from the Stockholm School Survey.

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Håkan Källmén

Epidemiology of Psychiatric Conditions, Substance Use and Social Environment (EPiCSS), Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Level 6, Solnavägen 1e, Solna, Sweden

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HK conceived the study and analyzed the data (with input from MH). HK and MH interpreted the data and jointly wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Supplementary Information

Additional file 1..

Principal factor analysis description.

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Källmén, H., Hallgren, M. Bullying at school and mental health problems among adolescents: a repeated cross-sectional study. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health 15 , 74 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-021-00425-y

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Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health

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Anti-bullying interventions in schools: a systematic literature review

September 2018
Ciência & Saúde Coletiva

Universidade de Franca

Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas

University of São Paulo

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Annual Review of Psychology

Volume 65, 2014, review article, bullying in schools: the power of bullies and the plight of victims.

Jaana Juvonen 1 , and Sandra Graham 2
View Affiliations Hide Affiliations Affiliations: 1 Department of Psychology, 2 Department of Education, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095; email: [email protected]
Vol. 65:159-185 (Volume publication date January 2014) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115030
First published as a Review in Advance on August 05, 2013
© Annual Reviews

Bullying is a pervasive problem affecting school-age children. Reviewing the latest findings on bullying perpetration and victimization, we highlight the social dominance function of bullying, the inflated self-views of bullies, and the effects of their behaviors on victims. Illuminating the plight of the victim, we review evidence on the cyclical processes between the risk factors and consequences of victimization and the mechanisms that can account for elevated emotional distress and health problems. Placing bullying in context, we consider the unique features of electronic communication that give rise to cyberbullying and the specific characteristics of schools that affect the rates and consequences of victimization. We then offer a critique of the main intervention approaches designed to reduce school bullying and its harmful effects. Finally, we discuss future directions that underscore the need to consider victimization a social stigma, conduct longitudinal research on protective factors, identify school context factors that shape the experience of victimization, and take a more nuanced approach to school-based interventions.

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Publication Date: 03 Jan 2014

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The Effectiveness of Policy Interventions for School Bullying: A Systematic Review

William hall.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Associated Data

Bullying threatens the mental and educational well-being of students. Although anti-bullying policies are prevalent, little is known about their effectiveness. This systematic review evaluates the methodological characteristics and summarizes substantive findings of studies examining the effectiveness of school bullying policies.

Searches of 11 bibliographic databases yielded 489 studies completed since January 1, 1995. Following duplicate removal and double-independent screening based on a priori inclusion criteria, 21 studies were included for review.

Substantially more educators perceive anti-bullying policies to be effective rather than ineffective. Whereas several studies show that the presence or quality of policies is associated with lower rates of bullying among students, other studies found no such associations between policy presence or quality and reductions in bullying. Consistent across studies, this review found that schools with anti-bullying policies that enumerated protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity were associated with better protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students. Specifically, LGBTQ students in schools with such policies reported less harassment and more frequent and effective intervention by school personnel. Findings are mixed regarding the relationship between having an anti-bullying policy and educators’ responsiveness to general bullying.

Conclusions

Anti-bullying policies might be effective at reducing bullying if their content is based on evidence and sound theory and if they are implemented with a high level of fidelity. More research is needed to improve on limitations among extant studies.

Bullying in schools is a pervasive threat to the well-being and educational success of students. Bullying refers to unwanted aggressive behaviors enacted intentionally over time by an individual or group using some form of power to cause physical and/or psychological harm to another individual or group in a shared social context ( Gladden, Vivolo-Kantor, Hamburger, & Lumpkin, 2014 ; Olweus, 2013 ). Bullying is also a widespread phenomenon. A meta-analysis of 82 studies conducted in 22 countries in North America, South America, Europe, Southern Africa, East Asia, and Australia and Oceania found that 53% of youth were involved in bullying as bullies, victims, or both bullies and victims ( Cook, Williams, Guerra, & Kim, 2010 ).

Involvement in bullying as perpetrators, victims, bully–victims, and bystanders has been linked with deleterious outcomes by both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Youths who are bullied can experience immediate negative effects that include physical injury, humiliation, sadness, rejection, and helplessness ( Kaiser & Rasminsky, 2009 ). Over time, a number of mental and behavioral health problems can emerge, including low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and behavior, conduct problems, psychosomatic problems, psychotic symptoms, and physical illness ( Arseneault, Bowes, & Shakoor, 2010 ; Dake, Price, & Telljohann, 2003 ; Gini & Pozzoli, 2009 ; Kim & Leventhal, 2008 ; Klomek, Sourander, & Gould, 2010 ; Reijntjes et al., 2011 ; Reijntjes, Kamphuis, Prinzie, & Telch, 2010 ; Ttofi, Farrington, Lösel, & Loeber, 2011a ). In addition, students who have been bullied may not feel safe at school and may disengage from the school community due to fear and sadness, which may, in turn, contribute to higher rates of absenteeism and lower academic performance ( Arseneault et al., 2006 ; Buhs & Ladd, 2001 ; Buhs, Ladd, & Herald, 2006 ; Glew, Fan, Katon, Rivara, & Kernic, 2005 ; Juvonen, Nishina, & Graham, 2000 ; Nakamoto & Schwartz, 2010 ).

Youths who bully also face psychosocial difficulties. These youths often grow up in harsh social environments with few resources ( Hong & Espelage, 2012 ), and bullies often lack impulse control and empathy for others ( O’Brennan, Bradshaw, & Sawyer, 2009 ; van Noorden, Haselager, Cillessen, & Bukowski, 2015 ). Students who bully are more likely to skip school, perform poorly, and drop out ( Jankauskiene, Kardelis, Sukys, & Kardeliene, 2008 ; Ma, Phelps, Lerner, & Lerner, 2009 ). Bullying perpetration also is associated with depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation and behavior, and violent and criminal behavior (e.g., assault, robbery, vandalism, carrying weapons, and rape; Dake et al., 2003 ; Kim& Leventhal, 2008 ; Klomek et al., 2010 ; Ttofi, Farrington, & Lösel, 2012 ; Ttofi, Farrington, Lösel, & Loeber, 2011b ). Compared to nonperpetrators, students who bully have an increased risk of violent and criminal behaviors into adulthood. A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies found that school bullies were 2.5 times more likely to engage in criminal offending over an 11-year follow-up period ( Ttofi et al., 2011b ).

Other youths involved in bullying include bully–victims and bystanders. Bully–victims are students who have been bullied but also engage in bullying others. Bully–victims can experience a combination of internalizing and externalizing problems ( Cook, Williams, Guerra, Kim, & Sadek, 2010 ). Student bystanders are present in up to 90% of bullying incidents ( Atlas & Pepler, 1998 ; Craig & Pepler, 1995 ; Glew et al., 2005 ; Hawkins, Pepler, & Craig, 2001 ). Youths who witness bullying often report emotional distress, including increased heart rate and higher levels of fear, sadness, and anger when recalling bullying incidents ( Barhight, Hubbard, & Hyde, 2013 ; Janson & Hazler, 2004 ). Thus, across the literature, bullying is associated with problematic outcomes for perpetrators, victims, bully–victims, and bystanders alike.

Policy as an Intervention for Bullying

Perspectives vary on how to best address bullying in schools. Intervention strategies have included suspending and expelling bullies, training teachers on intervening, teaching empathy and respect to students through classroom lessons, maintaining constant adult supervision throughout school settings, collaborating with parents about student behavior, and enacting school-wide policies about bullying. In the United States, policies addressing bullying emerged in 1999 following the Columbine High School shootings. These policies have spread due to increased awareness and concern about student violence and school safety ( Birkland & Lawrence, 2009 ). A policy is a system of principles created by governing bodies or public officials to achieve specific outcomes by guiding action and decision making. Policy is an umbrella term that refers to various regulatory measures, including laws, statutes, policies, regulations, and rules. These terms vary based on the jurisdiction and legal authority of the individual or group who established the policy. In the United States, K–12 education policy, which includes school bullying policy, can be established at the federal, state, and local levels ( Mead, 2009 ).

One advantage of policy interventions for bullying is that they can influence student, teacher, and administrator behavior as well as school organizational practices. For example, school bullying policies typically prohibit certain behaviors, such as threatening and harassing other students or retaliating against students who witness and then report bullying incidents. Policies may also require behaviors, such as requiring teachers to report bullying incidents to administrators and requiring administrators to investigate reports of bullying. Further, policies may promote certain behaviors by explicitly stating positive behavioral expectations for students or discourage behaviors by explicitly stating punishments associated with aggressive behaviors. At the school level, policies can guide organizational practices, such as establishing bullying incident reporting procedures and creating school-safety teams tasked with developing and executing school-safety plans. Thus, bullying policies can influence individual and organizational behaviors.

Another advantage of bullying policies is that they are upstream interventions that provide a foundation for downstream interventions. In other words, policies are systems-level interventions that typically require more targeted intervention programs, practices, and services at the organizational, group, and individual levels ( McKinlay, 1998 ). For example, a bullying policy may be adopted within a state or district; the policy then applies to all schools within the state or district. This policy may require training all school employees on bullying prevention strategies, integrating bullying awareness and education into classroom lessons and curricula, and providing counseling for students involved in bullying. Thus, policy lays the groundwork for an array of more specific and targeted interventions to be deployed in schools by outlining goals and directives in the policy document.

Policy design is important because the content influences a cascade of actions throughout school systems, which may result in positive or negative outcomes. For example, a bullying policy that requires schools to provide counseling services and positive behavioral reinforcement to students who perpetrate bullying is markedly different than a policy that requires schools to suspend or expel students who have carried out multiple acts of bullying. Research shows that overly harsh and punitive policies (e.g., “three strikes and you’re out” policies or “zero-tolerance” policies) are not effective at reducing aggression or improving school safety ( American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force, 2008 ). Thus, bullying policies should be crafted and revised using evidence-based strategies.

Anti-bullying laws have been enacted in a number of countries, including Canada, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Although the United States does not have a federal law against school bullying currently, all states have enacted anti-bullying laws ( U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2015 ). The content of these laws was reviewed in a U.S. Department of Education report, which shows some consistency but also variability in the inclusion of policy components (see Table 1 ; Stuart-Cassel, Bell, & Springer, 2011 ). These state laws apply to approximately 98,000 K–12 public schools and have a goal of protecting more than 50 million students from involvement in bullying ( Snyder & Dillow, 2013 ; Stuart-Cassel et al., 2011 ).

Percentage of State Anti-Bullying Laws That Included Key Policy Components Identified by the U.S. Department of Education

Policy Component	%
Purpose of the policy	85
Applicability or scope of the policy	96
Prohibition of bullying behaviors	94
Enumeration of protected social classes or statuses	37
Requirement for districts to implement policies	98
Review of district policies by the state	43
Definition of bullying behaviors prohibited	63
Procedure for reporting bullying incidents	78
Procedure for investigating bullying incidents	67
Procedure for maintaining records of bullying incidents	39
Consequences for bullying perpetrators	91
Mental health services for victims and/or perpetrators	28
Communication of the policy to students, parents, and employees	91
Training for school personnel on bullying intervention and prevention	85
Data collection and monitoring bullying of incidents	39
Assurance of right to pursue legal remedies for victims	39

Note. The percentages are based on 46 state bullying laws passed between 1999 and 2011.

Source: Stuart-Cassel, Bell, & Springer, 2011 .

Despite the widespread adoption and application of anti-bullying policies within the United States and in other countries, relatively few studies have examined the effectiveness of these interventions. Instead, research has focused on programmatic interventions (e.g., Cool Kids Program, Fear Not!, Friendly Schools, KiVa, and Steps to Respect). Numerous systematic or meta-analytic reviews have been completed on the effectiveness of programmatic interventions for school bullying (e.g., Baldry & Farrington, 2007 ; Evans, Fraser, & Cotter, 2014 ; Ferguson, San Miguel, Kilburn, & Sanchez, 2007 ; Lee, Kim, & Kim, 2013 ; Merrell, Gueldner, Ross, & Isava, 2008 ; Ttofi & Farrington, 2011 ). However, a systematic review of the literature on the effectiveness of policy interventions for school bullying has not been completed.

Given the proportion of students directly or indirectly involved in bullying, the array of educational and psychological problems associated with bullying, the extensive adoption of anti-bullying policies, and the absence of a review of the research on these policy interventions, the need for a systematic review on this topic is imperative. The following questions drove this review: Are school policies effective in reducing or preventing bullying behavior among students? What is the state or quality of the research on school bullying policy effectiveness? What additional research is needed on school bullying policy effectiveness? Given these questions, the objectives of this review were threefold: to systematically identify, examine, and evaluate the methodological characteristics of studies investigating the effectiveness of school bullying policies; to summarize the substantive findings from these studies; and to provide recommendations for future research.

In preparation of this review, the author adhered to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) criteria ( Moher, Liberati, Tetzlaff, & Altman, 2009 ). Before undertaking the search for relevant studies, the author developed protocols for bibliographic database searches, study inclusion and exclusion criteria, and a data extraction tool. In addition, this review was registered with PROSPERO, an international database of systematic reviews regarding health and social well-being.

Search Procedure

A behavioral and social sciences librarian was consulted to assist with developing a search string and identifying relevant computerized bibliographic databases in which to search. The following search string was used to search all databases for studies published between January 1, 1995, and November 8, 2014: school AND bullying AND (law OR policy OR policies OR legislation OR statute) AND (effect OR effects OR effectiveness OR efficacy OR impact OR influence). The search of multiple databases increased the likelihood of identifying all possible studies falling within the scope of the review; thus, the author searched 11 databases, some of which included gray literature sources (e.g., conference papers, government reports, and unpublished papers). Searches were performed in the following databases via EBSCO using terms searched within the abstracts: CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), Educational Full Text, ERIC (Education Research Information Center), PsycINFO, and Social Work Abstracts. The following databases were searched via ProQuest using terms searched within the titles, abstracts, and subject headings: ASSIA (Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts), Dissertations & Theses Full Text, and Social Services Abstracts. In addition, the Conference Proceedings Citations Index was searched using terms searched within titles, abstracts, and keywords. Finally, PubMed was searched using terms searched within titles and abstracts. These more formal bibliographic database searches were supplemented with internet searches using Google Scholar.

Inclusion Criteria

Studies were included in the review if they met the following criteria: (a) collected data and reported results on the effectiveness of policy interventions for bullying in school settings; (b) written in English; and (c) completed since January 1, 1995. Policy interventions for bullying were defined as statutes, policies, regulations, or rules established at the national, state, district, or school levels with the goal of reducing bullying in K–12 schools. Effectiveness referred to the extent to which a policy intervention prevented or reduced student bullying behavior. Given that school bullying policy is a nascent area of empirical inquiry with relatively few empirical investigations and evaluations, the author did not use stringent exclusion criteria in terms of study designs and methods. Only studies written in English were included due to the researchers’ language proficiency. Finally, the time period selected allowed for a comprehensive and contemporary review of the empirical literature completed in this area over the past 20 years.

Study Screening

After performing the bibliographic database searches, 481 results were imported into the RefWorks program to assist with organization and duplicate removal. Following duplicate removal, 414 studies remained. An additional 8 studies were added from Google Scholar searches that were not present among the 414 studies. The author and a trained research assistant independently screened each of the 422 studies to determine eligibility. A checklist of the inclusion criteria was created prior to the search and was used for eligibility assessment. Studies had to meet all three inclusion criteria to be screened in. Most studies were included or excluded after reading the title and abstract; however, it was also necessary to examine the full source document of some studies to determine eligibility. To examine interrater agreement, the decisions of the two screeners were compared, and Cohen’s kappa was calculated with SPSS (Version 21), which showed excellent agreement: kappa=0.97, p < .05 ( Landis & Koch, 1977 ). There were only six disagreements between the screeners, which were resolved by the author examining the source documents. After screening, 401 studies were excluded because they did not meet all of the inclusion criteria. The most common reasons for exclusion included papers that were not empirical, lack of evaluation of effectiveness, lack of evaluation of policy, and studies that were not conducted in schools. After completing the search and screening processes, 21 studies were included for extraction and review ( Figure 1 ).

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Object name is nihms849106f1.jpg

Flow diagram depicting the identification, screening, and inclusion of studies.

Data Extraction

A data extraction sheet was developed to assist with identifying and collecting relevant information from the 21 included studies. Information extracted included the citation, purpose of the study, study design, sampling strategy and location, response rate, sample size and characteristics, measurement of relevant variables, analyses performed, and results and findings. The author extracted this information and a research assistant then compared the completed extraction sheets with the source documents to assess the accuracy of the extractions. There were only six points of disagreement between the extractor and checker, which they then resolved together by examining the source documents and extractions simultaneously.

Data Synthesis

Initial review of the included studies revealed that a quantitative synthesis, such as a meta-analysis, was not advisable due to the methodological heterogeneity of the studies and differences in approaches to evaluating policy effectiveness. Thus, a narrative thematic synthesis approach was used ( Thomas, Harden, & Newman, 2012 ). The substantive findings on policy effectiveness were first categorized based on the outcome evaluated and then synthesized within each category.

A total of 21 studies were included in this review: 9 peer-reviewed journal articles, 6 research reports that were not peer-reviewed, 5 doctoral dissertations, and 1 master’s thesis. A summary of the methodological characteristics of these studies is presented—including a synthesis of the substantive findings regarding the effectiveness of school bullying policies—in Table S1 (available online).

Methodological Characteristics of the Studies

Of the 21 studies, 12 (57%) used mixed methods, 8 (38%) used quantitative methods, and 1 (5%) used qualitative methods. All studies relied on cross-sectional designs. Most studies (65%) used convenience sampling, whereas the remaining studies used some form of probability sampling. More than half (57%) of studies used national samples, whereas 24% used samples from a single city or local region, 15% used statewide samples, and 5% used samples from areas in multiple countries. Over 80% of studies sampled participants in the United States, with other studies drawing participants from Europe, Australia, East Asia, and Southwest Asia. The most common recruitment sites were schools, followed by listservs, websites, community groups or organizations, professional associations, and personal contacts. Most studies reported participant response rates which varied from 21% to 98%, and the average response rate across studies was 57% ( SD = 29%). Eight studies did not report response rates.

Across studies, sample sizes varied from 6 to 8,584 participants. Only the qualitative study had fewer than 50 participants, and two studies had between 50 and 100 participants. Most studies had relatively large samples with more than 500 respondents. The most commonly used participants were students, followed by teachers. Other respondents included administrators, school psychologists, school counselors, education support professionals, and parents. About one third of studies included multiple participant groups (e.g., students and teachers). Most studies (62%) recruited participants from K–12 settings, whereas other studies recruited participants from a single school level: elementary, middle, or high school. Among adult participants, about 75% were female and 90% were White. These percentages are similar to those reported by the U.S. Department of Education, which show that 76% of teachers are female and 82% are White ( Snyder & Dillow, 2013 ).

Samples of students were diverse in terms of race/ethnicity, with most studies consisting of about two-thirds White participants as well as Black, Hispanic/Latino/Latina, Asian, Native American Indian, Middle Eastern, and multiracial students. In addition, student samples were closer to having equal proportions of males and females. Five studies included student participants who were exclusively lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ), whereas 6 studies did not report information about student sexual orientation or gender identity. In addition, studies typically did not measure or report participant national origin, immigrant/citizenship status, religious identity, socioeconomic status, or ability/disability status. Finally, most students were high school students.

Evaluation methods

All studies relied on self-report data to evaluate school bullying policy effectiveness. However, studies varied based on the outcome used in their evaluations: Eight studies examined school members’ perceptions of policy effectiveness, 5 studies examined student bullying perpetration and/or victimization behaviors, 6 studies investigated anti-LGBTQ bullying victimization, and 2 studies considered educator intervention in bullying. The level of policies evaluated also varied: Eleven studies examined school-level policies, 3 studies examined district-level policies, 3 studies examined state laws, 3 studies examined both state laws and school-level policies, and one study examined a national policy.

Studies also varied in terms of the analytic approaches used to evaluate effectiveness: Nine studies used bivariate analyses, 8 studies used descriptive statistics of perceived effectiveness, 3 studies used multivariate analyses, and one study used both bivariate and multivariate analyses. Studies that used a bivariate analytic approach compared measures of teachers’ responsiveness to bullying or measures of student bullying between those in schools with and without anti-bullying policies or between schools with high- versus low-quality anti-bullying policies. In these studies, distinctions between high- and low-quality policies were made by the researchers in each study using content analyses of policy strategies that were theoretically and empirically associated with effectiveness in the bullying literature (e.g., having a definition of bullying, ensuring adult supervision of students, and outlining consequences for bullies; Ordonez, 2006 ; Woods & Wolke, 2003 ). Policy content analysis scores were then used to distinguish between high- and low-quality policies. Descriptive statistical analyses of effectiveness entailed participants responding to a single self-report item about their perceptions of policy effectiveness (e.g., “How effective do you feel that your school’s anti-bullying policy is in reducing bullying?”), with Likert-type response options related to agreement/disagreement or categorical response options (e.g., yes or no). Multivariate analytic approaches primarily used student bullying scores as the dependent variable and either a continuous anti-bullying policy score or a dichotomous variable indicating whether or not the school had an anti-bullying policy as the independent variable. Continuous school bullying policy scores were based on either a set of items about the perceived presence of an anti-bullying policy (e.g., “I think my school clearly set forth anti-bullying policies and rules”) or a content analysis of policy documents to identify the presence of criteria or strategies associated with effectiveness (e.g., having a definition of bullying, establishing procedures and consequences for bullies, having educational events about the school’s bullying guidelines, ensuring adult supervision in school areas prone to bullying, and formulating a school task group to coordinate anti-bullying efforts).

The measures used to assess bullying among students varied; some studies used established scales (e.g., Olweus Bullying Questionnaire), whereas other studies used items developed by the researchers. The number of items used to measure bullying varied from 3 to 23 ( M =18.2, SD =6.1). Of the 11 studies that measured bullying, the majority measured bullying victimization ( n = 8). Only 2 studies measured both bullying victimization and perpetration, and one study measured just perpetration. In terms of the types of bullying measured, 5 studies measured physical, verbal, social, electronic, and sexual bullying; 3 studies measured physical, verbal, and social bullying; one study measured physical, verbal, social, and electronic bullying; one study measured physical, verbal, social, and property bullying; and one study measured verbal bullying. In addition to student bullying, educators’ responsiveness to bullying was another outcome variable that was used in 8 studies. Only one study used a scale to measure educator responsiveness, and the remaining 7 studies used one to four items regarding educators responding to student bullying.

Results on Policy Effectiveness

Given that the 21 studies differed on the outcomes used in their evaluations of school bullying policy effectiveness, substantive results are presented by each outcome category: school members’ perceptions of policy effectiveness, student bullying perpetration and/or victimization, anti-LGBTQ bullying victimization, and educator intervention in bullying.

Perceptions of policy effectiveness

Eight studies reported results on participants’ perceptions of policy effectiveness. Results showed that 5% to 88%( M =49.4%, SD = 33.4%) of educators perceived school bullying policies to be effective to some degree, 4% to 79% ( M =24.5%, SD =23.6%) of educators perceived policies to be ineffective , and 16% to 70% ( M =51.3%, SD =30.6%) of educators were uncertain about policy effectiveness ( Barnes, 2010 ; Bradshaw, Waasdorp, O’Brennan, & Gulemetova, 2013 ; Hedwall, 2006 ; Isom, 2014 ; Sherer & Nickerson, 2010 ; Terry, 2010 ). Only one study measured students’ perceptions of policy effectiveness, and results showed that they perceived policies to be moderately effective ( Ju, 2012 ). In addition, only one of the 21 studies collected multiple waves of data, although different sets of respondents were used at each of the two waves ( Samara & Smith, 2008 ). In this study, researchers examined perceived effectiveness before and after the passage of an anti-bullying policy; however, there were no significant changes in perceived effectiveness.

Student bullying perpetration and victimization

Five studies reported findings on the influence of policy on general student bullying outcomes. Two of these 5 studies examined policy content in relation to effectiveness. One study found that students in schools with high-quality bullying policies reported lower rates of verbal and physical bullying victimization than students in schools with low-quality policies; however, no differences were found for social/relational or property bullying victimization ( Ordonez, 2006 ). In this study, policy quality was evaluated based on the inclusion of the following elements: a definition of bullying; procedures and consequences for bullies; plans for disseminating the policy to students, school personnel, and parents; programs or practices that encourage acceptance of diversity, empathy for others, respect toward others, peer integration, and responsible use of power; supervision of students in school areas prone to bullying (e.g., playground, cafeteria, and hallways); and socio-emotional skills training for victims and bullies ( Ordonez, 2006 ). Similarly, another study found lower rates of verbal, physical, and property bullying victimization among students in schools with high-quality bullying policies, yet higher rates of social/relational bullying perpetration ( Woods & Wolke, 2003 ). In this study, policy quality was evaluated based on the inclusion of the following elements: a definition of bullying; recognition of negative outcomes associated with bullying; discussion of locations where bullying can occur; evaluation of the prevalence of bullying; involvement of stakeholders in policy development; supervision of students in school areas; formulation of a school task group to coordinate anti-bullying efforts; classroom rules about bullying; classroom sessions about bullying; discussion of bullying at PTA/PTO meetings; involvement of parents in bullying prevention efforts; and follow-up with victims and bullies after incidents ( Woods & Wolke, 2003 ).

Other studies examined associations between policy presence and bullying outcomes. Three significant or marginally significant ( p ≤ .095) associations were found: the presence of an anti-bullying policy was inversely related to general bullying victimization, social/relational bullying perpetration, and verbal bullying perpetration ( Farrington & Ttofi, 2009 ; Lee, 2007 ). Conversely, eight nonsignificant associations were found between school bullying policy presence and scores of general, physical, verbal, and social/relational bullying perpetration, as well as physical, verbal, and social/relational bullying victimization ( Farrington & Ttofi, 2009 ; Khoury-Kassabri, 2011 ; Lee, 2007 ). In addition, having a bullying policy was not associated with increases in general bullying perpetration or victimization ( Farrington & Ttofi, 2009 ).

Anti-LGBTQ bullying

Six studies with rather large samples of primarily LGBTQ students consistently found that compared to students in schools without an anti-bullying policy or with an anti-bullying policy that did not explicitly prohibit bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity, students in schools with comprehensive anti-bullying policies that included protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity reported lower rates of anti-LGBTQ bullying, more school personnel frequently intervening when anti-LGBTQ comments were made in their presence, and more school personnel being effective in their anti-LGBTQ bullying responses ( Kosciw&Diaz, 2006 ; Kosciw, Diaz,&Greytak, 2008 ; Kosciw, Greytak, Diaz, & Bartkiewicz, 2010 ; Kosciw, Greytak, Bartkiewicz, Boesen, & Palmer, 2012 ; Kosciw, Greytak, Palmer, & Boesen, 2014 ; Phoenix et al., 2006 ). These differences were consistent in analyses of both local anti-bullying policies and state anti-bullying laws.

Educator intervention in bullying

Educators play a key role in reducing bullying behavior among students. One study found that compared to those in schools without a bullying policy, educators in schools with bullying policies were more likely to enlist the help of parents and colleagues in responding to a bullying incident and were less likely to ignore bullying ( Bauman, Rigby, & Hoppa, 2008 ). Conversely, a large, national study of educators found no relationship between having an anti-bullying policy and educators’ comfort intervening in both general and discriminatory bullying ( O’Brennan, Waasdorp, & Bradshaw, 2014 ).

The findings are discussed according to the research questions that drove the review.

Are Policies Effective at Reducing Bullying?

Educators were divided in their perceptions of the effectiveness of policies for school bullying; however, on average, about twice as many educators reported that policies were effective to some degree as those who reported that they were not effective. Nonetheless, descriptive summaries of perceptions of effectiveness are typically not viewed as compelling sources of evidence for the effectiveness of an intervention ( Petticrew & Roberts, 2003 ). However, educators are considered key informants who know what goes on in schools.

Two studies found lower rates of verbal and physical bullying in schools with high- rather than low-quality policies; however, in terms of social/relational bullying, one study found no difference, and another study found higher rates of social/relational bullying in schools with high-quality policies ( Ordonez, 2006 ; Woods & Wolke, 2003 ). This tentative finding suggests that improving the quality of bullying policies may be effective for direct and overt forms of bullying (e.g., hitting and name-calling) but may not effect social/relational bullying. Across the two studies, elements of policy quality associated with decreases in verbal and physical bullying included a comprehensive definition of bullying; school and classroom rules and procedures about bullying; plans for communicating the policy within the school community; supervision of students across school areas; involvement of parents in anti-bullying efforts; involvement of multiple stakeholders in school-wide anti-bullying actions; and working with and educating students around social, emotional, and behavioral issues to prevent bullying. Extant policies may overemphasize traditional notions of what bullying is (i.e., physical and verbal harassment) and underemphasize or neglect to address more recent understandings of social/relational aggression as bullying. In addition, direct and overt forms of bullying may be more amenable to policy interventions because educators can directly observe these behaviors and then proceed with their response, whereas social/relational bullying often occurs away from the direct supervision of educators ( Young, Nelson, Hottle, Warburton, & Young, 2013 ). Educators have reported difficulty in responding to bullying incidents that they did not witness ( Mishna, Pepler, & Wiener, 2006 ). Similarly, although many educators are aware of cyberbullying, few take steps to address it and many are uncertain about how to confront cyberbullying, which often occurs outside of school ( Cassidy, Brown, & Jackson, 2012 ; Stauffer, Heath, Coyne, & Ferrin, 2012 ; Vandebosch, Poels, & Deboutte, 2014 ). Nonetheless, educators can address cyberbullying occurring on or off school grounds if the aggression creates a hostile school environment and substantially disrupts a student’s learning environment ( Stuart-Cassel et al., 2011 ).

Findings among the few studies that examined associations between policy presence and student bullying were mixed, although more nonsignificant than significant associations were found. At first glance, one may conclude from these findings that the presence of bullying policies does not influence bullying among students; however, the presence of a policy is necessary but is not sufficient to affect student behavior. Indeed, after a policy has been adopted, it must be put into practice. The mere adoption or presence of a policy does not mean that it will be immediately and consistently put into practice exactly as intended. The implementation of a policy is a complex, dynamic, and ongoing process involving a vast assortment of people, resources, organizational structures, and actions. No study that examined the implementation of school bullying policies found that the policies were being implemented precisely as intended ( Hall & Chapman, 2016a , 2016b ; Hedwall, 2006 ; Holmgreen, 2014 ; Jordan, 2014 ; LaRocco, Nestler-Rusack, & Freiberg, 2007 ; MacLeod, 2007 ; Robbins, 2011 ; Schlenoff, 2014 ; Smith-Canty, 2010 ; Terry, 2010 ). Indeed, the extent of faithful implementation in these studies varied considerably by location and policy component. Therefore, fidelity of implementation (i.e., the extent that a policy is put into practice as intended based on the directives expressed in the policy document) may mediate the relationship between policy adoption or presence and the targeted policy outcome of student bullying. However, none of the studies reviewed measured policy implementation fidelity. Thus, one can conclude from this evidence that in some cases, policy presence was associated with decreases in bullying; in other cases, however, there were no such associations. Because data on implementation were not collected in any study, it is not known if the lack of significant associations was related to lack of faithful implementation of policies.

One area of consistent agreement in the findings relates to the benefits for LGBTQ students who are in schools with anti-bullying policies that explicitly provide protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. These benefits included lower rates of victimization and higher rates of intervention by educators. Numerous studies have demonstrated that LGBTQ youths experience high rates of bullying victimization ( Berlan, Corliss, Field, Goodman, & Austin, 2010 ; Espelage, Aragon, Birkett, & Koenig, 2008 ; Kosciw & Diaz, 2006 ; Kosciw et al., 2008 ; Kosciw et al., 2010 ; Kosciw et al., 2012 ; Kosciw et al., 2014 ; McGuire, Anderson, Toomey, & Russell, 2010 ; Varjas et al., 2008 ). However, only 20 states (40%) have enumerated protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression in their anti-bullying laws ( Human Rights Campaign, 2015 ). Given the evidence for the effectiveness of enumerated policies, all policies should prohibit harassment and bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Aside from the LGBTQ-focused studies, only two other studies examined educators’ responsiveness to bullying. Findings from these studies were somewhat contradictory, as one found a connection between having a bullying policy and responding to a bullying incident, whereas the other study found no relationship between having a policy and educators’ comfort in responding to bullying. However, the study that found no relationship included several other relevant independent variables (i.e., receiving training on how to implement the school’s bullying policy and having resources available in the school to help educators intervene), which were significantly associated with increased comfort in responding to bullying ( O’Brennan et al., 2014 ). Thus, the relationship between the presence of a school bullying policy and educators’ responsiveness to bullying incidents may be mediated by training about putting the policy into practice and having resources available for intervention.

Finally, there was no evidence that one level of policy was more effective than another. Across the studies, school, district, and state policies all showed evidence for effectiveness as well as ineffectiveness. Policies do vary in terms of their weight in law. For example, a state statute has more legal force than an informal school policy established by a principal. Nonetheless, a school policy set by a principal is more proximal than a state policy, and therefore, the proximity may facilitate implementation of the policy at the school. Policy level may not be related to effectiveness. What likely matters more in terms of effectiveness are the strategies contained within a policy and the ways they are implemented.

What is the State of the Research on School Bullying Policy Effectiveness?

Systematic reviews summarize what is substantively known about a topic area and also provide a state of the research on a particular topic. Research to date on school bullying policy effectiveness has several strengths. In terms of designs, most studies have used a mixed-methods approach, which is advantageous because it capitalizes on the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative research and offsets weaknesses of using one or the other. Including quantitative methods allows for precise, numerical estimates related to distribution or the strength and direction of relationships, and including qualitative methods allows for rich, in-depth data related to context or complexity. Other strengths are related to sampling: More than one third of the studies used some form of probability sampling, over half of the studies used national samples, and many studies reported high response rates. These sampling strengths are beneficial in terms of generalizing findings. Also, almost all studies had sample sizes greater than 200, and two thirds of studies had large samples (i.e., approximately 500 to 8,500 participants). Larger samples can be more representative of a population and are beneficial in terms of statistical power. A final strength was that many studies collected data from multiple participants groups (e.g., teachers and students). Having multiple participant groups allows for a more comprehensive assessment and the triangulation of data sources, which can be used to compare and contrast findings and may help researchers corroborate findings.

On the other hand, several prominent methodological limitations were identified among the studies reviewed. First, the studies relied on evidence from cross-sectional surveys, which are vulnerable to selection bias and confounding. In addition, cross-sectional studies cannot examine a key criterion of causality: a temporal relationship wherein an anti-bullying policy was adopted and implemented, which then led to decreases in bullying over time. Second, most studies used convenience sampling. Although convenience sampling may be highly feasible and efficient, it can lead to the under representation or overrepresentation of particular groups within a sample. Thus, convenience samples may not be representative of the populations of interest, which undermines the generalizations that can be made from the findings. Third, most of the studies used descriptive statistics or bivariate analyses to evaluate the effectiveness of bullying policies. Such analyses can be oversimplified and leave out relevant explanatory or contextualizing variables. In addition, some of the studies that used bivariate analyses did not report the exact statistical test used (e.g., independent groups t-test and chi-square test) or effect sizes and instead focused on substantive findings. Although these reports seemed to be aimed at a more general, nonscholarly audience, the omission of this information can become problematic in understanding the methods used and drawing conclusions about the results. Fourth, many studies asked participants to report whether their school had an anti-bullying policy. This question might be problematic for student respondents because they might not know about the policies in their schools.

A final limitation involved the measurement of bullying. The main goal of policy interventions for bullying is to prevent and reduce bullying behavior among students. Thus, studies evaluating the effectiveness of these interventions should measure bullying among students as a primary outcome. Nonetheless, only half of the studies directly measured student bullying, and most of these studies did not measure both bullying perpetration and victimization. Policies are aimed at influencing multiple actors involved in the bullying dynamic, which includes bullies, targets, victims, bully–victims, bystanders, parents, and school personnel. Thus, studies that do not measure bullying perpetration and victimization among students are not assessing the two main targeted behavioral outcomes of anti-bullying policies. In addition, bullying behaviors can manifest in many forms, including physical bullying, verbal bullying, social/relational bullying, cyberbullying, property bullying, and sexual bullying ( Hall, 2016 ). However, none of the studies in this review measured all of the dimensions of bullying.

What Future Research is Needed on School Bullying Policy Effectiveness?

Undoubtedly, research on the effectiveness of policy interventions for school bullying will continue to expand. In order to build upon and address gaps and limitations in the extant literature, six recommendations are presented for future research on school bullying policy effectiveness. These recommendations are based on the critical analysis of studies in this systematic review.

First, future studies should employ more rigorous designs to evaluate the effectiveness of policy interventions for bullying. The randomized controlled trial (RCT) is the “gold standard” approach for measuring the impact of an intervention; however, RCTs are often infeasible for evaluating public policy interventions due to the political and legal nature of policies, which are implemented across large organizational systems and typically with prescribed timelines ( Oliver et al., 2010 ). Thus, researchers may need to rely on other rigorous and feasible designs for evaluating policy effectiveness: pretest/posttest cohort designs, pretest/posttest matched comparison group designs, and interrupted time series designs ( Oliver et al., 2010 ; Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002 ). These study designs are superior to cross-sectional studies in determining the effectiveness of interventions ( Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, 2003 ; Petticrew & Roberts, 2003 ; Pilcher & Bedford, 2011 ).

Second, studies should collect data on outcomes and the implementation of policy components. None of the studies assessed implementation fidelity. When bullying policies do not successfully achieve targeted outcomes, we do not know whether those policies were implemented as intended and failed or whether lack of implementation fidelity is to blame. Implementation data, if collected, could be used to ensure that policies are being activated as intended with high levels of fidelity and reported along with outcome evaluation data in the study designs mentioned previously. These data also could be used to examine the predictive relationship between implementation fidelity and outcomes. Theory would suggest an inverse relationship where higher levels of implementation fidelity are associated with lower levels of bullying among students; however, this remains an untested hypothesis. Also, bullying policies are comprised of an array of directives to be put into action. Data on the fidelity of implementation of all components of an anti-bullying policy would allow researchers to examine the relative or combined impact of policy components on outcomes.

Third, analyzing policy content—versus only considering the presence of absence of a bullying policy—is needed for more nuanced understanding of which policies work, for whom, and why. A national review of state anti-bullying laws showed broad inclusion of some policy components (e.g., outlining the consequences for students who bully) and limited inclusion of other components (e.g., providing mental health services to perpetrators or victims of bullying; Stuart-Cassel et al., 2011 ). Theoretically and empirically based guidance about specific actions that can be prescribed in bullying policies is small but growing ( Cornell & Limber, 2015 ; Nickerson, Cornell, Smith, & Furlong, 2013 ). Future research should analyze the relationships between policy content and bullying outcomes, which could help identify the most influential policy components. Examining only policy presence or absence is insufficient because a school district may indeed have an anti-bullying policy, but its content may not be evidence-based. Policies can also vary in the way they are written, as some policies are lengthy, vague, and contradictory, whereas other policies are clear, concise, and specific. This area of content could also be analyzed and may relate to educators’ comprehension of policies, which would influence implementation actions by educators, and subsequently, policy outcomes.

Fourth, future studies should use multivariate and multilevel analyses. The effectiveness of policy interventions for bullying are influenced by several variables, including policy content, fidelity of implementation, and school environmental factors. By using more complex statistical methods (e.g., regression modeling, structural equation modeling, propensity score matching, and hierarchical linear modeling), researchers will be able to examine the influence of multiple variables, examine moderating and mediating relationships, control for extraneous variables, match intervention participants with control participants, and account for clustered data (e.g., students or teachers nested within schools). These statistical methods will be essential to execute the recommended study designs and analytic methods described previously. The use of these statistical methods will help ensure the integrity of future findings on policy effectiveness.

Fifth, studies should improve sampling practices. To attain more representative samples, researchers should partner with school districts, state departments of education, and departments of public instruction, and they should employ some form of probability sampling. Many of the studies in this review that used probability sampling involved data collection collaborations with state- and district-level educational agencies. Educational agencies have a vested interest in the implementation and success of bullying policies, especially those codified as law. In addition, future studies should sample from multiple respondent groups—such as administrators, teachers, school mental health professionals, and students—to gain a more comprehensive and multiperspective understanding of the implementation and effectiveness of school bullying policies. Researchers also should sample across the K–12 spectrum because state and district policy guidelines typically apply across these grade levels. Yet, there may be differences in policy effectiveness between elementary, middle, and high school. Certain policy strategies also may need to be tailored based on student developmental differences and differences in school structure across the K–12 system.

Finally, future studies should use scales to measure both bullying perpetration and victimization, and these measures should assess all of the dimensions of bullying: physical, verbal, social/relational, electronic, sexual, and property bullying. Researchers may find that policies are more effective at addressing certain types of bullying than others (e.g., direct vs. indirect bullying). Multifactor scales with a sufficient number of items are needed to measure the full range of bullying behaviors. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created a compendium of bullying measures that is available to the public (see Hamburger, Basile, & Vivolo, 2011 ). However, caution should be taken in selecting instruments because some measures have low internal consistency reliability values (i.e., α < .70), low test-retest reliability coefficients (i.e., r < .70), no recall time frames, overly long and complex definitions of bullying, limited evidence of construct validity, limited evidence of criterion validity, and limited evidence regarding respondents’ understanding of the measure’s instructions and items ( Hall, 2016 ). In addition, as opposed to questionnaires about bullying behaviors, peer and/or teacher nomination methods to identify students who are bullying victims or perpetrators may be more developmentally appropriate for elementary school-age children.

Strengths and Limitations of the Review

This review used a rigorous approach to identify relevant studies by searching 11 databases using an expert-informed search string. In addition, search records were independently screened by two screeners based on a priori inclusion criteria. Further, research reports and dissertations (forms of gray literature) were included to minimize publication bias. Nonetheless, unpublished research may be underrepresented in this review. Another limitation relates to the variability of studies: Studies varied in the respondents, sample locations, the types of policies examined, and the ways effectiveness was evaluated. This variability presented challenges for combining and comparing results. Another limitation of this review relates to the methodological limitations of some of the included studies. However, by presenting the methodological characteristics and substantive findings by study in Table S1 (available online), readers are able to assess the methodological rigor and trustworthiness of findings accordingly.

Bullying is a widespread problem in which about half of students are directly involved and up to 90% of students are indirectly involved ( Atlas &Pepler, 1998 ; Cook, Williams, Guerra, & Kim, 2010 ; Craig & Pepler, 1995 ; Glew et al., 2005 ; Hawkins et al., 2001 ). Policy interventions are an approach to bullying that establishes legal mandates for schools, influences the behavior of students and school personnel, and guides the implementation of other targeted interventions within schools. Findings on the effectiveness of policy interventions for bullying are primarily mixed, and there are limitations in the evaluation methods used. Research on school bullying policy will undoubtedly continue to expand with the growing understanding of the need for evidence-based education policies and as bullying policies continue to be introduced and revised in schools across the globe. Future research must use more rigorous methods and designs and may indeed find that policy interventions play a key role as one of a constellation of intervention strategies for preventing and reducing school bullying.

Supplementary Material

Acknowledgments.

I would like to thank Mimi Chapman, Natasha Bowen, Barbara Fedders, Mark Fraser, and Kathleen Rounds for their advice and feedback regarding this paper. I also thank Rachele McFarland for her research assistance. The author was supported by the National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Traineeship from the National Institute of Mental Health, sponsored by Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine (grant number T32 MH019117).

* Asterisks indicate studies that were included in the systematic review.

A Systematic Review on Primary School Teachers’ Characteristics and Behaviors in Identifying, Preventing, and Reducing Bullying

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Published: 26 October 2022

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Danelien A. E. van Aalst ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6715-0324 1 ,
Gijs Huitsing ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7826-4178 1 &
René Veenstra ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6686-6307 1

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Despite the expanding body of research on school bullying and interventions, knowledge is limited on what teachers should do to identify, prevent, and reduce bullying. This systematic literature review provides an overview of research on the role of primary school teachers with regard to bullying and victimization. A conceptual framework was developed in line with the Theory of Planned Pehavior, which can serve in further research to facilitate research in investigating the prevention and reduction of bullying. Different elements of this framework were distinguished in categorizing the literature: teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, perceived subjective norms, and self-efficacy, which impacted subsequently the likelihood to intervene, used strategies and programs, and ultimately the bullying prevalence in the classroom. In total, 75 studies complied to the inclusion criteria and were reviewed systematically. The Newcastle–Ottawa Quality Assessment was used to assess the quality of each study, leading to 25 papers with an adequate research design that were discussed in more detail. The approach in this review provides a framework to combine studies on single or multiple elements of a complex theoretical model of which only some parts have been empirically investigated.

Teachers’ Self-efficacy in Preventing and Intervening in School Bullying: a Systematic Review

A PRISMA-Based Systematic Review of Measurements for School Bullying

Bullying by Teachers Towards Students—a Scoping Review

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Teachers’ Role in Bullying

Over the previous decades, there has been an increased research interest in school bullying (Volk et al., 2017 ). Bullying has been defined as systematic, intentional, goal-directed aggression toward victims who are physically or socially weaker than the bully or bullies. Bullying often occurs in schools out of teachers’ sight, for example on the playground or in the lunchroom (Bradshaw et al., 2007 ; Veenstra et al., 2014 ), and is therefore difficult for teachers to detect. However, even when bullying occurs in their sight, teachers often fail to take action (Craig et al., 2000a ; Veenstra et al., 2014 ), although their responses have an important effect on preventing and reducing bullying (Migliaccio, 2015 ; Sokol et al., 2016 ; van Verseveld et al., 2019 ). It is therefore important to know which individual and contextual features play a role in how teachers can identify and intervene in bullying effectively.

To date, an overarching framework is missing in research on teachers’ characteristics and behavior in relation to bullying (Oldenburg et al., 2015 ; Yoon & Bauman, 2014 ), but it would contribute to the development of more effective and tailored coaching and support for teachers. We aimed to fill this gap by, first, providing a systematic overview of the literature addressing the role of teachers’ characteristics and behaviors in identifying, preventing, and reducing bullying in primary school. Second, we intended to develop a theoretical framework by extending the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 2012 ), that could benefit future research on teachers’ role in tackling bullying. We assessed all reviewed studies on their quality by using the Newcastle–Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale, which provided insight in the generalizability of findings.

Our review focused on primary school teachers. Most literature on bullying has focused on primary education, and many anti-bullying programs have been developed and tested in primary schools. Furthermore, the context of primary schools and the effectiveness in tackling bullying differs from secondary education (Yeager et al., 2015 ), with less frequent contact with students and changing class compositions depending on students’ specialization or subject choices. This potentially changes teachers’ ability to identify and observe bullying incidents, and also the extent to which they can influence or alter the situation.

Theory of Planned Behavior Applied to Teachers’ Anti-Bullying Behavior

The theory of planned behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991 , 2012 ) is an action model based on the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010 ), and helps to understand and predict changes in human social behavior based on the assumption that human behavior is reasonable. According to TPB, there is a certain sequence where individual factors affect humans’ attitudes toward behavior, their subjective norms, and their perceived behavioral control. Subsequently, these elements influence someone’s intention of behavior and finally ends in the display of actual behavior (Ajzen, 2012 ).

Applying the framework to teachers’ anti-bullying efforts, we can also distinguish these different elements, which are depicted in Fig. 1 . The first element concerns attitudes, which refer to teachers’ attitudes toward bullying interventions, with the underlying beliefs of taking bullying seriously and having empathy with victims (van Verseveld et al., 2019 ). It is assumed that the more teachers take bullying seriously and have empathy with victims, the more they are inclined to intervene, and might therefore also be more positive about intervening. Research included in the review indicated that teachers are more likely to intervene when they consider bullying as serious and less normative and when they have empathy with victims (e.g., Dedousis-Wallace et al., 2014 ; Yoon, 2004 ).

Conceptual model on teachers’ role in identifying, preventing and reducing bullying

The second element concerns perceived behavioral control and refers to self-efficacy. Higher self-efficacy was shown to result in more perseverance and performance (Ajzen, 2012 ). In line with this, a positive relation was expected and found between teachers’ self-efficacy and the likelihood to intervene (e.g., Dedousis-Wallace et al., 2014 ; Yoon et al., 2016 ).

The third element is the subjective norms, which are defined as teachers’ perceptions of how important others, such as the principal and colleagues, would rate their behavior. Teachers can perceive these normative beliefs as social pressure to which they want to comply, which guides their intentional behavior. For teachers, the norms and actions of their colleagues and principal are expected to be important for comfort to intervene (O’Brennan et al., 2014 ), implementation fidelity (e.g., Cunningham et al., 2016 ), and bullying prevalence (Roland & Galloway, 2004 ). Participation in an anti-bullying program or school policies on bullying also shape prevailing norms and expectations in the school; for instance, by influencing the likelihood to intervene (Benítez et al., 2009 ).

In addition to the three previously mentioned elements, we propose that a fourth element is important, teachers’ knowledge, that relates to the other elements, and influences teachers’ likelihood to intervene (Dedousis-Wallace et al., 2014 ) and their actual behavior . Before being able to intervene, teachers must know about bullying as a phenomenon (Allen, 2010 ), its types and consequences, and about its prevalence in their classroom. Hence, we added knowledge to the model at the same prediction level for intention to intervene as attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms (see Fig. 1 ).

According to the TPB, these elements together influence the intention of behavior, in this case, teachers’ likelihood to intervene, which forms the precedent for actual behavior, referring to using strategies to tackle bullying or applying elements of anti-bullying programs or policies. However, to study teachers’ effectiveness in tackling bullying, the bullying prevalence in the classroom can be considered as the final outcome, that indicates whether bullying reduction or prevention in class is achieved by the displayed behavior of the teacher. We, therefore, added bullying prevalence as outcome in our theoretical framework, see Fig. 1 .

Even though TPB is a thoroughly tested theory in other fields, such as health sciences and health-related behavior, its relation to teachers’ bullying intervention behavior is rather limited (Hawley & Williford, 2015 ). Several studies argued that the TPB may be relevant for understanding the potential role of teacher self-efficacy and attitudinal change in predicting their intentions and behaviors to tackle bullying (e.g., Cunningham et al., 2019a ; Gregus et al., 2017 ; Hawley & Williford, 2015 ; MacFarlane & Woolfson, 2013 ; van Verseveld et al., 2019 ; Yoon et al., 2011 ). However, no previous study tested the framework as a whole and applied it to teachers in relation to bullying. Through this systematic review, we investigated the extent to which research on teachers’ role in tackling bullying can be classified according to the conceptual framework based on the TPB and identified potential research caveats and avenues for further research.

Databases and Search Strategies

Articles that were included were found through the electronic databases of SocINDEX, PsycINFO, and ERIC. These bibliographic databases contain high-quality peer-reviewed research in sociology, psychology, and educational sciences and cover the relevant specific and cross-disciplinary literature in each field. At the start of the search, the determined key terms were “bullying,” “teacher,” and “victimization.” Because variations of each search term can be used in titles or keywords, (e.g., bullying, bully, bullies) an asterisk was used to enlarge search terms: bull*, teach*, and victimize*. Each database contains a list with so-called subject terms (also known as search terms or key identifiers). Journal articles with “victimization” in British spelling in their title or abstract were linked to the subject term “victimization” in American spelling in all databases. As the subject term “victim(s)” was linked to victims of crime or abuse, and not to victims of bullying, we lengthened the search term “victim” to “victimize*” in all databases. In all three databases two cross-searches were performed; the first search focused on “bull* AND teach*.” The second search was performed with the combination “victimize* AND teacher*” in PsycINFO, and with the combination “(victims of bullying) AND teach*” in SocINDEX and ERIC, as these were suggested subject terms commonly used in these search engines.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

We included articles that were published until February 2022. No restrictions were imposed to the geographic area where the research was carried out, nor to the publication year. To ascertain the methodological quality of included literature, articles had to be peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal and be available in English. Other formats, such as books or book chapters, were excluded. For inclusion, it was important that the study comprised (i) primary school teachers; (ii) qualitative or quantitative empirical data on teachers (articles exclusively focusing on children were excluded); (iii) teachers’ characteristics and/or behavior with regard to bullying; and (iv) general bullying (articles solely focused on, for example, minority bullying, such as sexual- or identity-related, weight-related bullying, or school shootings were excluded).

Paper Selection

Figure 2 presents a Prisma flow chart (Silva et al., 2017 ), visualizing the identification and selection process for the inclusion of articles. The “bully* AND teach*” search resulted in 585 hits in SocINDEX, 899 hits in PsycINFO, and 1329 hits in ERIC, whereas the second search, with “victimiz*AND teach*,” revealed 76, 1790, and 186 hits, respectively.

PRISMA flowchart concerning the selection of articles

In the following step, articles were selected when they seemed to meet the inclusion criteria based on the title, and, in case of doubt, the abstract. The articles selected during the first search were marked in the hits of the second search, enabling us to prevent duplicates within the same database. This resulted in the selection of 60 articles in SocINDEX, 100 in PsycINFO, and 111 results in ERIC for the search on bullying and teachers, and 6, 11, and 12 results in the search on victimization and teachers. After removing duplicates in the different databases (33 articles) 234 articles remained.

Three researchers, who selected articles by reading the title and abstract, reviewed the list of 234 articles independently in order to assess if they met the inclusion criteria. Consensus was reached for 202 publications. The three researchers read and discussed the remaining 32 articles, and then made a final decision. Of the 234 articles, 107 articles did not meet the inclusion criteria because they lacked empirical teacher data in primary education or did not have data in relation to classroom bullying. An additional 52 publications were excluded after reading the content of the publication, when it appeared they did not include teacher data or solely focused on teachers from middle, secondary, or high school, or only had teacher reports about student behavior, but not about themselves in relation to bullying. Furthermore, three papers focused on externalizing or aggressive behavior of which bullying was only a small part, two papers concerned bullying between teachers and students, and one study concerned a meta-analysis of which some studies were already included. These studies were therefore excluded. The final selection contained 75 studies.

In discussing the studies we first identified study- and teacher- characteristics of all 75 studies, and categorized all studies according to the TPB framework. In the next step, we assessed the quality of the studies and only included studies in the discussion of results that scored six or more points on a 10-point scale of the Newcastle–Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (Wells et al., 2013 ), resulting in 25 studies. These studies scored adequately on selection (such as representation and sample size), comparability (controlling for important factors), and outcome (assessment and adequate statistical testing) and are therefore more suitable for generalization. For that reason, we discuss these studies in more detail. The reasons for omitting classification stars in the Newcastle–Ottawa Quality Assessment allow us to identify potential caveats in this research field.

Study Characteristics

Table 1 presents the characteristics of the 75 included articles. The first article was published in 1997 and the latest in 2021. The increasing attention for bullying and intervention programs is reflected in an increase in articles concerning the role of primary school teachers in bullying. Most articles were published in psychological and educational journals, and conducted in the USA, followed by the UK, Canada, and Australia. About 35% of the articles originated from non-English countries.

Methodologically, most articles are concerned with cross-sectional research (see Table 2 ). In 26 of the 66 cross-sectional articles, data were analyzed with comparing means between groups, and 13 articles used regression models. The remaining articles used either simple analysis such as t -tests, structural equation modeling, or were cross-sectional articles using qualitative methods, which were also used in one longitudinal and one mixed-methods study. Thirteen articles had less than 50 respondents, 25 articles had between 50 and 149 respondents, and 37 articles included over 150 respondents.

Teacher Characteristics

Table 3 presents the characteristics of the teachers in the included studies. In most articles, the mean age was not provided or only broadly referred to. In 29 articles, teachers’ mean age was between 20 and 49 years. In almost all articles, the majority of the teachers was female, often even more than 70%, which reflects the sex distribution of teachers in western countries. In seven articles, the teachers were in (pre-service) training and did not have any work experience yet. In six articles, the average teaching experience was less than 10 years, often due to the inclusion of pre-service or recently started teachers. Most articles included in-service teachers, three articles combined pre- and in-service teachers and some articles also included non-teaching school staff or students for comparison with teachers in their study.

Although an inclusion criterion was that articles comprised primary school teachers, some articles covered multiple teacher groups, ranging from kindergarten to primary, middle, or high schools. In total, 27 articles focused on primary school teachers only, whereas 41 articles focused on both primary and secondary school teachers. Seven studies with pre-service teachers were not categorized (Table 4 ).

Lastly, 20 articles focused on teachers that participated in an anti-bullying program or training. In 2 articles, part of the sample worked with an anti-bullying program, whereas the other part did not.

Quality Assessment

In order to weight the findings from different studies in different domains, and to prevent a distortion of the summary effect, a quality assessment of all papers was carried out according to the Newcastle–Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOS). The NOS intends to assess the quality of cross-sectional studies by assigning a maximum of 10 stars to each study, by focusing on three categories: selection and representativeness of the study (max. 5 stars), the comparability based on design and analysis (max. 2 stars), and the outcome (max. 3 stars). A study is considered poor if it scores below 5 stars, and/or 1 criterion is not met, or two criteria are unclear. Studies with 5–6 stars are considered fair quality, in case there is no important limitation that invalidates results. Finally, studies with more than six stars, and that meet all criteria, are considered being of good quality (McPheeters et al., 2012 ). In assessing the studies, we noticed that some studies did not provide explicit information on all criteria. In case of lacking information, no stars were assigned to the study on that criterium. As only 9 studies scored 7 stars or more, indicating good quality (see Appendix for a detailed overview), we decided to also include 13 studies that scored 6 stars. Of these 13 studies, 11 scored on all three categories, indicating at least fair quality, whereas two studies with 6 stars did not score on comparability (Cunningham et al., 2019b (22); Haataja et al., 2015 (36)).

From the 75 studies, 25 studies used an acceptable sampling method, but almost all studies lacked information on the comparison with nonrespondents, which may point to a self-selection bias. Especially studies where teachers could volunteer to fill out an online questionnaire they received through their employer or labor union might include a biased sample. For the comparability criterion, only four studies scored two stars and thus controlled for the most important factor (e.g., gender or teaching experience) and additional factors. However, 41 studies controlled at least for the most important factor. Finally, regarding the outcome criterion, most studies (62) scored at least two stars, often through using self-reports and using clear statistical tests. However, as almost all studies used teacher self-reports as main information in their study, there must be awareness that teachers’ answers can be subject to social desirability and thus present some information bias. To provide transparency in the quality assessment, a more detailed description of studies and their quality assessment can be found in the supplementary material Table S1 .

The remaining 50 studies are less representative for the larger teacher population. If we would discuss all findings in detail, it would distort the distinction in weight (in particular in terms of generalizability) that should be assigned to each finding. However, Table 5 and the supplementary material include all studies, providing insight in the quality assessment and an overview of all included research. Table 5 provides information on all studies concerning the outcome and predictor variables according to the theoretical framework.

Different Domains of Research

We categorized and discuss the literature according to the theoretical framework based on TPB as follows: The first elements are (1) knowledge and understanding of bullying; (2) attitudes toward (types of) bullying; (3) perceived subjective norms; and (4) self-efficacy. These elements predict teachers’ (5a) likelihood to intervene, which predicts their actual behavior in the form of (5b) preferred and used strategies, and (5c) program (-evaluations) and policies. The final outcome of the model refers to (6) bullying prevalence in the classroom related. The sequence is also shown in Fig. 1 .

Table 5 displays the categorization of all 75 papers according to their outcome and predictor variables. The 25 studies with an asterisk scored six or more stars on the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale, indicating sufficient quality, and will therefore be discussed in the next paragraphs. The numbers correspond to the numbers in the table of Appendix , and are also mentioned in the citations in this result section.

Several studies focused on teachers’ knowledge of bullying, its types and consequences, in relation to their gender, teacher status (i.e., whether they were pre- or in-service teacher), attitudes, received training, and type of bullying. However, none of these studies met the threshold of 6 or more stars on the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (see Table 5 for more details).

Teachers’ attitudes refer to their perception of (different types of) bullying, and the extent to which they take incidents seriously and have empathy with victims. Table 5 shows that teachers’ attitudes are related to their likelihood to intervene and the use of intervention strategies. Teachers with more than 20 years of service were more likely to think that children who bully out of the sight of teachers were unlikely to change, thereby placing the cause of bullying outside their own influence (Barnes et al., 2012 (5)). Teachers were also compared to non-teaching school staff in their attitudes, and results indicated that teachers spent more time with students and more bully incidents were reported to them than to non-teaching staff (Bradshaw et al., 2013 (15); A. Williford, 2015 (70)). Confidence in handling bullying and the presence of positive mental representations of relationships, referring to the trust of teachers in significant others, were related positively to teachers’ prosocial peer beliefs (Garner, 2017 (33)). Furthermore, studies that scored less than 6 stars investigated teachers’ attitudes in relation to gender, teacher service, length of service, knowledge, self-efficacy, received training, type of bullying, and situational attributes.

Perceived Subjective Norms

Perceived subjective norms refer to the teachers’ perception of how important others, such as the principal and their colleagues, think of their behavior. For instance, if teachers consider to intervene in a bullying situation by disciplining the bully and talking to the victim, they have assumptions of how colleagues think of this strategy, which affects the likelihood to perform this behavior. No studies so far were found that investigated this specific element with regard to bullying intervention and teacher behavior as an outcome variable, but it was used as a predictor variable (see also Table 5 ).

Self-Efficacy

Teachers’ self-efficacy refers to the extent to which teachers perceive themselves as being able to tackle bullying in their classrooms. Greater staff-connectedness within the team, and being involved in bullying prevention efforts such as training and school-wide programs or policies, were positively related to self-efficacy (O’Brennan et al., 2014 (56)). Furthermore, teachers with higher perceptions of principal support also had higher levels of self-efficacy, specifically for working with bullies (Skinner et al., 2014 (61)). Finally, teachers’ self-efficacy was positively related to students, and especially victims’ self-esteem (van Aalst et al., 2021 (67)). No additional studies focused on teacher self-efficacy as an outcome variable.

Likelihood to Intervene

Research indicated that teachers were more likely to intervene in physical than verbal bullying (Garner et al., 2013 (32); Yoon et al., 2016 (75)), and, relatedly, in direct than indirect forms of bullying (Fischer & Bilz, 2019 (30)). One study found that teachers’ self-efficacy related positively to the likelihood to intervene for both primary and secondary school teachers (Duong & Bradshaw, 2013 (27)), whereas another study found that teachers were not influenced by their self-efficacy in reporting their responses to bullying incidents (Yoon et al., 2016 (75)). Additional research indicated that 4% of the variance in the likelihood to intervene was explained by teachers’ self-efficacy related to bullying intervention (Fischer & Bilz, 2019 (30)).

Furthermore, teachers’ perception of bullying as a threat to their students was also related to a higher likelihood to intervene (Duong & Bradshaw, 2013 (27)). Some additional studies that scored less than 6 stars investigated teachers’ likelihood to intervene in relation to their gender, attitudes, self-efficacy, received training, and situational attributes, and can be found in Table 5 and the supplementary material.

Roughly five strategies were mentioned that teachers can employ to tackle bullying: (1) work with bullies; (2) work with victims; (3) discipline bullies; (4) enlist other adults; and (5) ignore the incident (Bauman et al., 2008 (7); Burger et al., 2015 (16); Yoon et al., 2016 (75)). At the individual level, several elements affect teachers’ preferred strategies: teachers who were victimized in their childhood were more likely to discipline bullies or enlist other adults, and male teachers were more likely to enlist others than female teachers (Yoon et al., 2016 (75)). However, other research indicated that females were more likely to work with bullies, whereas males were more likely to ignore a bullying incident (Bauman et al., 2008 (7); Burger et al., 2015 (16)). When teachers perceived bullying as normative behavior, especially among boys, they were more likely to ignore the situation and expect male victims to cope with the problem on their own (Kochenderfer-Ladd & Pelletier, 2008 (44)). Teachers also used more authority-based interventions when they had more teaching experience and self-efficacy, and were more likely to encourage victims in being assertive when they had more empathy (Kollerová et al., 2021 (46)).

At the contextual level, higher perceived levels of bullying at school, or having to deal more with bullying, resulted in teachers being more likely to involve students in their bullying prevention strategies (Dake et al., 2004 (24)). Teachers who perceived their school climate as hostile were more likely to discipline bullies and less likely to involve other adults in handling the situation (Yoon et al., 2016 (75)). Several other studies focused on teachers’ strategies to tackle bullying, with gender, attitudes, received training, bullying type, and situational attributes as predictors (see Table 5 for more details).

Anti-Bullying Programs and Policies

Teachers’ confidence and belief in anti-bullying programs and policies are other important elements that contribute to teachers’ intervention behavior. At the individual level, sex, implementation fidelity, teachers’ beliefs, and perceptions played a role. Female teachers attributed more importance to the anti-bullying program for their school, had more confidence in the program, and used the provided literature better than male teachers, but were less likely to attend booster sessions (Ahtola et al., 2012 (1)). However, another study did not find any gender differences in working with an anti-bullying program (Baraldsnes, 2020 (4)). Teachers’ perceptions can also play a role; the more teachers perceive the anti-bullying program to be important to their school, the more they attend training and meetings of the program and implement its elements (Haataja et al., 2015 (37)).

The more confidence teachers felt to implement an anti-bullying program, in this case, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, the more they attended school-level activities, such as attending the school kick-off event, participating in training, reading training materials, and attending staff discussion groups and booster trainings (Cecil & Molnar-Main, 2015 (18)).

Contextually, the duration of the training was positively related to implementation fidelity among teachers. This higher implementation fidelity, in turn, was positively related to belief in the program and training participation (Haataja et al., 2015 (37)). Another important element, which also is reflected in the TPB, is behavioral norms, or the perception of important others. Receiving sufficient principal support appeared to play an important role in implementing school-wide prevention programs (Haataja et al., 2015 (37)), but was also important for teachers when faced with confrontational students or parents (Cunningham et al., 2019b (23)). Colleague support was another element mentioned as important for teachers’ participation in anti-bullying programs (Cunningham et al, 2019b (23)). Finally, school size and the relative number of suspensions in a school were inversely related to self-reported implementation fidelity of a statewide anti-bullying policy (Hall & Chapman, 2018 (38)). Additional studies included self-efficacy, received training, principal support, and situational attributes in their investigation of anti-bullying programs and policy implementations (see Table 5 for more details).

Bullying Prevalence

Bullying prevalence is the final outcome discussed in the literature on the role of teachers in bullying and refers to the level of bullying in the classroom, often measured by students’ self-reported bullying and victimization with questions based on the Olweus Bully/Victim questionnaire (Oldenburg et al., 2015 (58); Olweus, 1996 ). Self-reported bullying prevalence was higher in classrooms with teachers who attributed bullying to external causes, outside their control (Oldenburg et al., 2015 (58)).

With regard to contextual characteristics in relation to bullying prevalence, higher implementation fidelity of an anti-bullying program was related to lower bullying prevalence (Hall & Dawes, 2019 (39)). Professional cooperation and consensus among colleagues on professional matters were related to lower levels of bullying (Roland & Galloway, 2004 (60)). Finally, classrooms with more students had a higher prevalence of peer victimization, whereas less peer victimization was found in multi-grade classrooms (Oldenburg et al., 2015 (58)). Additional studies looked at self-efficacy, preferred strategies, received training, and situational attributes in relation to bullying prevalence.

The aim of this systematic review was twofold: (1) to provide an overview of research on the role of primary school teachers in identifying, reducing, and intervening effectively in school bullying, and (2) to develop a theoretical framework and categorize literature according to this framework and identify caveats and possibilities for future research. In doing so, we extended the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991 , 2012 ), and developed a theoretical framework to explain and predict teachers’ behavior to tackle bullying. The underlying assumption of the model is that teachers’ likelihood to intervene precedes their actual intervention behavior (Dedousis-Wallace et al., 2014 ).

The systematic search and selection of papers resulted in 75 studies, which we categorized on their outcome variables, according to elements of the TPB. This resulted in the following categories: starting with teachers’ (1) knowledge and understanding of bullying, (2) attitudes toward (types of) bullying, (3) perceived subjective norms, and (4) self-efficacy. These are precedents of teachers’ (5a) likelihood to intervene, which subsequently affect the actual behavior of the teacher, measured by (5b) preferred and used strategies and (5c) program (-evaluations) and policies. Studies on (6) the prevalence of bullying in relation to teacher factors were included as a final outcome category. Before discussing every element, we performed a quality assessment of all 75 studies, according to the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (NOS). Only 25 studies scored 6 or more stars on a 10-point scale, suggesting sufficient quality. This indicates that future data collection for research in the field of teachers and tackling bullying can be improved by larger, representative sample sizes.

The results furthermore showed that some elements of the framework were not or rarely studied as outcome variables. Perceived subjective norms, which refer to the support of the principal and colleagues, were used as a predictor variable for understanding teachers’ attitudes, self-efficacy, and working with anti-bullying programs and policies, but no research was found where factors were investigated that affect these subjective norms held by teachers. Also, teachers’ self-efficacy was understudied, with only two studies using it as a dependent variable, whereas multiple studies used it as a predictor in relation to teachers’ attitudes and likelihood to intervene. Both elements are, however, important in explaining and predicting teachers’ likelihood and actual intervention behavior to prevent and reduce bullying, and future research should investigate the elements in more detail and in relation to the other elements of the conceptual framework.

Overall, the results from this review seem to point at two groups of factors that are important for the implementation fidelity of anti-bullying programs or policies and ultimately reducing the bullying prevalence in classrooms. The first concern individual factors; attitudes of teachers toward bullying and their self-efficacy. The anti-bullying attitudes indicate whether they consider bullying as normative behavior, attribute bullying causes to external factors, or take some specific forms of bullying less seriously. Self-efficacy refers to teachers’ confidence in their ability to being able to tackle bullying or to implement an anti-bullying program, which in turn increases their efforts to reduce bullying. The second group of factors is contextual and refers to work conditions and subjective norms. Many elements in the framework that influence teachers’ likelihood to intervene relate to the cooperation teachers perceive among colleagues, and the support they feel from colleagues and the principal. In order to enhance the implementation fidelity of anti-bullying efforts, it is important to work on the attitudes and confidence of teachers on the one hand, and on team building and the principal support on the other hand.

As it is now, the whole model as presented has not been investigated, but given the fit of the studies in the framework based on TPB, there seems to be potential to do so. Future research would benefit from collecting data on all elements, preferably longitudinally. It would also be relevant to collect information on students’ self-reported victimization as an outcome variable, to examine how different elements influence the actual bullying prevalence in the classroom.

The approach in this study was fruitful in combining several studies that tested single or multiple elements of the complex theoretical framework displayed in Fig. 1 . Noticeably, the 69 studies that were included in the review were compared on their quality with the use of the Newcastle–Ottawa Quality Assessment tool (Wells et al., 2013 ). Only 25 studies with sufficient quality were discussed. A conclusion to be drawn from this finding is that a substantial number of included studies are of poor quality. Specifically, only 8.5% ( n = 6) scored on representativeness, and 57% ( n = 39) scored on being somewhat representative of their population. 20% ( n = 14) of the included studies compared respondents to non-respondents. The latter can be a serious issue in studies where a convenience sample was used, for instance when an email was sent out to all members of a specific group. The selection of teachers that participated in the research will probably be more interested in tackling bullying or being motivated to do, which increases the likelihood of a biased sample. In addition, 55% ( n = 41) included one important control variable in their statistical analysis, which can affect the interpretation of results. Only 3% ( n = 2) included all relevant control variables. Finally, 10% ( n = 7) used validated measurements, whereas most studies described their measurements in detail ( n = 64). Future research would benefit from more validated measurement tools and replications to verify results.

This systematic literature review examined 75 articles and provided a synthesis on teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and interventions, and their relations to bullying prevalence in primary schools. Results indicated a broad variety in methodological approaches and participant characteristics amid the different articles, as well as a focus on different predictor and outcome variables. The outcomes that have been distinguished, corresponded to the conceptual framework that was developed, which may be used in further research and by policy makers as a starting point in their aim to improve teachers’ effectiveness in identifying, preventing, and reducing bullying in the classroom.

Availability of Data and Material

The data that support the findings of this study are available from D.v.A. upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Beau Oldenburg and Eleonora Marucci for assisting in selecting papers for this review.

This study was funded by an NWO Vici to R. V. (453–14-016) and an NWO Veni to G. H. (451–17-013).

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D.v.A. designed and executed the systematic search, and wrote the paper. G.H. and R.V. collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

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Additional information

• Despite increased attention for bullying, little research exists on teachers’ roles.

• The research field has selective samples and lacks sufficient generalizable studies.

• Research would benefit from using consistently validated instruments.

• The Theory of Planned Behavior succinctly classifies research on teachers’ roles.

• Teachers’ self-efficacy and perceived subjective norms were limitedly investigated.

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van Aalst, D.A., Huitsing, G. & Veenstra, R. A Systematic Review on Primary School Teachers’ Characteristics and Behaviors in Identifying, Preventing, and Reducing Bullying. Int Journal of Bullying Prevention (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-022-00145-7

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-022-00145-7

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The Broad Impact of School Bullying, and What Must Be Done

Major interventions are required to make schools safe learning environments..

Posted May 2, 2021 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

How to Handle Bullying
Find a therapist to support kids or teens
At least one in five kids is bullied, and a significant percentage are bullies. Both are negatively affected, as are bystanders.
Bullying is an epidemic that is not showing signs of improvement.
Evidence-based bullying prevention programs can be effective, but school adoption is inconsistent.

According to the U.S. federal government website StopBullying.gov :

There is no federal law that specifically applies to bullying . In some cases, when bullying is based on race or ethnicity , color, national origin, sex, disability, or religion, bullying overlaps with harassment and schools are legally obligated to address it.

The National Bullying Prevention Center reports data suggesting that one in five children have been bullied. There are many risk factors for being targeted, including being seen as weak, being different from peers including being LGBT or having learning differences or visible disabilities, being depressed or anxious, and having few friends. It's hard to measure how many engage in bullying, but estimates range from one in twenty, to much higher .

The American Association of University Women reports that in grades 7-12, 48 percent of students (56 percent of girls and 40 percent of boys) are sexually harassed. In college, rates of sexual harassment rise to 66 percent. Eleven percent are raped or sexually assaulted.

Silence facilitates traumatization

Only 20 percent of attacked young women report sexual assault . And 89 percent of undergraduate schools report zero sexual harassment. This means that children, adolescents, young adults and their friends are at high risk for being victimized. It means that many kids know what is happening, and don't do anything.

This may be from fear of retaliation and socialization into a trauma-permissive culture, and it may be from lack of proper education and training. Institutional betrayal , when organizations fail to uphold their promises and responsibilities, adds to the problem.

In some states such as New York, laws like “ the Dignity for All Students Act ” (DASA) apply only to public schools. Private, religious, and denominational schools are not included, leaving 20 percent of students in NYC and 10 percent throughout the state unprotected. Research shows that over the last decade, bullying in U.S. high schools has held steady around 20 percent, and 15 percent for cyberbullying.

The impact of bullying

While there is much research on how bullying affects mental health, social function, and academics, the results are scattered across dozens of papers. A recent paper in the Journal of School Violence (Halliday et al., 2021) presents a needed systematic literature review on bullying’s impact in children aged 10-18.

1. Psychological: Being a victim of bullying was associated with increased depression , anxiety , and psychosis . Victims of bullying reported more suicidal thinking and engaged in greater self-harming behaviors. They were more likely to experience social anxiety , body-image issues, and negative conduct. Simultaneous cyberbullying and conventional bullying were associated with more severe depression.

2. Social: Bullying victims reported greater problems in relationships with family, friends and in day-to-day social interactions. They reported they enjoyed time with family and friends less, felt they were being treated unfairly more easily, and liked less where they lived. Victimized children were less popular and likeable, and experienced more social rejection. They tended to be friends with other victims, potentially heightening problems while also providing social support.

3. Academic achievement: Victimized kids on average had lower grades. Over time, they did worse especially in math. They tended to be more proficient readers, perhaps as a result of turning to books for comfort in isolation (something people with a history of being bullied commonly report in therapy ).

4. School attitudes: Bullied children and adolescents were less engaged in education, had poorer attendance, felt less belonging, and felt more negatively about school.

5. What happens with age? Researchers studied adult psychiatric outcomes of bullying, looking at both victims and bullies, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry (Copeland et al., 2013). After controlling for other childhood hardships, researchers found that young adults experience increased rates of agoraphobia (fear of leaving the house), generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and increased depression risk. Men had higher suicide risk.

The impact of bullying does not stop in early adulthood. Research in the Journals of Gerontology (Hu, 2021) found that people over the age of 60 who were bullied as children had more severe depression and had lower life satisfaction.

6. Bullying and the brain: Work reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry (Muetzel et al., 2019) found that victims of bullying had thickening of the fusiform gyrus, an area of the cerebral cortex involved with facial recognition, and sensing emotions from facial expressions. 1 For those with posttraumatic stress disorder, brain changes may be extensive.

7. Bystanders are affected: Research also shows that bystanders have higher rates of anxiety and depression (Midgett et al., 2019). The problem is magnified for bystanders who are also victims. It is likely that taking appropriate action is protective.

Given that victims of bullying are at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder ( PTSD ; Idsoe et al., 2012), it’s important to understand that many of the reported psychiatric findings may be better explained by PTSD than as a handful of overlapping but separate diagnoses. Trauma often goes unrecognized.

What can be done?

The psychosocial and academic costs of unmitigated bullying are astronomical, to say nothing of the considerable economic cost. Change is needed, but resistance to change, as with racism, gender bias, and other forms of discrimination , is built into how we see things.

Legislation: There is no federal antibullying legislation, and state laws may be weak and inconsistently applied. Given that bullying rates are no longer falling, it’s important for lawmakers and advocates to seek immediate changes.

Bullying prevention: Schools can adopt antibullying programs, though they are not universally effective and sometimes may backfire. Overall, however, research in JAMA Pediatrics (Fraguas et al., 2021) shows that antibullying programs reduce bullying, improve mental health outcomes, and stay effective over time. 2

Trauma-informed education creates an environment in which all participants are aware of the impact of childhood trauma and the need for specific modifications given how trauma is common among children and how it affects development.

According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN):

"The primary mission of schools is to support students in educational achievement. To reach this goal, children must feel safe, supported, and ready to learn. Children exposed to violence and trauma may not feel safe or ready to learn. Not only are individual children affected by traumatic experiences, but other students, the adults on campus, and the school community can be impacted by interacting or working with a child who has experienced trauma. Thus, as schools maintain their critical focus on education and achievement, they must also acknowledge that mental health and wellness are innately connected to students’ success in the classroom and to a thriving school environment."

Parenting makes a difference. Certain parenting styles may set kids up for emotional abuse in relationships , while others may be protective. A 2019 study reported in Frontiers in Public Health (Plexousakis et al.) found that children with anxious, overprotective mothers were more likely to be victims.

Those with cold or detached mothers were more likely to become bullies. Overprotective fathering was associated with worse PTSD symptoms, likely by getting in the way of socialization. The children of overprotective fathers were also more likely to be aggressive.

Quality parental bonding, however, appeared to help protect children from PTSD symptoms. A healthy home environment is essential both for helping victims of bullying and preventing bullying in at-risk children.

Parents who recognize the need to learn more positive approaches can help buffer again the all-too-common cycle of passing trauma from generation to generation, building resilience and nurturing secure attachment to enjoy better family experiences and equip children to thrive.

State-by-state legislation

Bullying prevention programs (the KiVA program is also notable)

Measuring Bullying Victimization, Perpetration and Bystander Experiences , Centers for Disease Control

Trauma-informed teaching

US Government Stop Bullying

1. Such differences could both result from being bullied (e.g. needing to scan faces for threat) and could also make being bullied more likely (e.g. misreading social cues leading to increased risk of being targeted).

2. Such programs focus on reducing negative messaging in order to keep stakeholders engaged, monitor and respond quickly to bullying, involve students in bullying prevention and detection in positive ways (e.g. being an “upstander” instead of a bystander), monitor more closely for bullying when the risk is higher (e.g. after anti-bullying trainings), respond fairly with the understanding that bullies often have problems of their own and need help, involved parents and teachers in anti-bullying education, and devote specific resources for anti-bullying.

Sarah Halliday, Tess Gregory, Amanda Taylor, Christianna Digenis & Deborah Turnbull (2021): The Impact of Bullying Victimization in Early Adolescence on Subsequent Psychosocial and Academic Outcomes across the Adolescent Period: A Systematic Review, Journal of School Violence, DOI: 10.1080/15388220.2021.1913598

Copeland WE, Wolke D, Angold A, Costello EJ. Adult Psychiatric Outcomes of Bullying and Being Bullied by Peers in Childhood and Adolescence. JAMA Psychiatry. 2013;70(4):419–426. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.504

Bo Hu, PhD, Is Bullying Victimization in Childhood Associated With Mental Health in Old Age, The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Volume 76, Issue 1, January 2021, Pages 161–172, https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbz115

Muetzel RL, Mulder RH, Lamballais S, Cortes Hidalgo AP, Jansen P, Güroğlu B, Vernooiji MW, Hillegers M, White T, El Marroun H and Tiemeier H (2019) Frequent Bullying Involvement and Brain Morphology in Children. Front. Psychiatry 10:696. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00696

Midgett, A., Doumas, D.M. Witnessing Bullying at School: The Association Between Being a Bystander and Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms. School Mental Health 11, 454–463 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-019-09312-6

Idsoe, T., Dyregrov, A. & Idsoe, E.C. Bullying and PTSD Symptoms. J Abnorm Child Psychol 40, 901–911 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-012-9620-0

Fraguas D, Díaz-Caneja CM, Ayora M, Durán-Cutilla M, Abregú-Crespo R, Ezquiaga-Bravo I, Martín-Babarro J, Arango C. Assessment of School Anti-Bullying Interventions: A Meta-analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials. JAMA Pediatr. 2021 Jan 1;175(1):44-55. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.3541. PMID: 33136156; PMCID: PMC7607493.

Plexousakis SS, Kourkoutas E, Giovazolias T, Chatira K and Nikolopoulos D (2019) School Bullying and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms: The Role of Parental Bonding. Front. Public Health 7:75. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2019.00075

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A systematic literature review on the effects of bullying at school

Dresler-Hawke, E., & Whitehead, D. (2013). The behavioral ecological model as a framework for school-based anti-bullying health promotion interventions. The Journal of School Nursing, 25(3), 195-204.

Evans, C. R., & Smokowski, P. R. (2015). Prosocial bystander behavior in bullying dynamics: Assessing the impact of social capital. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 44(12), 2289-2307.

Ghani, S. A., Awang, M. M., Ahmad, A. R., Jalal, B., & Bakar, A. Y. A. (2020). Fenomena Buli dan Gangsterisme: Satu Kajian Empirikal. Kuala Lumpur: UPNM Press.

Jan, A., & Husain, S. (2015). Bullying in elementary schools: Its’ causes and effects on students. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(19), 43-56.

Omoteso, B. A. (2010). Bullying behaviour, its’ associated factors and psychological effects among secondary students in Nigeria. Journal of International Social Research, 3(10), 498-509.

Rigby, K. (2011). Health consequences of bullying and its prevention. Peer harassment in school: The plight of the vulnerable and victimized, 310.

Rivara, F., & Le Menestrel, S. (2014). Committee on the Biological and Psychosocial Effects of Peer Victimization: Lessons for Bullying Prevention. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington (DC).

UNESCO. (2018). School violence and bullying: Global status and trends, drivers and consequences.

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High school cheerleading program gets scrutiny after bullying allegation

Cumberland Valley cheer squad performs their routine at the 2024 Competitive Spirit Championship, in January. After winning a 6th state championship, a small group of parents have asked the CV school board to look into bullying within the program. Jimmie Brown. [email protected] Jimmie Brown

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In terms of titles competitive excellence and high standards, Cumberland Valley High School’s cheerleading program is one of the jewels in the district’s crown.

But fresh on the heels of its latest state title, a handful of parents have hit the program with some very public accusations of behind-the-scenes bullying by coaches, and an athletic administration that the critics say is “too inside” to do anything about it, if they recognize a problem at all.

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Valerie L Marsh

Although the bully-victim conflict is an age-old scenario, researchers only began studying it in school settings 45 years ago. The most agreed upon definition of bullying includes three criteria: 1) intentionality (desire or goal of inflicting harm, intimidation, and/or humiliation), 2) some repetitiveness, and most importantly, 3) a power imbalance between the socially or physically more prominent bully and the more vulnerable victim. The power differential can manifest among a variety of factors, such as physical dominance, self- confidence, peer group status, etc. Conversely, conflict between equals is not considered bullying, but rather, general aggression. Another, more recent concept that has emerged in the field of bullying research is the category of “bully-victims,” a smaller subset of youth who both perpetrate and experience bullying. The forms bullying can take include: direct aggression (e.g., name calling, hitting, belittling someone in front of others) or indirect, relational aggression (e.g., spreading rumors, exclusion from the group, hurting another’s reputation). Often occurring in school contexts, which has expanded in recent years to include cyberbullying in the virtual worlds of digital and social media, bullying takes place throughout the school years, from elementary to high school and has likewise been studied across the grades. And since bullying is a familiar, if not intimate, school experience for most people, it is sometimes easy or tempting to accept it as a rite of passage or a typical childhood experience, rather than a problem that needs to be addressed. As Olweus (2013) explains, “being bullied by peers represents a serious violation of the fundamental rights of the child or youth exposed” (p. 770). It is with this understanding of bullying – as a violation of basic human rights – that this two-part brief explores the phenomenon (history, prevalence, risk factors, and consequences) in Part I and reviews research- based interventions in Part II.

Iwona Gn , Shelley Hymel

This article provides an introductory overview of findings from the past 40 years of research on bullying among school-aged children and youth. Research on definitional and assessment issues in studying bullying and victimization is reviewed, and data on prevalence rates, stability, and forms of bullying behavior are summarized, setting the stage for the 5 articles that comprise this American Psychologist special issue on bullying and victimization. These articles address bullying, victimization, psychological se-quela and consequences, ethical, legal, and theoretical issues facing educators, researchers, and practitioners, and effective prevention and intervention efforts. The goal of this special issue is to provide psychologists with a comprehensive review that documents our current understanding of the complexity of bullying among school-aged youth and directions for future research and intervention efforts.

Pauline Hyland , Conor Guckin

John Kibuutu

Marlon Tarraz

Bullying Outline

Peter Mbithi

Outline BULLYING IN SCHOOLS 1 Specific Purpose: To inform my classmates about the prevalence and dangers of bullying in schools Thesis Statement: Despite the numerous efforts put in place by the government, bullying has remained prevalent, leading to adverse impacts of depression, suicide, and dropout from schools. This outline offers a blueprint for analyzing the problem through the lens of its definition, precipitating factors, severity, impacts, and viable solutions.

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A systematic literature review on the effects of bullying at school
Abstract. Bullying is a severe problem that is experienced, especially in schools. Children belong to the same social group, but some feel powerful than others and therefore take advantage of them ...
PDF Literature Review
• Reported bullying incidents were higher for students in rural schools (28%) than students enrolled in schools in towns and cities (22%) or in suburban areas (21%). • Students in middle school grades were more likely to report namecalling, be-ing made fun of, or insulted (17% to 20%) than students in 10. th, 11th and 12th grades (9% to 11% ...
Anti-bullying interventions in schools: a systematic literature review
Schools*. Social Skills*. This paper presents a systematic literature review addressing rigorously planned and assessed interventions intended to reduce school bullying. The search for papers was performed in four databases (Lilacs, Psycinfo, Scielo and Web of Science) and guided by the question: What are the interventions u ….
Bullying in schools: the state of knowledge and effective interventions
Abstract. During the school years, bullying is one of the most common expressions of violence in the peer context. Research on bullying started more than forty years ago, when the phenomenon was defined as 'aggressive, intentional acts carried out by a group or an individual repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him- or herself'.
The Effectiveness of Policy Interventions for School Bullying: A
Abstract Objective: Bullying threatens the mental and educational well-being of students. Although anti-bullying policies are prevalent, little is known about their effectiveness. This systematic review evaluates the methodological characteristics and summarizes substantive findings of studies examining the effectiveness of school bullying policies. Method: Searches of 11 bibliographic ...
Bullying at school and mental health problems among adolescents: a
Bullying involves repeated hurtful actions between peers where an imbalance of power exists [].Arseneault et al. [] conducted a review of the mental health consequences of bullying for children and adolescents and found that bullying is associated with severe symptoms of mental health problems, including self-harm and suicidality.Bullying was shown to have detrimental effects that persist into ...
Interventions on Bullying and Cyberbullying in Schools: A Systematic Review
Abstract. Background : bullying (and cyberbullying) is a widespread phenomenon among young people and it is used to describe interpersonal relationships characterized by an imbalance of power. In this relationships often show aggressive behavior and intentional "harm doing" repeated over time. The prevalence of bullying among youth has been ...
A Review of Behavior-Based Interventions that Address Bullying
The components of interventions to reduce bullying behavior in schools vary across literature reviews and meta-analyses. Interventions have included creating a whole-school policy, improving the classroom environment, establishing peer support systems, and improving playground design and supervision (Smith et al. 2003).Although some focus on the importance of a whole-school approach (e.g ...
Anti-bullying interventions in schools: a systematic literature review
More recently, a systematic literature review by Luiz da Silva et al. (2017) found that the most effective anti-bullying programs were delivered as a multi-component or schoolwide approach through ...
Bullying in Schools: The Power of Bullies and the Plight of Victims
Bullying is a pervasive problem affecting school-age children. Reviewing the latest findings on bullying perpetration and victimization, we highlight the social dominance function of bullying, the inflated self-views of bullies, and the effects of their behaviors on victims. Illuminating the plight of the victim, we review evidence on the cyclical processes between the risk factors and ...
The Effectiveness of Policy Interventions for School Bullying: A
Bullying in schools is a pervasive threat to the well-being and educational success of students. Bullying refers to unwanted aggressive behaviors enacted intentionally over time by an individual or group using some form of power to cause physical and/or psychological harm to another individual or group in a shared social context (Gladden, Vivolo-Kantor, Hamburger, & Lumpkin, 2014; Olweus, 2013).
A Systematic Review on Primary School Teachers ...
Despite the expanding body of research on school bullying and interventions, knowledge is limited on what teachers should do to identify, prevent, and reduce bullying. This systematic literature review provides an overview of research on the role of primary school teachers with regard to bullying and victimization. A conceptual framework was developed in line with the Theory of Planned ...
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This article is a review of the literature focusing on the laws (state and federal) pertaining to bullying and the long-term effects of being a bully. In addition, the article provides an overview of the five different types of bullying: (a) physical bullying, (b) verbal bullying, (c) bullying through relational aggression, (d) bullying through ...
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In the 2020-21 school year, school districts across the nation reported 2,700 incidents of sexual assault and 350 incidents of rape or attempted rate (OCR, 2023b). There were 17,000 allegations of harassment or bullying on the basis of sex, with 14,900 students reporting as being harassed on the basis of their sex.
A systematic literature review on the effects of bullying at school
Keywords: Bullying, literature review, school, Malaysia Article History: Received on 4/1/2021; Revised on 1/1/2021; Accepted on 19/02/2021; Published Online: 20/02/2021. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium ...
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Bullying can have long-term academic, physical, and emotion consequences on bullies, their victims, and bystanders. The incidence of bullying at schools has a negative impact on students' opportunity to learn in an environment that is safe and secure and where they are treated with respect (Shellard and Turner, 2004; Lumsden, 2002).
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A recent paper in the Journal of School Violence (Halliday et al., 2021) presents a needed systematic literature review on bullying's impact in children aged 10-18. 1.
PDF I survived : Coping Strategies for Bullying in Schools
The purpose of this systematic literature review was to investigate the use of different coping strategies for bullying in middle and high school children. A search for scholarly articles evaluating such measures has been carried out in ERIC, SCOPUS, and PSYCH INFO, which resulted in seven articles. 12 coping strategies emerged as a
(PDF) Literature Review of School Bullying 1 Literature Review of
Literature Review of School Bullying 7 Ross (2002, p. 107) also states in her research that "15% to 20% of all students will experience some form of bullying during their school years and between 10% and 20% of children are bullied often enough for them to consider it a serious problem". Harris & Hathorn (2006, p.
A review of the literature on bullying in U.S. schools and how a parent
Bullying has been studied for many years in the U.S. and other countries. This article is a review of the literature focusing on the laws (state and federal) pertaining to bullying and the long-term effects of being a bully. In addition, the article provides an overview of the five different types of bullying: (a) physical bullying, (b) verbal bullying, (c) bullying through relational ...
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In order to ensure that all students have access to the everyday activities and lessons of school, educators must work to create safe educational spaces and prevent bullying and harassment in schools. This literature review presents the research highlights on: (1) prevalence and impact; (2) risk factors; (3) school obligations under law; (4) avoiding ineffective anti-bullying programs; (5 ...
Sibling and School Bullying Victimization and Its Relation With
Jorge J. Varela, PhD, is an associate professor and director of the "Co-existence" Lab at the Socioemotional Well-Being Institute, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad del Desarrollo.His research focused on understanding different types of aggressive behavior among adolescents in the school context, such as aggression in general, bullying, cyberbullying, and school violence.
A systematic literature review on the effects of bullying at school
Therefore, only physical bullying is addressed as the impacts can be easily seen by adults. Various articles were analyzed to illustrate the different effects of bullying on the bully, the victim, and those around. The results demonstrate that bullying results in emotional, physical, and health effects and affects a victim's academic performance.
Complaints spur review of title-winning cheer program in ...
After winning a 6th state championship, a small group of parents have asked the CV school board to look into bullying within the program. Jimmie Brown. [email protected] Jimmie Brown
(PDF) Literature Review on Bullying
Although the bully-victim conflict is an age-old scenario, researchers only began studying it in school settings 45 years ago. The most agreed upon definition of bullying includes three criteria: 1) intentionality (desire or goal of inflicting harm, intimidation, and/or humiliation), 2) some repetitiveness, and most importantly, 3) a power ...

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Bullying at school and mental health problems among adolescents: a repeated cross-sectional study

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Anti-bullying interventions in schools: a systematic literature review

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The Effectiveness of Policy Interventions for School Bullying: A Systematic Review

Associated Data

Conclusions

Policy as an Intervention for Bullying

Search Procedure

Inclusion Criteria

Study Screening

Data Extraction

Data Synthesis

Methodological Characteristics of the Studies

Evaluation methods

Results on Policy Effectiveness

Perceptions of policy effectiveness

Student bullying perpetration and victimization

Anti-LGBTQ bullying

Educator intervention in bullying

Are Policies Effective at Reducing Bullying?

What is the State of the Research on School Bullying Policy Effectiveness?

What Future Research is Needed on School Bullying Policy Effectiveness?

Strengths and Limitations of the Review

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A Systematic Review on Primary School Teachers’ Characteristics and Behaviors in Identifying, Preventing, and Reducing Bullying

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Databases and Search Strategies

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Study Characteristics

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Quality Assessment

Different Domains of Research

Perceived Subjective Norms

Self-Efficacy

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Anti-Bullying Programs and Policies

Bullying Prevalence

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Studies marked with an asterix * are included in the review

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