Bullying in Schools: An Overview: Highlights
Bullying in Schools: An Overview: Highlights
Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
December 2011
Bullying in Schools
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is committed to preventing juvenile delinquency
and child victimization. This bulletin is
part of OJJDPs Bullying in Schools series,
which summarizes findings from OJJDPfunded research on peer victimization.
Researchers from the National Center for
School Engagement conducted a quantitative study to examine the impact of bullying on student engagement, attendance,
and achievement and two qualitative
studies to explore instructional, interpersonal, and structural factors at school that
affect the connection between bullying
and school attendance. The researchers
found that a caring school community, in
which students are challenged academically and supported by the adults, can
serve as a powerful antidote to the process
by which victimization distances students
from learning and contributes to myriad
other problems, including truancy and
academic failure.
The bulletins in the series provide an
overview of the research project, a critical
analysis of the literature, and an indepth
look at the methodology and findings of
each study.
Highlights
Researchers from the National Center for School Engagement conducted a
series of studies to explore the connections between bullying in schools, school
attendance and engagement, and academic achievement. This bulletin provides an overview of the OJJDP-funded studies, a summary of the researchers
findings, and recommendations for policy and practice.
Following are some of the authors key findings:
Bullying is a complex social and emotional phenomenon that plays
out differently on an individual level.
Bullying does not directly cause truancy.
School engagement protects victims from truancy and low academic
achievement.
When schools provide a safe learning environment in which adults
model positive behavior, they can mitigate the negative effects of
bullying.
Any interventions to address bullying or victimization should be
intentional, student-focused engagement strategies that fit the context
of the school where they are used.
ojjdp.gov
DECEMBER 2011
Introduction
The harmful effects of bullying cannot be overstated. Reports of bullying in the 1990s show that, in extreme cases,
victims may face shooting or severe beatings and may even
turn to suicide (Rigby and Slee, 1999). These reports have
triggered public action, such that more than 20 states currently have laws that require schools to provide education
and services directed toward the prevention and cessation
of bullying.
A well-known meta-analysis of school-based antibullying
programs, conducted by the Swedish National Council for
Crime Prevention, found that these programs result in a
17- to 23-percent reduction in bullying (Ttofi, Farrington,
and Baldry, 2008). Ttofi and colleagues report that antibullying programs are less effective in the United States
than in Europe in reducing the incidence and prevalence
of bullying in schools that operate the bullying reduction
programs. In response, the current study investigates how
American schools can support victimized children and
encourage them to graduate and thrive.
To determine the causes of bullying in schools and to inform the development of effective intervention strategies,
the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention funded a series of studies in 2007 at the National
Center for School Engagement. The research focused on
the connection between different types and frequencies of
bullying, truancy, and student achievement, and whether
students engagement in school mediates these factors.
The researchers completed three studies. The first was a
quantitative analysis of students that would support the
development of a predictive model to explain the relationships among bullying (referred to in the study as peer
victimization), school attendance, school engagement,
and academic achievement. The second study was a qualitative study in which researchers interviewed victims about
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the students were behaviorally, cognitively, and emotionally engaged in school; a second set pertained to whether
students experienced specific kinds of bullying by their
peers. The authors used structural equation modeling (a
statistical technique to estimate cause-and-effect relationships between various factors) to determine the connections between being victimized, being engaged in school,
school attendance, and school achievement (measured by
grade point average).
Although prior research suggests that student victimization has a significant impact on attendance (Banks, 1997;
Fried and Fried, 1996; Hoover and Oliver, 1996), the
findings from this study suggest that these relationships
are weak, at least for the sixth-grade student sample used
for data analysis. The study, however, is limited because
it is a quantitative analysis that examined only sixth-grade
students in a suburban Denver school district. In this
study, although bullying does not directly relate to truancy
or to school achievement, the authors observed a statistically significant relationship between bullying and school
attendance when mediated by the factor of school engagement. In other words, if bullying results in the victim
becoming less engaged in school, that victim is more likely
to cease attending and achieving. If the victim can remain
or become engaged in school, his or her attendance and
achievement will be less affected.
Cyberbullying.
The data describe how schools help and hurt victims and
what schools should do to support victimized students.
Schools help bullying victims by engaging them in academics and/or in extracurricular activities and by providing them with caring adults who support them and model
positive behavior. Schools hurt bullied students when they
change the school structurefrom more engaging learning environments at the elementary level to less engaging
environments at the middle and high school levels. These
changes tend to distance the students from caring adults,
dilute effective behavioral supervision, and change instruction from a differentiated, interactive pedagogy focused
on individual student needs to a mass instructional pattern
of 50-minute periods with 6 different teachers who teach
150 students per day.
A changing school structure often results in a failure to intervene in bullying (or to assist or support victims) when it
first occurs. These changes may also make victims feel even
more isolated from the rest of the school community. This
happens because the large numbers of students in secondary schools can create an impersonal climate of anonymity
that provides no time in the daily schedule for students
These factors allow bullied students to overcome the effects of bullying. In contrast, the study participants agreed
that superficial antibullying programs, grafted onto existing curriculums to fulfill a school districts responsibility
to address bullying concerns, are an ineffective way to
combat bullying.
young adultssome successful, high-achieving students and some incarceratedwho were bullied in grade
school. The researchers conducted this study to gain
insight into instructional, interpersonal, and structural
factors that affect the bullying-attendance connection.
Bullying in Schools: A Critical Analysis of the Literature. In addition to designing and conducting three interrelated studies to explore the effects of bullying in schools,
the authors conducted an extensive literature review to
address some of the limitations of existing research on the
topic, the results of which are presented in this bulletin.
Experiences of Young Adults Bullied in School. This
bulletin provides an overview of the authors qualitative
retrospective study of the school experiences of eight
Study Implications
The implications of the studies outlined above can best be
understood when contrasted with the Swedish National
Council for Crime Preventions report. The report, titled
Effectiveness of Programmes to Reduce School Bullying: A
Systematic Review, can be considered noteworthy because
of the sample size and the rigorous study-selection procedures employed.
Swedish researchers Ttofi and colleagues conducted a
systematic review and meta-analysis of existing evaluations
of antibullying programs. The study included only evaluations that compared experimental and control groups
and relied on student self-reports for data; the researchers
excluded evaluations that did not meet these criteria.
Ttofi and colleagues reported that the programs reduced
bullying overall and were most effective for older children.
They recommend that the programs target children age 11
and older. They suggest that the following actions encouraged program success: educating parents, communicating
with parents, improving playground supervision, showing
educational videos, and providing effective disciplinary
methods, classroom rules, and classroom management.
Recommendations
The authors make the following recommendations for
antibullying programs in the United States. These recommendations are based on their findings and an extensive
literature review:2
Increase student engagement.
Model caring behavior for students.
Offer mentoring programs.
Provide students with opportunities for service learning
as a means of improving school engagement.
Address the difficult transition between elementary and
middle school (from a single classroom teacher to teams
of teachers with periods and class changes in a large
school) (Lohaus et al., 2004).
Start prevention programs early.
Resist the temptation to use prefabricated curriculums
that are not aligned to local conditions.
directly asked them to address it. Even then, they carelessly made her private travails public, which only made
matters worse. Her mother tried to help, but the school
staff would not listen to her.
Even so, Anna told us, she was able to turn her life around.
She confided in a Girl Scout leader, who began to take
a continuing interest in her. Her mother supported her at
home. She found two friendsa disabled girl, who was
also a victim of bullying, and a popular girl, who saw Anna
for the valuable person she was. Anna also pushed herself
to get involved in school activities such as the student
council, the prom committee, and grassroots bullyingprevention efforts. She began to stand up for herself and
for others, and as she gained confidence, the victimization
subsided.
Today, Anna is a survivor who is doing quite well for
herself. She has become confident and assertive and has
engaged in school more. She is on track for graduation.
*Name has been changed to protect the minors identity.
Conclusion
Research has shown that bullying is a complex social and
emotional phenomenon that affects victims in many different ways. The authors began this study with the hypothesis
that bullying and truancy were directly related. However,
evidence showed that bullying is not simply a matter of
correlates among variables. Complex problems cannot be
solved with simple, formulaic solutions. Rather, results
showed that victimization can distance students from
learning. Schools can overcome this negative effect if they
adopt strategies that engage students in their work, creating positive learning environments that produce academic
achievement.3
2. For more background information on these recommendations, see Bullying in Schools: A Critical Analysis of the
Literature, in this series.
3. See pages 67 for specific strategies for increasing
student engagement.
References
Banks, R. 1997. Bullying in Schools. Champaign, IL:
ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education, ED407154. Available online at
www.ericdigests.org/1997-4/bullying.htm.
Bausell, R.B. 2011. Too Simple to Fail. Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press.
Bonds, M., and Stoker, S. 2000. Bully Proofing Your
School: A Comprehensive Approach for Middle Schools.
Longmont, CO: Sopris West Educational Services.
Cavell, T., and Smith, A.M. 2005. Mentoring children. In
Handbook of Youth Mentoring, edited by D.L. DuBois and
M.J. Karcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp.
160176.
Fried, S., and Fried, P. 1996. Bullies and Victims: Helping
Your Child Survive the Schoolyard Battlefield. New York,
NY: Evans.
Endnotes
Garrity, C., Jens, K., Porter, W., Sager, N., and ShortCamilli, C. 1994. Bully Proofing Your School: A Comprehensive Approach for Elementary Schools. Longmont, CO:
Sopris West Educational Services.
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Acknowledgments
Ken Seeley, Ed.D., and Martin L. Tombari, Ph.D., are the co-principal investigators of the study and work at the National Center for School Engagement.
Laurie J. Bennett, J.D., Ph.D., is a senior research and policy analyst at the
National Center for School Engagement. Jason B. Dunkle is a research associate at the University of Denver, College of Education.
Web: tellncjrs.ncjrs.gov
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