What can schools do?

Reports from schoolchildren across a range of countries indicate that interventions by teachers in cases of bullying are commonly unsuccessful, especially with older students. This article by NCAB's Ken Rigby provides a brief description and critical examination of six major intervention strategies employed in schools and points to the need for better training of teachers in this area and the development of judgement about which methods to employ in particular cases.

School bullying is a problem that seemingly will not go away. We may seek to console ourselves with some recent findings that anti-bullying programmes in schools are having beneficent effects. For instance, Farrington and Ttofi (2009) in a major meta-analysis of their effectiveness in reducing the prevalence of bullying in schools have claimed that 17 out of 44 anti-bullying programmes have led to significant reductions in reported prevalence. They further note that such programmes have overall produced reductions of around 20%. Consistent with this claim, there is now evidence from studies in 35 sites in countries and Europe and North America at which bullying prevalence among school children has been monitored over the last 15 years that bullying in schools is mostly reducing over time (Rigby & Smith, 2011). Yet the reductions, although statistically significant, have been modest in size. The problem of school bullying remains serious....

For the full article (see below):

What can schools do about cases of bullying?