Anti-bullying interventions in schools: a systematic literature review

Affiliations.

  • 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.

Publication types

  • Systematic Review
  • Bullying / prevention & control*
  • Interdisciplinary Communication
  • Research Design
  • Social Skills*
  • 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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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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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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  • 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 ).

literature review bullying in schools

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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Grant Hilary Brenner, M.D., a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, helps adults with mood and anxiety conditions, and works on many levels to help unleash their full capacities and live and love well.

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Bullying in children: impact on child health

Richard armitage.

Division of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

Associated Data

Bullying in childhood is a major public health problem that increases the risk of poor health, social and educational outcomes in childhood and adolescence. These consequences are felt by all those involved in bullying (bullies, victims and bully–victims) and are now recognised to propagate deep into adulthood. Cyberbullying is a relatively new type of bullying in addition to the traditional forms of direct physical, direct verbal and indirect bullying. Children who are perceived as being ‘different’ in any way are at greater risk of victimisation, with physical appearance being the most frequent trigger of childhood bullying. Globally, one in three children have been bullied in the past 30 days, although there is substantial regional variation in the prevalence and type of bullying experienced. The consequences of childhood bullying can be categorised into three broad categories: educational consequences during childhood, health consequences during childhood and all consequences during adulthood. Many dose–response relationships exist between the frequency and intensity of bullying experienced and the severity of negative health consequence reported. The majority of victims of cyberbullying are also victims of traditional bullying, meaning cyberbullying creates very few additional victims. Overall, adverse mental health outcomes due to bullying in childhood most severely impact on bully–victims. Bullying prevention is vital for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, with whole-school cooperative learning interventions having the strongest evidence base for successful outcomes. Clear management and referral pathways for health professionals dealing with childhood bullying are lacking in both primary and secondary care, although specialist services are available locally and online.

Key messages

  • Bullying in childhood is a global public health problem that impacts on child, adolescent and adult health.
  • Bullying exists in its traditional, sexual and cyber forms, all of which impact on the physical, mental and social health of victims, bullies and bully–victims.
  • Children perceived as ‘different’ in any way are at greater risk of victimisation.
  • Bullying is extremely prevalent: one in three children globally has been victimised in the preceding month.
  • Existing bullying prevention interventions are rarely evidence-based and alternative approaches are urgently needed.

Introduction

Bullying in childhood has been classified by the WHO as a major public health problem 1 and for decades has been known to increase the risk of poor health, social and educational outcomes in childhood and adolescence. 2 Characterised by repeated victimisation within a power-imbalanced relationship, bullying encompasses a wide range of types, frequencies and aggression levels, ranging from teasing and name calling to physical, verbal and social abuse. 3 The dynamics within such relationships become consolidated with repeated and sustained episodes of bullying: bullies accrue compounding power while victims are stripped of their own and become progressively less able to defend themselves and increasingly vulnerable to psychological distress. 4

However, only in the last decade have prospective studies been published that reveal the far-reaching effects of childhood bullying that extend into adulthood. There is now substantial evidence that being bullied as a child or adolescent has a causal relationship to the development of mental health issues beyond the early years of life, including depression, anxiety and suicidality. 5 As such, addressing the global public health problem of bullying in childhood has received increasing international attention and is vital for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4. 6 The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child health and education has focused further attention on bullying in its digital form, so-called ‘cyberbullying’, the prevalence of which is feared to be increasing. 7

Types of bullying

Participants in childhood bullying take up one of three roles: the victim, the bully (or perpetrator) or the bully–victim (who is both a perpetrator and a victim of bullying). 5 Victims and bullies either belong to the same peer group (peer bullying) or the same family unit (sibling bullying), 8 although bullying frequently occurs in multiple settings simultaneously, such as at school (peer bullying) and in the home (sibling bullying), representing a ubiquitous ecology of bullying that permeates the child’s life.

Three main types of bullying are observed, the typical characteristics of which are illustrated in table 1 .

Typical characteristics of the main types of childhood bullying

While traditional bullying has been recognised and studied for many decades 9 and is often accepted as an inevitable aspect of a normal childhood, 3 cyberbullying represents a relatively new phenomenon in which childhood bullying now takes place through digital modalities. The widespread uptake of electronic devices has reached almost complete saturation among adolescents in high-income countries, with users checking their devices hundreds of times and for hours each day. 10 While providing beneficial access to information and social support, this large and growing online exposure of young people renders them vulnerable to exploitation, gambling, and grooming by criminals and sexual abusers, as well as cyberbullying. 11 Due to the increased potential for large audiences, anonymous attacks and the permanence of posted messages, coupled with lower levels of direct feedback, reduced time and space limits, and decreased adult supervision, it is feared that cyberbullying may pose a greater threat to child and adolescent health than traditional bullying modalities. 12

Factors that influence bullying

Two large-scale international surveys regularly conducted by the WHO—the Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) 13 and the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study 14 —provide data from 144 countries and territories in all regions of the world. These data identify specific factors that strongly influence the type, frequency and severity of bullying experienced by children and adolescents globally. These factors, which are briefly described in table 2 , suggest that children who are perceived as being ‘different’ in any way are at greater risk of victimisation.

Summary of factors that influence child and adolescent bullying 15

Prevalence of bullying

A 2019 report from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) 15 examined the global prevalence of bullying in childhood and adolescence using data from the GSHS and HBSC studies along with addition data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 16 and the Programme for International Students Assessment. 17 It found that almost one in three (32%) children globally has been the victim of bullying on one or more days in the preceding month, and that 1 in 13 (7.3%) has been bullied on six or more days over the same period. 15 However, there is substantial regional variation in the prevalence of bullying across the world, ranging from 22.8% of children being victimised in Central America, through 25.0% and 31.7% in Europe and North America, respectively, to 48.2% in sub-Saharan Africa. There is also significant geographical variation in the type of bullying reported, with direct physical and sexual bullying being dominant in low-income and middle-income countries, and indirect bullying being the most frequent type in high-income regions. Nevertheless, bullying is a sizeable public health problem of truly global importance.

Encouragingly, there has been a decrease in the prevalence of bullying in half (50.0%) of countries since 2002, while 31.4% have seen no significant change over this time frame. 15 However, 18.6% of countries have witnessed an increase in childhood bullying, primarily among members of one sex or the other, although in both girls and boys in North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Myanmar, the Philippines, and United Arab Emirates. 15

Since its appearance, cyberbullying has received substantial media attention claiming that the near-ubiquitous uptake of social media among adolescents has induced a tidal wave of online victimisation and triggered multiple high-profile suicides among adolescents after being bullied online. 18 19 However, a recent meta-analysis suggests that cyberbullying is far less prevalent than bullying in its traditional forms, with rates of online victimisation less than half of those offline. 20 The study also found relatively strong correlations between bullying in its traditional and cyber varieties, suggesting victims of online bullying are also likely to be bullied offline, and that that these different forms of victimisation reflect alternative methods of enacting the same perpetrator behaviour. Recent evidence from England also indicates a difference between sexes, with 1 in 20 adolescent girls and 1 in 50 adolescent boys reporting cyberbully victimisation over the previous 2 months. 21

Consequences of bullying

There is a vast range of possible consequences of bullying in childhood, determined by multiple factors including the frequency, severity and type of bullying, the role of the participant (victim, bully or bully–victim) and the timing at which the consequences are observed (during childhood, adolescence or adulthood). The consequences can be grouped into three broad categories: educational consequences during childhood and adolescence, health consequences during childhood and adolescence, and all consequences during adulthood. Each will now be discussed individually.

Educational consequences during childhood and adolescence

Children who are frequently bullied are more likely to feel like an outsider at school, 17 while indirect bullying specifically has been shown to have a negative effect on socialisation and feelings of acceptance among children in schools. 22 Accordingly, a child’s sense of belonging at school increases as bullying decreases. 22 In addition, being bullied can affect continued engagement in education. Compared with those who are not bullied, children who are frequently bullied are nearly twice as likely to regularly skip school and are more likely to want to leave school after finishing secondary education. 16 The effect of frequent bullying on these educational consequences is illustrated in table 3 .

Relationship between being frequently bullied and educational consequences 20

Children who are bullied score lower in tests than those who are not. For example, in 15 Latin American countries, the test scores of bullied children were 2.1% lower in mathematics and 2.5% lower in reading than non-bullied children. 22 Compared with children never or almost never bullied, average learning achievement scores were 2.7% lower in children bullied monthly, and 7.5% lower in children bullied weekly, indicating a dose–response relationship. These findings are globally consistent across both low-income and high-income countries. 17

Health consequences during childhood and adolescence

Numerous meta-analyses, 2 23–26 longitudinal studies 5 27 28 and cross-sectional studies 29–31 have demonstrated strong relationships between childhood bullying and physical, mental and social health outcomes in victims, bullies and bully–victims. Some of these consequences are illustrated in table 4 . Reported physical health outcomes are mostly psychosomatic in nature. Most studies focused on the impacts on victims, although adverse effects on bullies and bully–victims are also recognised. Many studies identified a dose–response relationship between the frequency and intensity of bullying experienced and the severity of negative health consequence reported.

Summary of childhood health consequences of bullying during childhood

While there is significant regional variation, the association between childhood bullying and suicidal ideation and behaviour are recognised globally. 32 Alarmingly, childhood bully victimisation is associated with a risk of mental health problems similar to that experienced by children in public or substitute care. 33 Victimisation in sibling bullying is associated with substantial emotional problems in childhood, including low self-esteem, depression and self-harm, 8 and increases the risk of further victimisation through peer bullying. Overall, adverse mental health outcomes due to bullying in childhood appear to most severely impact on bully–victims, followed by victims and bullies. 34

Nine out of 10 adolescents who report victimisation by cyberbullying are also victims of bullying in its traditional forms, 35 meaning cyberbullying creates very few additional victims, 36 but is another weapon in the bully’s arsenal and has not replaced traditional methods. 37 Cyberbullying victimisation appears to be an independent risk factor for mental health problems only in girls and is not associated with suicidal ideation in either sex. 38 As such, traditional bullying is still the major type of bullying associated with poor mental health outcomes in children and adolescents. 21

Consequences during adulthood

A recent meta-analysis 39 and numerous other prospective longitudinal studies 40 41 that used large, population-based, community samples analysed through quantitative methods suggest that childhood bullying can lead to three main negative outcomes in adulthood for victims, bullies and bully–victims: psychopathology, suicidality and criminality. Some of these consequences are illustrated in table 5 .

Summary of adulthood consequences of bullying during childhood

A strong dose–response relationship exists between frequency of peer victimisation in childhood and adolescence and the risk of adulthood adversities. 39 For example, frequently bullied adolescents are twice as likely to develop depression in early adulthood compared with non-victimised peers, and is seen in both men and women. 41 Startlingly, the effects of this dose–response relationship seems to persist until at least 50 years of age. 33

The impact of childhood bully victimisation on adulthood mental health outcomes is staggering. Approximately 29% of the adulthood depression burden could be attributed to victimisation by peers in adolescence, 41 and bully victimisation by peers is thought to have a greater impact on adult mental health than maltreatment by adults, including sexual and physical abuse. 42 Finally, these consequences reach beyond the realm of health, as childhood bullying victimisation is associated with a lack of social relationships, economic hardship and poor perceived quality of life at age 50. 33

Bullying prevention

Until not long ago, being bullied was considered a normal rite of passage through which children must simply persevere. 3 However, the size and scale of its impact on child health, and later on adulthood health, are now clearly understood and render it a significant public health problem warranting urgent attention. 1 While parental and peer support are known to be protective against victimisation, regardless of global location, cultural norms or socioeconomic status, 43 structured programmes have been deployed at scale to prevent victimisation and its associated problems.

School-based interventions have been shown to significantly reduce bullying behaviour in children and adolescents. Whole-school approaches incorporating multiple disciplines and high levels of staff engagement provide the greatest potential for successful outcomes, while curriculum-based and targeted social skills training are less effective methods that may even worsen victimisation. 44 The most widely adopted approach is the Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme (OBPP), a comprehensive, school-wide programme designed to reduce bullying and achieve better peer relations among school-aged children. 9 However, despite its broad global uptake, meta-analyses of studies examining the effectiveness of the OBPP have shown mixed results across different cultures. 45–47

Cooperative learning, in which teachers increase opportunities for positive peer interaction through carefully structured, group-based learning activities in schools, is an alternative approach to bullying prevention that has recently gained traction and been shown to significantly reduce bullying and its associated emotional problems while enhancing student engagement and educational achievement. 48 Also housed within the educational environment, school-based health centres became popular in the USA in the 1990s and provided medical, mental health, behavioural, dental and vision care for children directly in schools, and have had some positive impacts on mitigating the prevalence and impact of bullying. 49 In the UK, school nurses act as liaisons between primary care and education systems, and are often the first to identify victims of bullying, although their numbers in the UK fell by 30% between 2010 and 2019. 50

Due to the link between sibling and peer bullying, there have been calls for bullying prevention interventions to be developed and made available to start in the home, and for general practitioners and paediatricians to routinely enquire about sibling bullying. 8

While countless cyberbullying prevention programmes, both offline and online, are marketed to educational institutions, only a small proportion have been rigorously evaluated. 51 Furthermore, as cyberbullying rarely induces negative impacts on child health independently, interventions to tackle these effects must also target traditional forms of bullying to have meaningful impact.

Addressing the global public health problem of bullying in childhood and adolescence is vital for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. In recognition of this, UNESCO recently launched its first International Day Against Violence and Bullying at School, an annual event which aims to build global awareness about the problem’s scale, severity and need for collaborative action. 52 Meaningful progress on this problem is urgently needed to increase mental well-being and reduce the burden of mental illness in both children and adults globally. Suggestions for immediate action are briefly described in box 1 .

Actions needed to improve child health through the prevention of bullying

  • Promote the importance of parental and peer support in the prevention of bully victimisation across families and schools.
  • Educate health professionals about the consequences of childhood bullying and provide training and resources to allow identification, appropriate management and timely referral of such cases (see further).
  • Develop and make widely available bullying prevention interventions that tackle sibling bullying in the home.
  • Create and deploy whole-school cooperative learning approaches to reduce bullying within educational institutions.
  • Address cyberbullying with evidence-based interventions that also tackle traditional forms of bullying.
  • Increase awareness of the presentation and impacts of bullying on child health among primary care professionals.

What to do if you suspect childhood bullying

GPs should be prepared to consider bullying as a potential contributory factor in presentations of non-specific physical and mental health complaints from children. While GPs recognise their responsibility to deal with disclosures of childhood bullying and its associated health consequences, they often feel unable to adequately do so due to the constraints of time-pressured primary care consultations, and uncertainty around the specialist services to which such children can be appropriately referred. 53

Clear management and referral pathways for health professionals dealing with childhood bullying are lacking in both primary and secondary care. Local, national and online antibullying organisations, such as Ditch the Label 54 and the Anti-Bullying Alliance, 55 provide free advice for children affected by bullying, and their parents, teachers and health professionals, along with free online certified CPD training for anyone working with children. School nurses continue to act as liaisons between primary care and education systems 56 and should be central to the multidisciplinary management of childhood bullying. Finally, if bullying is considered to be contributory to childhood depression, child and adolescent mental health services, along with primary care practitioners and educational professionals, should work collaboratively to foster effective antibullying approaches. 57

Supplementary Material

Contributors: RA was the sole contributor to the work.

Funding: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests: No, there are no competing interests.

Patient and public involvement: Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, conduct, reporting or dissemination plans of this research.

Patient consent for publication: Not required.

Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Data availability statement: Data sharing is not applicable as no datasets have been generated and/or analysed for this study.

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  • http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1832-173X Alfan Al-Ketbi 1 ,
  • http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6982-8063 Marilia Silva Paulo 2 ,
  • http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5091-604X Linda Östlundh 3 ,
  • http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7151-2175 Iffat Elbarazi 1 ,
  • Bayan Abu-Hamada 1 ,
  • http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1846-4367 Ismail Elkonaisi 1 ,
  • http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6102-0353 Rami H. Al-Rifai 1 ,
  • Sara Al Aleeli 4 ,
  • http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2349-0922 Michal Grivna 1 , 5
  • 1 Institute of Public Health , United Arab Emirates University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences , Al Ain , UAE
  • 2 NOVA National School of Public Health, Public Health Research Center, Comprehensive Research Center, CHRC , NOVA University Lisbon , Lisbon , Portugal
  • 3 Örebro University , Örebro , Sweden
  • 4 College of Education, United Arab Emirates University , Al Ain , UAE
  • 5 Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine , Charles University, Second Faculty of Medicine , Praha , Czech Republic
  • Correspondence to Professor Michal Grivna, Institute of Public Health, United Arab Emirates University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Al Ain, UAE; m.grivna{at}uaeu.ac.ae

Introduction Schools in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) witnessed an increase of 7% in bullying prevalence since 2005. This review aimed to map antibullying interventions in the UAE.

Methods A systematic search was performed in five electronic databases (EMBASE, PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus and Eric) using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Review. Studies addressing antibullying interventions and grey literature in the UAE from 2010 to 2021 were included. Interventions were mapped using distribution across key sectors, public health practice levels, and organisation types.

Results Of the 2122 identified papers, only 2 were included. Both articles were published in 2019 and used qualitative methods. From the search of governmental and non-governmental websites, 22 multilevel interventions were included and presented on the three levels of public health practice across the different sectors and target stakeholders. Eight interventions were at the federal level, and six were by private stakeholders. The government funded 59% of all interventions. Four interventions addressed cyberbullying, and three used multisectoral collaboration.

Conclusions Although the UAE is building capacity for bullying prevention, we found limited knowledge of antibullying prevention efforts. Further studies are needed to assess current interventions, strategies and policies.

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Data availability statement

Data are available upon reasonable request.

https://doi.org/10.1136/ip-2023-045039

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WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ON THIS TOPIC

Short-term and long-term bullying impacts have been well studied. They are considered a major contributing factor that negatively affects the mental health, academic performance and psychological well-being of children.

There is an increasing prevalence of school bullying in the UAE, and a lack of intersectoral collaboration in school bullying prevention efforts.

WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS

This study highlights the need for focused research describing and evaluating implemented antibullying interventions.

There is a need for interoperability and data sharing regarding antibullying prevention strategies in the countries so that any school can use validated interventions.

HOW THIS STUDY MIGHT AFFECT RESEARCH, PRACTICE OR POLICY

This review may inform policymakers and decision-makers about the current situation in bullying prevention efforts in the country.

Mapping of interventions may be useful for other countries.

Introduction

Despite advancements in student-centred teaching and a favourable school environment, bullying is a current global public health challenge. 1 Bullying by peers within the school environment is considered the most prevalent form of violence, according to the WHO. 2 An alarming prevalence of school bullying of 35% has been reported in an extensive meta-analysis across 80 countries. 3 A report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has stated that one-third of students (33%) worldwide were being bullied, and 3% of students in Europe and North America acknowledge bullying others at school. The Health Behaviour of School Children Survey, which analyses international self-reported data, presents the three highest victimisation rates in the Middle East (41.1%), North Africa (42.7%) and sub-Saharan Africa (48.2%). 4

Short-term and long-term bullying impacts have been well studied and are considered a major contributing factor that negatively affects mental health, academic performance, and psychological well-being. 5 6

Several antibullying interventions have been implemented and evaluated globally in schools, including Media Heroes in Germany, 7 ConRed in Spain, 8 the KiVa programme in Finland, 9 No Trap! in Italy, 10 the ViSC programme in Austria 11 and Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme in the USA. 12 These interventions had a widely different impact on bullying prevalence, and few had any effects. Furthermore, a recent global meta-analysis revealed differences in the effectiveness of these antibullying programmes. 7–11 Antibullying programmes in Germany and Austria were more effective in reducing bullying victimisation. 7 11 However, the USA’s antibullying programmes were most effective in reducing bullying perpetration. 12

There is scarce evidence of school bullying victimisation and prevalence in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Data on school bullying victimisation in the UAE was first collected in 2005 during the country’s participation in the Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS). 13 The GSHS is a tool designed to measure the self-reported health behaviour of middle-school children aged 13–15 years. The survey results are used to perform cross-country comparisons and identify health-priority interventions for adolescent children. The results from the three GSHS surveys conducted in the UAE in 2005, 2010 and 2016 showed an increasing trend in the prevalence of students reporting being bullied on one or more days during the past 30 days, from 24.5% to 25.9%, and 29.9%, respectively, and boys were more involved in bullying compared with girls. 14

The UAE is a federation of seven emirates, ‘state, regions’ named Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah and Umm Al Quwain. The education system is diverse and technologically advanced, shaped by its federal and local governance structures. This system features a broad curriculum in public and private schools, with English and Arabic as key languages. With a unique demographic enriched by over 200 nationalities, the UAE faces a challenge in addressing school bullying within its multicultural and multilinguistic student body. Public schools focus on moral and Islamic education at an early age, adapting to cultural norms with gender-separated schooling. Both regulatory bodies at local and national levels work to maintain high sustainable educational standards, making the UAE a dynamic environment for academic research and student safety.

Children’s safety is an important goal within the UAE’s National Agenda, and policymakers are aware of bullying’s negative consequences on students’ educational performance and their emotional and mental. 15 In 2016, the UAE government issued ‘Wadeema’s Law’ (WL) (Child Protection Law No. 3) on child rights, including several regulations and initiatives to support children’s safety. 16 It is designed to protect children from birth to puberty from forms of abuse, including physical, verbal and psychological abuse. In 2018, the UAE government established the National Bullying Prevention Committee (NBPC), comprised of members from local and federal entities, as part of its agenda to improve children’s mental health. 17

Antibullying interventions were developed after introducing the Child Protection Law in the UAE (WL). 16 The UAE’s antibullying strategy is fully aligned with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2030, 18 the UAE 2021 Vision 15 and the UAE’s Child Protection Law. 14 In 2018, an additional indicator was added to SDG 4: 4.1.2, representing the percentage of students who experienced bullying during a school year (UIS). 19

This scoping review aims to map antibullying interventions at schools in the UAE to identify current gaps. In the present study, ‘antibullying intervention’ refers to policies, laws, legislation, regulations, strategies, programmes, activities, services, initiatives, movements and organisations developed to address school bullying.

The aim of this study was to map antibullying interventions in the UAE for all schoolchildren aged from 5 to 18 years old and of any gender and nationality.

Our specific objectives were:

What are the existing antibullying interventions, strategies, and policies in the UAE?

What are the key sectors and stakeholders engaged in antibullying interventions, strategies and policies in the UAE?

Where are the gaps and opportunities in existing antibullying interventions, strategies and policies for future development in the UAE?

We employed the framework outlined by Arksey and O’Malley to conduct our review. 20 The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR) statement was used as the guide for conducting this scoping review 21 ( online supplemental file 1 ).

Supplemental material

Information sources.

Five electronic databases, including PubMed (NLM), ERIC (EBSCOhost), Scopus (Elsevier), Web of Science (Clarivate) and Embase (Elsevier), were searched to identify relevant studies published in literature reference lists and key journals were also hand-searched by two authors independently to identify any additional relevant studies that may not have been identified through the scholarly databases. References from previous and adjacent scoping and narrative reviews and included papers were screened for further relevant studies. Unpublished and grey literature were collected using the snowball technique 22 and searched by Google engine and targeted websites of different key stakeholders for information about antibullying intervention programmes or initiatives implemented in the UAE between 2010 and 2021. These strategies were used to minimise the risk of excluding relevant sources.

Search strategy

A comprehensive search strategy to frame the concept of mapping the antibullying strategies, interventions and policies in the UAE’s schools was developed by combining terms following the Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes and Study type (PICOS) criteria, endorsed by Cochrane Collaboration to identify clinical components of evidence-based medicine 23 A medical research librarian (LÖ) designed the search according to the PICOS presented in table 1 . The search strategy was initially developed in PubMed, using medical subject headings, and then translated to other databases. Initially, the search strategy was completed in 2019 and then updated in 2021, and no new studies were found. The search strategy for all databases can be found in online supplemental file 2 .

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PICOS criteria used to develop the search strategy

Google search engines were used to identify Grey literature documents on governmental and non-governmental websites ( online supplemental file 3 ). Grey literature documents included research-related or policy-related information such as guidelines, research reports, programme evaluation studies, and legislation. 22

Eligibility criteria

There was an expansion of the research focusing on bullying after the 2015 Global Commitment to End All Forms of Violence, which is part of the SDG. 19 The UAE’s initial measures for recording school bullying were captured during its participation in the GSHS in 2005, 2010 and 2015. The introduction of Wadeema’s Law in 2016 16 and the formation of the NBPC in 2018 17 highlighted the country’s commitment to improving child safety and mental health. Therefore, we included studies from 2010 onwards, as we assumed that few or none had been published before this year. The inclusion and exclusion criteria for this scoping review are listed in table 2 . As information on the topic is scarce, we have included any study that would report or describe any sort of school antibullying strategy, intervention and policy, even if it was not the main outcome of the study or the report.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Screening and study selection

Two reviewers independently reviewed articles for inclusion in the review using the systematic review tool Covidence. The screening was initially conducted for titles and abstracts of the retrieved citations. Those deemed eligible according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria were subjected to an independent full-text review screening. Any disagreements on article inclusion were presented to a third reviewer until a full consensus was achieved. For grey literature, initial screening was based on executive summaries or tables of contents. Then, a full-text screening of the publication followed. The references and records found eligible for inclusion in this scoping review were uploaded to Mendeley, a bibliographic manager, for a safe copy and into the Covidence software for better management of systematic reviews. Two reviewers selected the included articles. To conclude the selection process, we consulted Cabell’s Predatory Reports to ensure that we did not include any potentially predatory papers in our study selection. 24

Data extraction and synthesis

A standard data extraction sheet template was developed to capture descriptive characteristics of the included studies, including authors, year of publication, study design, data collection, sample, type of study, outcome measured, characteristics of the antibullying interventions, strategies and policies. The mentioned information was extracted by one independent reviewer and double-checked by a second and third reviewer.

Another standard data extraction sheet template was developed to capture descriptive characteristics of the included interventions to prevent bullying. These characteristics include the intervention name, intended audience, goal, organisation, setting, emirates, level of authority, sectors, publication type, year published, funding resources, duration of knowledge translation, approach and assessment component. One coauthor screened the grey literature, and two coauthors revised and double-checked the data extraction.

Developing antibullying interventions distribution map: evidence gap map

We used evidence gap map (EGM) to explore the distribution of antibullying interventions across different sectors in the UAE. It is a systematic visual presentation of the availability of relevant evidence for a particular policy domain. 25 The evidence is identified by a search following a prespecified, published search protocol. The map may be accompanied by a descriptive report summarising the evidence for stakeholders such as researchers, research commissioners, policymakers and practitioners. 25 EGM is used to identify key ‘gaps’ where little or no evidence is available. It can be a valuable source to inform a strategic approach and build the evidence base in a particular sector. It is a visual tool used to show the effectiveness of studies that most commonly adopt the intervention‐outcome framework. 25 In a standard effectiveness map, the row headings usually describe interventions, while the column headings list the outcomes. In our study, as we did not have any outcomes from the interventions, we adjusted the map, replacing outcomes with sectors. The row headings presented three possible levels of practice: (1) the whole population within the community (community-focused), (2) the system (systems-focused) that manages the health of those populations and/or the individuals at risk (individual/family-focused) of the same population. 25

Search outcomes

Electronic database searches identified 2122 publications. An additional seven potential papers were identified through Google Scholar searches.

In the first selection phase, 1179 papers were included in the title and abstract screening, 1128 articles were excluded and 51 papers were retrieved for full-text reading. After the second phase of the screening, 27 papers were excluded as they did not meet the inclusion criteria. From the five papers, the search on Cabell’s predatory list identified one study. 20 The final review included only two studies from peer-reviewed literature. PRISMA flow diagram ( figure 1 ) illustrates the articles’ selection process, and table 3 highlights the reasons for excluding the studies that closely met our eligibility criteria.

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PRISMA flow diagram for study selection

Reasons for exclusion of the papers that closely met our eligibility criteria

Description of the studies

The two papers included in the study were published in 2019 and used qualitative methods ( table 4 ). One study was in the emirate of Dubai, and the second paper is not specific to the region of the UAE where it was done. In both studies, outcomes included intervention evaluation and a framework of policies and procedures designed to assist child abuse victims, including bullying. With different target populations, the study’s sample size ranged from 15 to 35 participants, including students, teachers, parents, social workers, and civil society.

Table of characteristics of the included studies

Interventions to prevent bullying

A complimentary UAE stakeholder’s websites and press release search identified 15 records with 22 multilevel community-wide interventions presented on the three levels of public health practice across the different sectors and stakeholders (students, teachers, parents, school environment and community) ( online supplemental file 4 ). Only four interventions were in practice before 2015. The majority were introduced after 2016, with the largest number of interventions in place recorded in 2019. The year 2016 coincides with the introduction of Wadeema Law and NBPC in 2018.

Multiple sectors were involved in addressing bullying. The education and justice sectors contributed the most, 10 and 5, respectively. The majority of the interventions (eight) were conducted at the federal level, followed by private-level interventions (six). Emirate-level organisations were mainly focused on their emirates, including Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah. Only two interventions were developed in collaboration with both local and federal, and an international association. Funding resources were mostly from governmental organisations, comprising 59% of all interventions, and 50% were based on an awareness approach. A total of four interventions were designed to address cyberbullying. A multisectoral collaboration was used to develop three of the founded interventions. Two interventions included assessment and effectiveness evaluation components.

Evidence gap map

We identified nine different key sectors that intervened to address bullying ( figure 2 ). These sectors include education, health, social welfare, research, law, police and justice, commercial, telecommunication and media. Furthermore, organisations were assigned into six different categories based on their types: federal, local, private, non-profit, international or multi-collaboration entities (EGM). Each antibullying intervention was mapped using its distribution across key sectors, public health practice levels and organisation types. A symbol-coded classification was established to represent the organisation internally on the map. Empty cells in the map refer to areas where no intervention contributed by the corresponding sector or existed but could not be recognised with the search strategy employed in the last decade within those sectors.

Evidence gap map of antibullying interventions by key sectors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (2010–2021).

To our knowledge, this scoping review was the first to systematically map and categorise the variety of all activities, programmes or initiatives that could be organised under the umbrella term ‘antibullying intervention’ in the UAE.

Gap in research (including grey literature)

Although the UAE data gap is evident from this review, the broad scope of the analysis ensures a complete overview of antibullying interventions. Research gaps are identified via an extensive search of multiple databases and the webs of key stakeholders. This knowledge synthesis can be used to assess intervention programmes in the education and health fields with a multidisciplinary nature.

Our study highlights a substantial increase in bullying interventions after 2016, with diverse strategies employed to address this issue. This year coincides with the introduction of Wadeema Law and the introduction of NBPC in 2018, which had the highest number of bullying interventions. We observed that 2019 had the highest number of bullying interventions.

The spread of interventions over various years underscores a sustained, though fluctuating, commitment to combating bullying. The lack of dominance by any single intervention type suggests an experimental approach in the field, reflecting the complexity of bullying as a social issue and the need for multifaceted solutions.

These antibullying interventions were diverse in nature, targeting primarily students, either alone or in combination with teachers and parents, and aimed at objectives ranging from stopping bullying to promoting awareness and creating support systems. A systematic review of 262 research articles on bullying and cyberbullying, highlighted the importance of further research and the creation of effective intervention strategies to address bullying and cyberbullying. 26 Bullying reporting in schools is another challenge for teachers. The school workforce has established stereotypes about bullies and victims and finds it difficult to pinpoint the exact moment and location of bullying incidents. Most of the antibullying policies employed by staff members in Croatian juvenile detention and care facilities are reactive; they ought to be changed to be more proactive and grounded in evidence. 27 The antibullying programmes targeting bystanders may be more effective if teachers are involved. Teachers’ attitudes towards bullying are linked to bystander behaviour. A training programme on bullying intervention techniques can boost their understanding, self-assurance and capacity to assist students who witness bullying. The creation of a technology-based teacher module can improve the efficacy of bullying prevention programmes, lower implementation barriers and increase their scalability. 28

Despite multisectoral collaboration, the review shows that most antibullying efforts in the UAE in the last decade have been initiated and directed by the Education sector. There is no evidence of the health sector’s contribution to antibullying interventions. Healthcare providers are considered essential stakeholders in advocating for child health. They play a critical role in addressing bullying, as they are the first line in identifying students’ health conditions and delivering health education within the community. 25

While there is no official data on school bullying in the UAE, bullying statistics are mainly from international surveys and represent bullying prevalence with an increasing trend. There are few efforts to measure bullying prevalence, 29 30 and these efforts are limited to the emirate level. Although from the few studies included, it was observed that recent research activities and methodologies were considered limitations in the peer-reviewed literature on antibullying interventions. Moreover, there was no clear justification or written criteria to explain the choice of such antibullying programmes. However, a great number of the adapted antibullying interventions are considered innovative in concept and in their utilisation of technology. This evidence source is either from sociology or information technology knowledge of the area.

Most of the identified antibullying programmes lacked a systematic assessment component. This highlights a gap in measuring the true effectiveness of these initiatives. Several studies call for comprehensive evaluation methods to validate and improve the interventions’ impact on bullying and mental health outcomes. 3 31–34

We found a lack of integration of non-governmental organisations’ interventions with the national policies and prevention stakeholders. Moreover, the distribution of the antibullying interventions, policies and strategies in our EGM shows gaps and inconsistencies when applying these interventions to the whole country. The education sector was intervening using a population-based public health approach, and all types of organisations were contributing. The main deficiencies highlighted by this current study are mainly from the health, research and law sectors. Moreover, there was no clear evidence of fully implemented antibullying laws and archives for incident reports that were identified during this research.

Implications for policy, programmes, research investments

The analysis of antibullying interventions in the UAE reveals existing prevention strategies aimed at fostering an evidence-based, policy-driven approach towards targeted bullying prevention. This study identifies a research gap, emphasising the need for increased training investment focused on the theoretical and methodological foundations of antibullying strategies. An essential preliminary step in developing antibullying measures is the assessment of the impact of peer violence. Our investigation highlights a limitation in recent methodologies and activities due to a lack of substantial evidence. This article serves as a call for further research on this critical issue.

In our study, ‘A Qualitative Analysis of Policy Makers’ Perspectives: Antibullying Efforts in the UAE’, we conducted 27 semi-structured interviews to examine the UAE’s antibullying initiatives. Our findings indicate that despite ongoing efforts, there are significant gaps in coordination among stakeholders and the reporting processes, highlighting the urgency for unified policies and precise intervention methods. 35

Furthermore, there is a pressing need to develop and implement comprehensive assessment tools to measure the effectiveness of antibullying interventions. Future initiatives should also prioritise the sustainability and scalability of these interventions, possibly through diversified funding and increased stakeholder engagement. Collaborative actions across various sectors, including education, social welfare, and public policy, are crucial for a more integrated and impactful approach to combating bullying.

A national bullying school prevalence study is needed in the UAE. It is important to understand that children’s bullying experiences differ according to the setting and school composition. In the UAE, there are more than 200 different nationalities with different backgrounds and cultures. Hence, researchers need to investigate the effects of the unique characteristics of the UAE population for future antibullying interventions. 36 It is crucial to understand how UAE national and expatriate students (including Arabs and non-Arabs) adapt to and tolerate cultural and societal changes while establishing safe relationships at schools. A study conducted in Italy reported that there was an increase in school bullying cases from 5% to 10% when there were more immigrant students. 37 Schools with different ethnicities need to adapt the interventions to cope with students’ diverse backgrounds. Therefore, the UAE should adopt a strategy that considers the population’s diversity. 36

In the UAE, there are 288 794 students in public schools compared with 810 537 students in private schools. 38 Currently, the National Bullying Prevention Strategy focuses more on public schools. The antibullying policy should expand to include both public and private schools.

There are known gender differences in types of bullying in the literature, which need to be verified in our setting. 39 For many years, the UAE had schools with separate genders. 40 The recent introduction of mixed-gender schools (grades 1–4) in the 2018–2019 academic year may impact the implementation of the strategy, an issue that needs further detailed research. Inclusive Education Policy for children with special needs might also affect bullying at schools in the UAE. 41

Governmental bodies are the prominent financial supporters of these interventions, and most information about these interventions was obtained from government websites and practices. This dependency could jeopardise the programmes’ sustainability, as economic fluctuations impacting government funding can lead to instability.

Strengths and limitations

Our study is the first to assess the antibullying prevention strategies in the UAE. It may inform policymakers and decision-makers at the UAE federal and national (Emirati) levels about the current situation in bullying prevention efforts in the country. It highlights the need for interoperability and data sharing regarding antibullying prevention strategies in the UAE so that any school can use validated interventions.

There were some limitations in our study. First, only a limited number of studies were included and assessed. This is not surprising, as the government has recently accepted child protection laws and started focusing on bullying prevention at schools in the UAE. The increasing number of interventions found in the reports and on the websites of different institutions require more time to assess the educational, health-related and economic outcomes. We may have missed screening some stakeholders, as the UAE is a federation of seven Emirates with different governmental entities on federal and Emirates levels. Another limitation is that the scoping review methodology does not assess the quality of the individual articles.

This review demonstrates that the UAE is building a capacity for bullying prevention. While school bullying is generally considered an emerging public health issue in the UAE, there is a gap in scientific research assessing antibullying interventions in schools in the UAE. Further studies are needed to understand the foundation and theoretical models that are being used to guide the design, delivery and outcome assessment of the current interventions, strategies, and policies.

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Supplementary materials

Supplementary data.

This web only file has been produced by the BMJ Publishing Group from an electronic file supplied by the author(s) and has not been edited for content.

  • Data supplement 1

Twitter @dr_michalgrivna

Contributors AA-K and MSP designed the study. LÖ designed the search strategy. AA-K, LÖ and MSP conducted the search. AA-K, MSP and MG selected the studies to be included and wrote a first draft of the paper. All authors participated in revising the draft to its current form and approved the final version. AA-K is the guarantor of the study.

Funding The study was funded by grants from the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University research (Ref No 31M422 and 12M088).

Competing interests None declared.

Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research. Refer to the Methods section for further details.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.

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A Systematic Review of Bullying and Victimization Among Adolescents in India

  • Original Article
  • Open access
  • Published: 07 September 2020
  • Volume 3 , pages 253–269, ( 2021 )

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  • Niharika Thakkar   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8754-6708 1 ,
  • Mitch van Geel 1 &
  • Paul Vedder 1  

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This study provides a systematic review of literature from India on traditional bullying and victimization among school-going adolescents. A search of bibliographic electronic databases PsycINFO, MEDLINE, ERIC, Web of Science, and PubMed was performed in May 2020. Thirty-seven studies were included in the review. For each study included, the following specifics were examined: (a) methodological characteristics, (b) prevalence estimates of bullying behavior, (c) forms of bullying, (d) risk factors, and (e) consequences of bullying. It was found that bullying happens in India, and some risk factors for bullying and victimization in India are typical to the Indian context. In addition, bullying in India is associated with adverse consequences for both the aggressor and the victim. Many studies on bullying from India should be interpreted cautiously because of problems with data collection processes, instrumentation, and presentation of the findings. Cross-cultural comparisons for prevalence estimates, and longitudinal studies to examine the direction of possible influence between bullying and its correlates need to be conducted, to cater to the large adolescent population of India.

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Bullying is an intentional and repetitive act of physical or psychological aggression, where the aggressor is more powerful than the victim (Olweus 1993 ). Meta-analytic studies have confirmed the marked prevalence of and risk factors associated with bullying perpetration and victimization among children and adolescents in school (Modecki et al. 2014 ). In a recent survey conducted in 79 countries with over 300,000 participants, 30% of the adolescent respondents reported that they had been victims of bullying in the past 30 days (Elgar et al. 2015 ). In India, research on bullying is scarce, certainly in proportion to its population size, as well as socio-cultural diversity (Milfont and Fischer 2010 ; Smith et al. 2018 ). The vast adolescent population provides ample opportunity and resources to further our understanding in the field of bullying. The disparities seen in India in terms of socio-cultural factors such as SES, religion, caste, gender, and color, which have been recognized as typical to the Indian context (Panda and Gupta 2004 ), may aid in breeding an imbalance of power, an underlying element of bullying (Olweus 1993 ). Moreover, given the diverse socio-cultural context of India, and its structural incongruence with western cultures (Charak and Koot 2015 ), literature from western countries may not be generalizable to the Indian population, thus requiring scientific attention to examine the role of these factors specifically in India (Smith et al. 2018 ).

Through the current review, we aim to provide researchers a notion of challenges that need to be addressed in future studies on bullying and victimization in India. Systematic reviews are of importance, because they closely follow a scientific and step-by-step approach, with an aim of limiting systematic errors or bias, and particularly seek to identify, evaluate, and synthesize all relevant studies to elucidate knowledge and advanced understanding of the topic at hand (Petticrew and Roberts 2008 ). The present systematic review focuses on traditional bullying and victimization among adolescents in schools in India, highlighting the following specifics: (a) methodological characteristics of included studies, (b) prevalence estimates of bullying behavior, (c) forms of bullying, (d) risk factors, and (e) consequences of bullying. Specifically, we examine the psychometric properties of the instruments adopted in the included studies from India, as well as methodological characteristics including design and data collection, sample size and sampling procedures of the included studies, and characteristics of bullying behavior distinctive to the Indian context.

Guidelines provided by Arksey and O’Malley ( 2005 ) for conducting systematic reviews were followed in the present study. A systematic search of bibliographic electronic databases PsycINFO, MEDLINE, ERIC, Web of Science, and PubMed was performed in May 2020. The following terms formed the basis of the search strategy: “bullying” OR “peer victim*” OR “bullied” OR “bully” OR “school harassment*” OR “ragging” OR “school violence*” AND “India” OR “Indian” OR “Hindi”. No date limit was set for the search. Our search was not limited to published articles; book chapters, dissertations, unpublished articles, and posters were also eligible. A flow diagram of the search results is provided in Fig. 1 . Only studies that focused on bullying by peers and the resulting victimization at school were included. Articles on online bullying or cyberbullying were excluded. There were too few studies on cyberbullying in India to provide a meaningful analysis, especially when such an analysis should also deal with recent concerns about cyberbullying studies (e.g., Wolke et al. 2017 ). Non-empirical studies that did not include quantifiable data (for instance, book reviews) were excluded as we focus on only empirical research in the current review. Six studies used interviews to gather data; for instance, Kshirsagar et al. ( 2007 ) used Olweus’s ( 1996 ) pre-tested semi-structure interview to collect data on bullying and victimization in their study. The answers to these interviews were quantified and used in statistical analyses, and therefore, we included the articles in the current review. Studies on Indian children who live outside of India were excluded. Because we focused on adolescents in school, the age of students in included studies should range between 10 and 19 years. For studies on students whose ages only partly overlapped with this intended range, we applied the rule that the average age should fall within the intended range and the lowest and highest age should be within 2 years of the intended age limits. Two studies did not provide a definitive age range of the participants included in their study (Patel et al. 2017 ; Schäfer et al. 2018 ); however, the studies indicate that the participants were from grade 8 to 10 (who are typically 12 to 15 years old), thereby qualifying for inclusion in the present review. Three studies did not provide the mean age of the participants in their study though they specify the age range of the participants (Kshirsagar et al. 2007 ; Malik and Mehta 2016 ; Ramya and Kulkarni 2011 ), and because the lower limit or higher limit of the provided age range in these three study fell within 2 years of 11–19 years old, we have included them in the present review. Eventually, 37 studies were included in the final review.

figure 1

Search results for the systematic review

Methodological Characteristics of Included Studies

Design and data collection.

Of the 37 studies that were included, two were longitudinal studies (Nguyen et al. 2017 ; Thakkar et al. 2020 ), two were experimental studies with pre- and post-test intervention designs (Sharma et al. 2020 ; Shinde et al. 2018 , 2020 ), whereas the others were cross-sectional studies. Seven of the 37 studies used peer-reports, 21 studies used self-reports, two studies used both self- and peer-reports (Chakrabartty and Gupta 2016 ; Thakkar et al. 2020 ), whereas six studies used structured or semi-structured interviews and open-ended questions to collect data on bullying and victimization (Kshirsagar et al. 2007 ; Malhi et al. 2014 , 2015 ; Malik and Mehta 2016 ; Munni and Malhi 2006 ; Ramya and Kulkarni 2011 ). One study used a photo-story method (Skrzypiec et al. 2015 ), where participants were invited to use a photograph or picture to illustrate their opinions or experiences of bullying.

Psychometric Properties

Psychometric properties of the scales or interviewing approaches used in the studies have been reported in 22 of the 37 studies. Four studies reported the reliability and validity of the original scale (Malik and Mehta 2016 ; Menon and Hannah-Fisher 2019 ; Patel et al. 2017 ; Samanta et al. 2012 ), but did not report psychometric properties based on the Indian sample, while five studies reported neither the psychometric properties of the original scale nor its generalizability to the Indian sample (Kshirsagar et al. 2007 ; Maji et al. 2016 ; Sarkhel et al. 2006 ; Sharma et al. 2017 ; Sethi et al. 2019 ). Two studies used a scale developed by the authors of the study; however, psychometric properties were not reported (Kelly et al. 2016 ; Prakash et al. 2017 ). Four studies did not provide a clear description of the method of data collection, and the validity of the approach was not defined (Malhi et al. 2014 , 2015 ; Munni and Malhi 2006 ; Ramya and Kulkarni 2011 ). Seven studies specified that the instrument used to assess bullying behavior was an English language questionnaire, while 10 studies used either existing translations or translations created by the authors of the study, of English scales into Indian regional languages. Two studies used English instruments and orally explained the translation in Punjabi (Lee et al. 2018 ) or translated the difficult words to Hindi (Malik and Mehta 2016 ), and one study used English and Hindi language translations of the scales (Thakkar et al. 2020 ).

Of the 37 studies, 25 studies used a convenience or purposive sampling approach to recruit participants. One study used a proportionate random sampling approach to recruit participants (Kelly et al. 2016 ); one study used a two-stage cluster sampling approach (Swain et al. 2014 ); one used a multi-stage sampling design (Chakrabartty and Gupta 2016 ); six studies reported using a random sampling method for selecting either schools or participants (Kshirsagar et al. 2007 ; Maji et al. 2016 ; Malik and Mehta 2016 ; Nguyen et al. 2017 ; Ramya and Kulkarni 2011 ; Sarkhel et al. 2006 ), but only one of them reported how the school sample was randomized (by draw of lots; Sethi et al. 2019 ). Two studies used a randomized control design to allocate participants to experimental or control groups, where Prakash et al. ( 2017 ) used a cluster randomized control design, and the intervention study by Shinde et al. ( 2018 ) used randomized and masked groups for each of three study groups. One study used a quasi-experimental design, where of the two participating schools, one was randomly assigned to the intervention group, and the other was assigned to the control group (Sharma et al. 2020 ). Of the 37 studies included in the review, 17 studies had a sample size of less than 300 participants, nine studies had a sample size of between 300 and 500 participants, whereas 11 studies had a sample size larger than 500 participants.

The articles widely differed in their statistical reporting practices, and therefore, the amount of statistical information provided in the below sections and Table 1 varies per reported study. Time frames of bullying and victimization prevalence estimates are reported in the below sections if they were specified in the included studies. Percentages are rounded off without decimals.

Prevalence Studies

Eight studies focused on the prevalence of bullying in India, while 14 others provided descriptive statistics or percentages for sample participants that qualified as bullies or victims in their study. Of these, five studies provided the participants with a definition of bullying for peer nomination estimates of bullying and victimization in their research (Goossens et al. 2018 ; Khatri 1996 ; Lee et al. 2018 ; Skrzypiec et al. 2018a ; Thakkar et al. 2020 ). Studies from the same city or region in India were scarce, and reports inconsistent. We found that bullying perpetration estimates ranged from 7% (Thakkar et al. 2020 ) to 31% (Kshirsagar et al. 2007 ), and bullying victimization ranged from 9% (Thakkar et al. 2020 ) to 80% (Maji et al. 2016 ), across studies. For instance, Maji et al. ( 2016 ) found that only 38 of 273 adolescents were not bullied, resulting in a dominant 80% students qualifying as victims of bullying. Next to region differences in prevalence, estimates may be related to the reporter used. Kshirsagar et al. ( 2007 ) found higher prevalence rates for bullying for self-reports than for parent or guardian interviews, whereas Thakkar et al. ( 2020 ) found higher prevalence estimates for bullying and victimization for peer reports than for self-reports. Findings as regards prevalence and other findings or aspects reviewed of each study are reported in Table 1 .

Forms of Bullying

It was observed that name-calling or using bad words were common forms of bullying observed among adolescents next to physical bullying. For instance, Kshirsagar et al. ( 2007 ) reported that the most common types of bullying were teasing and giving discriminatory or offensive labels and nick names to others. Similarly, Malhi et al. ( 2014 ) reported that 16% of their sample were victims of direct bullying or physical bullying and 34% were victims of name-calling. Skrzypiec et al. ( 2015 ) showed that caste-based bullying was reported by students and that for females, sexual harassment or “eve-teasing” was a common occurrence.

Risk Factors for Bullying and Victimization

Thirteen studies from India focus on the risk factors and correlates of bullying and victimization. Risk factors refer to variables that have the potential to increase or decrease the likelihood of bullying behaviors occurring (Olweus 1996 ), whereas correlates of bullying behaviors focus on factors that are significantly associated with, and co-occur with, bullying behaviors. Risk factors for bullying and victimization identified through the review were body weight (Patel et al. 2017 ), religion (Thakkar et al. 2020 ), and age (Malhi et al. 2015 ; Ramya and Kulkarni 2011 ), and factors that were found to be significantly correlated to bullying behaviors were personality traits (neuroticism; Donat et al. 2012 ), academic performance (Patel et al. 2017 ), urban/rural setting (Nguyen et al. 2017 ; Samanta et al. 2012 ), and father’s education level (Sethi et al. 2019 ). Factors that were found to be risks or correlates of bullying behavior in various studies included in the review were caste-system of India (Kelly et al. 2016 ; Sethi et al. 2019 ; Thakkar et al. 2020 ), socio-economic status (Malhi et al. 2015 ; Sethi et al. 2019 ), and gender differences.

Studies focusing on the caste system of India reported contradictory findings ranging from “General” caste students experiencing lower harassment (Kelly et al. 2016 ), “General” caste students experiencing more victimization (Thakkar et al. 2020 ), to no differences between castes (Khatri  1996 ). As regards the role of religion, Thakkar et al. ( 2020 ) reported that non-Hindu children were significantly more likely to classify as victims than Hindu children. For SES, Malhi et al. ( 2015 ) found a significant relationship between SES and victimization, with low SES students scoring higher on physical victimization, whereas high SES students scored higher on relational victimization. For gender comparison, although not fully consistent, most studies within India reported that boys scored higher than girls on bullying perpetration and bullying victimization (Narayanan and Betts 2014 ; Nguyen et al. 2017 ; Patel et al. 2017 ; Pronk et al. 2017 ; Ramya and Kulkarni 2011 ; Sethi et al. 2019 ; Sharma et al. 2017 ; Swain et al. 2014 ). Age was also found to have some, though inconsistent, relationship with bullying behavior in school (Malhi et al. 2015 ; Patel et al. 2017 ; Ramya and Kulkarni 2011 ).

Consequences of Bullying

Being bullied was found to be associated with anxiety, depression, and preferring to stay alone (Kshirsagar et al. 2007 ). Also, bullied children were more likely to report symptoms such as school phobia, vomiting, catastrophizing, self-blaming, and sleep disturbances (Kshirsagar et al. 2007 ; Maji et al. 2016 ). Bully-victims had higher risk of conduct problems, hyperactivity, and academic difficulties, and while bullies were found to be better at academics, they had high self-esteem, and higher risk of hyperactivity and conduct problems (Malhi et al. 2014 ; Sarkhel et al. 2006 ).

Based on the syntheses of studies included in our review, we draw the following conclusions: (a) limitations in methodological characteristics of studies were identified with regard to sampling, instrumentation, data collection processes, and presentation of findings, and thus, conclusions from the included studies must be considered cautiously; (b) bullying happens in India, as it does internationally, though the range of prevalence estimates varies widely across studies; (c) name-calling, using bad words and other forms of relational and social bullying are common in India, and physical bullying is also prevalent; (d) risk factors for bullying and victimization in India show some factors that are typical to the Indian context, for example, caste; and (e) bullying is associated with adverse consequences for both, the aggressor and the victim, in India.

The current review notes that bullying is widely spread in India. However, available prevalence estimates vary largely across India, for bullying perpetration and for victimization. India is a geographically vast country, with enormous differences in regional socio-demographics (Charak and Koot 2015 ), thereby constraining prevalence estimates to stratified regions. Scholars have noted that homogeneity within culture in India, like in many other countries, cannot be assumed (Panda and Gupta 2004 ). Thus, generalizing regional prevalence estimates to be representative across India is questionable, calling attention to the need to conduct cross-regional and cross-cultural comparative studies of bullying behavior within the country.

Furthermore, the type of instruments and their psychometric properties impact the findings of a study (Milfont and Fischer 2010 ), thereby not only making prevalence estimates from studies in the present review questionable but also warranting caution to conclusions. Also, conclusions about similarities or differences between the Indian and Western contexts require that metric invariance first be established to allow cross-ethnic and cross-cultural comparisons (Milfont and Fischer 2010 ). Of the 37 studies included in the present review, 22 studies provided descriptions of the psychometric properties of the instruments used, while 15 studies did not report the properties of instruments in their study raising concerns about comparability across studies in terms of instruments used. Furthermore, most studies on bullying in India adopted a quantitative method of data collection, where only 6 out of the included 37 in the present review used a qualitative approach to collect data for their research. The concerns about validity are increased by the over reliance on self-reports; we found that only 7 of the 37 studies used peer-reports, and 2 studies used self- as well as informant reports. In self-rating procedures, pupils tend to underestimate their aggressive behavior and emphasize prosocial behavior on account of social desirability (Salmivalli et al. 1996 ). There is an urgent need to validate and standardize instruments, with special attention to peer reports that assess bullying behaviors and establish their generalizability to Indian samples, to attain unbiased reports of bullying behavior in India (Sousa and Rojjanasrirat 2011 ).

Furthermore, only few studies included a sample that is sizable enough to provide firm, stable conclusions (Naing et al. 2006 ), and thus, the basis for the generalizability of the reports on the prevalence is very narrow. Ioannidis ( 2005 ) asserted that the smaller the sample sizes in a study, the smaller the power of the study, and consequently the higher the likelihood of the research findings to be affected by bias. Thus, we emphasize the need to conduct more studies across India, with proportional sample sizes for objective, less biased conclusions regarding bullying behavior. Also, the purposive selection of participants in 25 of the 37 included studies poses a potential threat to the validity of findings. In future studies, random sampling approaches should be used to study bullying in India.

Furthermore, we observe that there are only two longitudinal studies from India (Nguyen et al. 2019 ; Thakkar et al. 2020 ). Longitudinal studies help disentangle antecedents and consequents, to estimate the inter-individual variability in intra-individual (or within-person) patterns of change (Curran et al. 2010 ), allowing investigations of the sequence of occurrence of bullying with its risks and outcomes. Additionally, several studies in the present review report the adverse effects of bullying; however, the magnitude of these effects remains unclear. Only two of the 37 included studies were experimental studies with pre- and post-test intervention designs (Sharma et al. 2020 ; Shinde et al. 2018 , 2020 ), which also underlines the urgent need to conduct fundamental indigenous research on the topic of bullying behaviors so that future research focusing on effective and tailor-cut interventions can be modeled for the Indian context. Also, given that most studies included were cross-sectional, cause and effect reasoning for bullying behavior remains elusive in India, and warrants further attention.

Lastly, we emphasize that risk factors of bullying need to be studied in light of the Indian culture to understand its meaning and relevance in the culture (Smith et al. 2018 ). In western literature as well, several recent studies have indicated a growing need to study bullying in relation to its broader socio-cultural context (Graham 2016 ). This is imperative in the Indian context given the contextual-development perspective (Chen and French 2008 ), which suggests that in collectivistic countries like India, context is more likely to affect evaluations of socially acceptable behavior and experiences, rather than individual attributes. Given the diversity and population density of India, considerable disparities and inequalities co-exist between cultures and also within the sub-groups of particular cultures (Panda and Gupta 2004 ). For instance, factors such as caste, dissimilarities between urban and rural youth, and the range of SES as observed in India can help in better, more deeply understanding bullying.

Conclusions and Implications for Future Research

This review contributes valuable findings in the field of bullying and victimization in India. However, it has been noted that conducting research in India comes with its own set of logistical and contextual challenges (Smith et al. 2018 ), and thus, the conclusions drawn through the review must be considered with due caution given methodological limitations of the included studies. The quality of research conducted in India has scope of improvement in terms of methodological rigor, data collection processes, instrumentation, and presentation of the findings.

The present study is limited in capacity as it does not include a report on cyberbullying, and thus, future research on the topic of cyberbullying is necessitated within the Indian context. Furthermore, terms such as “aggression” and “discrimination” were not used as search terms in the current study. However, bullying is a form of aggression, and discrimination could be, in some cases, strongly tied to bullying (Verkuyten and Thijs 2002 ). Future studies should pay more attention to the relations between bullying and discrimination.

In contrast to the large body of research on bullying from western countries where findings have been reproduced with a delimited adolescent population insistently, data from India is scanty. India accommodates the largest adolescent population in the world, providing a potential reservoir of relatively untapped resources that could provide in-depth knowledge of causes and consequences of bullying and victimization. Given its special cultural context, there is considerable scope to scrutinize cultural contexts of bullying behavior in India that could assist in revealing novel insights, such as the role of socio-economic distance between different sects of society in low to middle income countries. Such insights might facilitate the conception of dynamic intervention designs for not only the Indian population but also for western populations. Future studies that compare how bullying happens in the western and Indian context would also help shed further light on this topic.

Study 3 (Correia et al. 2009 ) and 4 (Donat et al. 2012 ) have the same Indian sample in their studies. However, the variables examining correlates and consequences of bullying are different in the studies, and thus for the purpose of our review, we include both studies.

Study 8 by Khatri and Kupersmidt ( 2003 ) is based on a dissertation thesis submitted to University of North Carolina by the first author in 1996. For the purpose of our review, we consider the dissertation and the journal article as one inclusion since the participants as well as bullying reports are the same for both.

Study 19 (Nguyen et al. 2017 ) and 20 (Nguyen et al. 2019 ) have the same Indian sample in their studies. However, the former paper focuses on prevalence and forms of bullying and victimization, whereas the latter one examines psychosocial outcomes of victimization, and thus, we include both studies separately in the present review.

Study 32 includes reports from two articles (Shinde et al. 2018 ; Shinde et al. 2020 ). The studies use an intervention design with the same sample, and include reports after 12-month follow-up and 17-month follow-up of the design, both of which have been reported in point 32 in the present review.

Study 35 (Suresh and Tipandjan 2012 ) uses a retrospective bullying questionnaire with undergraduate college students. As the study focuses on bullying behavior in school retrospectively with adolescents, we included the study in the present review.

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Thakkar, N., van Geel, M. & Vedder, P. A Systematic Review of Bullying and Victimization Among Adolescents in India. Int Journal of Bullying Prevention 3 , 253–269 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-020-00081-4

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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Yoga in schools that contributes to a positive classroom atmosphere for young children and educators: a prisma scoping review provisionally accepted.

  • 1 Federation University Australia, Australia
  • 2 University of Southern Queensland, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Introduction: This scoping review aims to examines yoga taught to children in a variety of different educational settings including after-school and in-school activity. Yoga has been found to support children in regard to wellbeing in a number of ways.Methods: A scoping review using a systematic approach was undertaken using EBSCO, CINAHL, Medline and Psycinfo. Google Scholar was used to search for grey literature and journal reference lists reviewed.Results: Fourteen studies were identified within the review that describe how children are able to understand and regulate their bodies through movement. As such four main themes were identified and included: (1) yoga and psychological wellbeing in school children; (2) yoga and self-regulation in pre-school children (3) yoga and cognitive function in school children; and (4) yoga and contemplative practices.Children who participate in yoga during and after school were framing their world using their own creativity and fantasy in an attempt to understand and navigate it. The physical and psychological difficulty of some of the yoga shapes assisted children to develop a persistent mindset which enabled them to use in other unrelated contexts, such as difficulties at school.

Keywords: Yoga, Asana, wellbeing, Exercise, Children, School

Received: 08 Dec 2023; Accepted: 21 Mar 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Martin, Peck and Terry. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mx. Beverley Martin, Federation University Australia, Ballarat, Australia

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Review clears Lincoln University president of 'claims of bullying' after administrator's suicide

Lincoln University is in turmoil after the death by suicide of its vice president of student affairs and sharp criticism of its president, who is now on voluntary paid leave.

Lincoln’s Board of Curators commissioned the third-party review in January, after its vice president for student affairs died by suicide. Antoinette Candia-Bailey emailed a scathing indictment of President John Moseley before she died.

Updated at 7:30 a.m. on March 22 to include reaction from Lincoln University's student government president.

Describing a “robust, weeks-long independent review,” Lincoln University leaders said Thursday there was no evidence of bullying on the part of university President John Moseley. The Lincoln Board of Curators has voted to bring Moseley back from his leave of absence.

The university hired a St. Louis law firm to conduct the review after the university’s vice president of student affairs took her own life in January. Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey wrote a highly critical email to Lincoln University's president before she died.

Running more than ten pages and nearly 6,000 words, the email called out Moseley for a litany of actions that Candia-Bailey said exacerbated her existing mental health condition, which she did not explicitly describe.

Rod Chapel, president of the Missouri NAACP State Conference, is quoted in a press release from the Lincoln Board of Curators:

“This third-party investigation was independent and thorough, and members of the Board and I are confident in its conclusions that no claims of bullying by the University President can be substantiated, and the University responded appropriately to requests for accommodation.”

In the press release, Chapel is referred to as “serving as special counsel to the Board of Curators.”

Contrary to the review's findings, Lincoln University student government president Kenlyn Washington said the university's response to Candia-Bailey's requests for support were insufficient.

“I think if you see someone struggling, if you see them crying out for help, and they're saying they need help, but you're their boss, I think there should be some type of sympathy to say, ‘Okay, like, I'm just gonna give you that time off.’ So, no, I don't think she got that help,” Washington said.

In her email, which the Midwest Newsroom first reviewed in January, Candia-Bailey gives Moseley 18 recommendations for how to improve his job performance as university president. She includes accusations of micromanagement, failure to provide clear directions, inconsistency and arrogance.

Bailey’s death on Jan. 8 roiled the Jefferson City campus and its wide network of alumni. Within days, Moseley took a paid leave of absence and the Lincoln Board of Curators announced the review.

As word of Candia-Bailey’s death and her email spread, blame and criticism grew among alumni and students–most of it directed at Moseley, who fired Candia-Bailey the week before she died.

Her termination letter read, in part, that she “was being fired ‘due to your continued failure to appropriately supervise your staff and continued failure to properly supervise the area of student affairs at Lincoln University.’”

Candia-Bailey’s email addresses her firing, admitting to mistakes and detailing the times she tried to work within the university’s processes and seek ways to improve.

At a Board of Curators meeting in February , Lincoln students held up pictures of Candia-Bailey as student government leaders sat before the board to present their demands and questions.

Student leaders Falon Ensley, Kenlyn Washington and Tyree Stovall stand together after presenting demands and questions to the Lincoln University Board of Curators on Feb. 8, 2024.

Washington said Candia-Bailey's email drew attention to concerns that students have been raising for years.

“We need something to happen, we’ve been saying this constantly for years and years, and like I said, she gave us this light, but it’s been so — it took her light, but we should have been talking about this a long time ago,” Washington said.

  • Read: Open letter from the Lincoln Board of Curators

Antonio Lewis, president of the Atlanta chapter of the Lincoln University Alumni Association, was among dozens of people who received Candia-Bailey’s email. “It was a manifesto,” Lewis told the Midwest Newsroom in January. “She was very direct with what she wanted to happen and what had happened to her. I think the entire email shows the culture of bullying and go-along-to-get-along, and it is sickening.”

In an apparent nod to student and alumni concerns, the Lincoln Board of Curators President Victor Pasley is quoted in the press release stating that “this report is not the end of a process, but rather the beginning of one.”

“None of its findings have led the Board to doubt President Moseley’s ability to lead the University, but this tragedy has forced us to grapple more fully with issues facing Lincoln and our individual students and employees – ranging from mental health support to employee work and relationships,” Pasley said.

Lincoln University is promising expanded mental and behavioral health support for employees and students, and increased training for University leadership.

“I’ve had time to reflect and to discuss my future and that of the University with my family and members of the Lincoln University community,” Moseley states in the press release. “I care deeply for this University, its mission, our students, staff and faculty and I look forward to returning from administrative leave to resume my duties as President.”

Chapel is further quoted in the press release:

“While this independent report clarifies the facts about legal and procedural concerns that have been raised, it does not make Dr. Candia-Bailey’s death any less tragic for her loved ones or our University community and we continue to grieve her loss as we work with students and employees to strengthen Lincoln University moving forward.”

Lincoln University, one of two Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in Missouri, has struggled with funding shortfalls and declining enrollment. In late 2023, federal officials estimated Missouri had underfunded the college, located in Jefferson City, by almost $361.6 million for three decades.

The Missouri Independent reported that Lincoln University’s funding woes grew “over years of the state not meeting its obligation to match federal funds and school administrators dipping into the university’s other revenue streams.”

Moseley’s university biography touts the securing of the much-needed funding: “For the first time since it was federally mandated in 2000, the University received nearly $10 million, the full state match for its federal land grant funding, in May 2022 and maintained the full funding following the 2023 legislative session.”

This story comes from the Midwest Newsroom, an investigative journalism collaboration including  IPR ,  KCUR 89.3 ,  Nebraska Public Media News ,  St. Louis Public Radio  and  NPR .

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Legal Settlement Clarifies Reach of Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law

The law will stay on the books, but the settlement makes clear that it does not ban classroom references to L.G.B.T.Q. people, including in literature and class discussions.

literature review bullying in schools

By Patricia Mazzei

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​The State of Florida and plaintiffs who challenged a parental rights law that critics nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay” agreed to a settlement on Monday that clarifies the reach of the legislation, which prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through eighth grade.

The plaintiffs, a group that included students, parents, educators and L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organizations, had blamed the law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022, for causing confusion and fear in public schools. The settlement says that students and teachers are allowed to talk about sexual identity and gender orientation in public schools, as long as it is not part of formal classroom instruction.

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Roberta Kaplan, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the settlement “safeguards against hate and bullying.” She added: “Simply put, the State of Florida has now made it clear that L.G.B.T.Q.+ kids, parents and teachers in Florida can, in fact, say that they are gay.”

In its own statement, Mr. DeSantis’s office said the settlement would ensure that “children will be protected from radical gender and sexual ideology in the classroom” because the law remains on the books. The administration now expects the case to be dismissed, said Ryan Newman, the governor’s general counsel.

“We fought hard to ensure this law couldn’t be maligned in court, as it was in the public arena by the media and large corporate actors,” Mr. Newman said in the statement.

The settlement, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, comes nearly two years after Mr. DeSantis signed the law . The measure became central to the image he had built ahead of his failed presidential campaign, of a Republican who would not yield to the political left, which he derided as “woke.”

Mr. DeSantis has long defended the law as a popular, common-sense measure. Critics, he said, “actually support having woke gender ideology in the first grade.”

But the nickname stuck. And the law, along with a slew of other contentious ones signed by Mr. DeSantis in recent years, led organizations such as Equality Florida, one of the plaintiffs, to issue travel advisories last year, citing concern about diminishing rights and freedoms in the state.

Cecile Houry, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said that she and her partner, Rabbi Amy Morrison, had sued because they feared that the law could cause their two young children in public schools to face discrimination for having two mothers. The legislation might not explicitly say “don’t say gay,” said Dr. Houry, a grants manager for the city of Miami Beach, but that has been its practical effect.

“When you make everything a potential issue, a potential lawsuit and a potential firing, it really does that,” she said. “People could not or felt they should not or felt they were at risk if they did say something, so it ended up muting or silencing a lot of things.”

The law allows for parents to sue school districts over any perceived violations.

The settlement language, which the state must share with Florida’s 67 public school districts, makes clear that the law does not restrict “literary references to a gay or transgender person or to a same-sex couple” in public school classrooms. It says that L.G.B.T.Q. references are not prohibited in literature, classroom discussions, students’ academic work or its review. Nor are such references prohibited when it comes to teachers’ spouses or partners, or any other context outside of instruction.

The settlement also says that instruction must be neutral on issues of sexual orientation or gender identity, meaning that teachers cannot, for example, teach that heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality or bisexuality.

It also clarifies that the law does not prohibit lessons about or intervention to stop bullying, and does not require the removal of “safe spaces” in schools for L.G.B.T.Q. people or stickers that identify such places.

And it makes clear that student-run organizations such as gay-straight alliances are permitted in Florida schools, along with book fairs, musicals or plays with L.G.B.T.Q. references or characters, and expressions and clothing that do not conform with a person’s perceived gender identity.

The law does not apply to school library books, so long as they are not being used for instruction, the settlement stipulates.

Patricia Mazzei is the lead reporter for The Times in Miami, covering Florida and Puerto Rico. More about Patricia Mazzei

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Literature Review on Bullying

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Jo Dominado

literature review bullying in schools

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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.

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    Anti-bullying interventions in schools: a systematic literature review Abstract This paper presents a systematic liter-ature 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

  13. 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 ...

  14. 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 ...

  15. A Systematic Review of Bullying Prevention Programs in Schools

    Because it is crucial for social workers to understand. the impact of bullying prevention programs, a systematic review was conducted for this. project to identify which programs have been found to be successful. A total of 518. reports concerned with bullying prevention were found, and 33 were assessed for. eligibility.

  16. (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.

  17. Systematic Review of Intervention and Prevention Programs to ...

    The literature review reported the lack of whole-school approaches, and most programs were not explicitly designed according to a SEL taxonomy despite the importance of socio-emotional skills in preventing prejudicial bullying. The review highlights the relevance of a socio-ecological approach to universal and targeted interventions.

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

    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.

  19. Frontiers

    A systematic literature review and meta-analysis are used to explore which types and features of technology can enhance mental health. ... Bullying generally includes traditional bullying and cyberbullying. ... X., Tang, S., Ren, Z., and Wong, D. F. K. (2019). Prevalence of depressive symptoms among adolescents in secondary school in mainland ...

  20. PDF Literature Review on Bullying

    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).

  21. PDF School bullying prevention and intervention strategies in the United

    school bullying were captured during its participation in the GSHS in 2005, 2010 and 2015. The introduction of Wadeema's Law in ... 26 Marín-Balcázar S, Guachichullca-Guamán M. A systematic review of the literature on models, programs and intervention strategies on bullying and Cyberbullying. MSKN 2022;13:21-33.

  22. Bullying in children: impact on child health

    Bullying in childhood is a global public health problem that impacts on child, adolescent and adult health. Bullying exists in its traditional, sexual and cyber forms, all of which impact on the physical, mental and social health of victims, bullies and bully-victims. Children perceived as 'different' in any way are at greater risk of ...

  23. PDF Last updated: November 2013 www.ojjdp.gov/mpg Bullying

    Ttofi and Farrington argue that more work needs to be done to develop and test theories of how anti-bullying programs can work. That being said, a review of childhood bullying literature by Liu and Graves (2011) resulted in the identification of four major frameworks for understanding bullying and its predictors.

  24. School bullying prevention and intervention strategies in the United

    Introduction Schools in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) witnessed an increase of 7% in bullying prevalence since 2005. This review aimed to map antibullying interventions in the UAE. Methods A systematic search was performed in five electronic databases (EMBASE, PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus and Eric) using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping ...

  25. A Systematic Review of Bullying and Victimization Among ...

    This study provides a systematic review of literature from India on traditional bullying and victimization among school-going adolescents. A search of bibliographic electronic databases PsycINFO, MEDLINE, ERIC, Web of Science, and PubMed was performed in May 2020. Thirty-seven studies were included in the review. For each study included, the following specifics were examined: (a ...

  26. Frontiers

    Introduction: This scoping review aims to examines yoga taught to children in a variety of different educational settings including after-school and in-school activity. Yoga has been found to support children in regard to wellbeing in a number of ways.Methods: A scoping review using a systematic approach was undertaken using EBSCO, CINAHL, Medline and Psycinfo.

  27. Review clears Lincoln University president of 'claims of bullying

    Lincoln's Board of Curators commissioned the third-party review in January, after its vice president for student affairs died by suicide. Antoinette Candia-Bailey emailed a scathing indictment ...

  28. Fairfax School Allows Students to Opt Out of ...

    'The opt-out was designed specifically for Jewish families due to Jewish children in the past being subjected to bullying, teasing, taunting.'

  29. Legal Settlement Clarifies Reach of Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' Law

    The law will stay on the books, but the settlement makes clear that it does not ban classroom references to L.G.B.T.Q. people, including in literature and class discussions. By Patricia Mazzei ...

  30. (PDF) Literature Review on Bullying

    Literature Review on Bullying Christie Blazer, Senior Research Analyst Research Services Office of Accountability and Systemwide Performance Miami-Dade County Public Schools 1500 Biscayne Boulevard, Suite 225 Miami, Florida 33132 March 2005 The School Board of Miami-Dade County, Florida Mr. Frank J. Bolaños, Chair Dr. Robert B. Ingram, Vice Chair Mr. Agustin J. Barrera Ms. Evelyn Langlieb ...