Given the effort that schools in many countries are now making to reduce bullying among students, we need to know whether interventions really work and if so what kinds of interventions are most effective.
There are two recent attempts to answer this question with which I have been associated.
1. The first is a booklet prepared for the Australian Commonwealth Attorney General's Department: Rigby, K (2002) A meta-evaluation of methods and approaches to reducing bullying in pre-schools and in early primary school in Australia, Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department, Canberra. A copy of this 66 page document is available free of charge by phoning in Australia 1800 708 777. Overseas requests can be made by phoning 02 62550998 or faxing 02 62418261. Alternatively a PDF document containing the text can be downloaded.
The meta-evaluation was concerned with examining some 13 evaluative studies that are relevant to reducing bullying primarily among young children. These studies were undertaken in a wide range of countries, namely Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, Norway, Spain and the United States. In each case, measures were taken of the extent of the bullying as perceived by students before the intervention and afterwards.
2. The second is a more comprehensive study in a book edited by Peter Smith, Debra Pepler and myself: Bullying in Schools: How successful can interventions be?. This was published in 2004 by Cambridge University Press. Details of this book include an excerpt can be found at http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521528038
Similarities in anti-bullying programs
The intervention programs were, in some respects, similar. They typically included:
Divergences in how cases of bullying are dealt with
The main divergence between programs appeared was in approaches to dealing with cases of bullying. Some programs emphasised to need for clear rules about how students should treat each other and the need to apply sanctions when rules were broken. The sanctions could include detentions, loss of privileges, and suspensions, the sanction depending on the seriousness of the bullying (see Olweus, 1991). Some of the programs placed greater emphasis upon problem-solving approaches in dealing with bully/victim cases. These included the use of mediation between bullies and victims and the use of the No-Blame Approach (Maines and Robinson, 1992) and the Method of Shared Concern (Pikas, 2002).
How successful were the interventions ?
With several exceptions, the interventions were reported as successful in reducing bullying The scale of the reductions varied widely. Very few have achieved greater than 50% reduction. The average reduction in bullying after interventions was around 15%, arguably only a modest achievement.
Have some programs been shown to be more successful than others ?
The answer at this stage is ‘No’. The reported outcomes of well evaluated programs do not allow us to claim that the ‘content’ of some programs is ‘better’ than others. The most widely evaluated program in the world is the Olweus program. This has enjoyed some notable success in the three applications in Norway, but has not been successful elsewhere – for instance in Germany, Belgium and South Carolina, USA, the outcomes were disappointing. Quite different programs - ones emphasising problem-solving approaches - have yielded some success in England, Spain and Finland. (See Smith, Pepler, Rigby, 2004, for details)
Under what circumstances are interventions likely to be more successful ?
Reports indicate that success is more likely to be achieved when they are (i) applied with younger, primary school students (ii) are applied thoroughly. This implies that early intervention in addressing bullying must be a priority and thoroughness of application is crucial.
What constitutes thoroughness ?
1. An anti-bullying policy and associated program is carefully formulated and
is communicated to all members of the school community
2. Members of the school community accept responsibility for carrying out the program – and do so. In particular:
3. Thorough implementation is likely to occur when:
The need for more and better evaluations of interventions
Rigorous evaluations
of anti-bullying programs are unfortunately rare. Many ‘evaluations’ consists
of anecdotal evidence and results for which there have been no adequate experimental
or statistical controls, as in the use of control or comparison groups. Moreover,
practically all evaluations have been carried out by the people who are undertaking
the intervention and have much to gain – often financially – from
reporting successful outcomes. Neutral evaluators who are free of experimenter
bias are urgently needed to provide the necessary credibility in this field.
References
Maines, B & Robinson, G 1992, Michael's story: the 'no blame' approach, Lame Duck Publishing, Bristol.
Olweus, D 1991, 'Bully/victim problems among school children: Basic facts and effects of a school-based intervention program', in DJ Pepler & KH Rubin (eds) The development and treatment of childhood aggression, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 411-448.
Pikas, A. (2002) New Developments of Shared Concern Method. School Psychology International 23, 3, 307-326.
Rigby, K. 2002 A meta-evaluation of methods and approaches to reducing bullying in pre-schools and in early primary school in Australia, Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department, Canberra
Smith, P.K., Pepler, D. and Rigby, K. (2004) Bullying in schools: How successful
can interventions be ? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.