Abstract
Bullying and victimization are on-going major challenges in education settings internationally. Bullying is a complex phenomenon, but research on the causes of bullying behaviors has tended to focus on individual characteristics rather than school or other environmental factors. It is increasingly recognized, however, that the prevalence of bullying and victimization is likely to be affected by the school culture, particularly policies and practices related to pupils’ behavior and their interactions with their peers and teachers. Here, I discuss some of the existing evidence and uncertainties about these themes, with detailed reference to a recent, large UK study that has examined the contribution of schools’ practice and policies to bullying and victimization. This study, using multilevel analysis within the ‘dynamic model of educational effectiveness’ theoretical framework, provided some empirical evidence that cultural factors such as the level of parental and pupil engagement, and school policies relating to bullying and behavior, and teachers’ perceptions of how policies were implemented, recorded, evaluated, contribute substantially to the prevalence of bullying. As well as describing the strengths of the study design and conduct, I discuss some of the acknowledged limitations that could inform future research into the association of school cultural factors with important non-cognitive as well as cognitive pupil outcomes.
Highlights
Bullying and victimization remain major problems in our schools
When the third level of the model factored school policies and processes into the analysis, these were found to explain about half of the school-level variance, with the strongest associations being with policies relating to bullying and behavior, the level of parental and pupil engagement, and teachers’ perceptions of how policies were implemented, recorded, evaluated, and adapted
This study adds to the evidence that school culture is associated with important non-cognitive as well as cognitive pupil outcomes
Summary
Bullying and victimization remain major problems in our schools. In the 2018 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Teaching and Learning International Survey, 29% of lower secondary school principals in England reported that ‘physical and non-physical forms of bullying among students occurred at least weekly’, an increase compared to the reported rate in 2013, and much higher than the OECD average rate (14%) [1]. Bullying harms the victim, and the perpetrator [2], and may have broader adverse effects on the learning environment and other pupils and staff in the school, and on the family and home environment [3]. Evidence exists that being bullied in school is associated with adverse consequences for a person’s long-term mental health and wellbeing [4]. Other factors affecting the patterns of bullying behavior include parental support and gender, which are associated respectively with lower involvement in bullying, and with type of bullying [6]
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