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Bullying Prevention and Response - Breakout Session, NIJ Virtual Conference on School Safety

On February 16-18, 2021, the National Institute of Justice hosted the Virtual Conference on School Safety: Bridging Research to Practice to Safeguard Our Schools. This video includes the following presentations:

Reducing Youth Violence by Leveraging the Influence of Network Brokers: Preliminary Results of Comprehensive School-Wide Intervention, Richard Gilman

The involvement of peers holds much promise for school-based anti-violence efforts to reduce the "bystander effect" (individuals who notice but avoid disclosing information to help a real or potential victim). This presentation will show how network "brokers" (i.e., those having direct relationships with peers who themselves do not have a direct relationship with each other) can be used to reduce the bystander effect. Data obtained over the first three years of a four-year study reveal significant reductions in school-reported violence episodes, self-reported aggression, and collective interpersonal distress, and significant increases in peer-to-broker disclosure.

Evaluating the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program in U.S. Urban Middle Schools, Terri Sullivan

We evaluated the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) using a multiple-baseline experimental design. For teacher ratings, we found significant main effects across all subtypes of aggression and victimization, with some variability in the timing of effects. The pattern of findings showed delayed intervention effects for boys and a weaker impact of the OBPP on 6th graders. We found main effects for student-reported cyber aggression and victimization, relational aggression, and a composite of physical, verbal, and relational victimization. Decreases in victimization emerged in the 1st or 2nd year of intervention, and reductions in aggression emerged during the 3rd year. Qualitative data that help to better understand these patterns of findings will also be presented.

Randomized Impact Evaluation of the No Bully System, Thomas Hanson

The No Bully System (NBS) is a set of interventions that are designed to activate adult and peer support for targets of bullying in a school. The goal of the study was to determine whether NBS reduced the recurrence of bullying perpetration and victimization among students, whether NBS specifically reduced bullying perpetration and victimization among those students at risk of bullying involvement (victims and perpetrators), and whether NBS improved perceptions of school safety, peer support, and other indicators of school climate among all students in participating schools. The impact evaluation used a cluster randomized experimental design that involved 24 elementary schools in the Oakland Unified School District (California). Results indicated that bullying victimization declined and safety perceptions increased among bully victims. Students in intervention schools who were at very high risk of being bully victims at baseline exhibited substantial reductions in victimization compared to their counterparts in control schools. No impacts were detected on school-wide measures of school safety, peer support, and other indicators of school climate for all students in participating schools.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Interventions to Decrease Cyberbullying Perpetration and Victimization, Josh Polanin

Numerous school-based programs have been implemented to decrease cyberbullying perpetration and victimization. Although several previous meta-analyses have been conducted on the topic, the current review is comprehensive of the published and unpublished literatures and uses modern meta-analytic techniques. A total of 50 studies and 320 extracted effect sizes spanning 45,371 participants met the review protocol criteria. Results indicated that programs reduced cyberbullying perpetration (g = -0.18) and victimization (g = -0.13). Translated to the newly developed probability of positive impact, we estimate that future implementations have a 76% and 73% probability of decreasing cyberbullying perpetration and victimization, respectively.

Date Published: February 16, 2021