Overcoming Limitations in Peer-Victimization Research That Impede Successful Intervention: Challenges and New Directions

Peer victimization at school is a worldwide problem with profound implications for victims, bullies, and whole-school communities. Yet the 50-year quest to solve the problem has produced mostly disappointing results. A critical examination of current research reveals both pivotal limitations and potential solutions. Solutions include introducing psychometrically sound measures to assess the parallel components of bullying and victimization, analyzing cross-national data sets, and embracing a social-ecological perspective emphasizing the motivation of bullies, importance of bystanders, pro-defending and antibullying attitudes, classroom climate, and a multilevel perspective. These solutions have been integrated into a series of recent interventions. Teachers can be professionally trained to create a highly supportive climate that allows student-bystanders to overcome their otherwise normative tendency to reinforce bullies. Once established, this intervention-enabled classroom climate impedes bully-victim episodes. The take-home message is to work with teachers on how to develop an interpersonally supportive classroom climate at the beginning of the school year to catalyze student-bystanders' volitional internalization of pro-defending and antibullying attitudes and social norms. Recommendations for future research include studying bullying and victimization simultaneously, testing multilevel models, targeting classroom climate and bystander roles as critical intervention outcomes, and integrating school-wide and individual student interventions only after improving social norms and the school climate.

Automated summary

Peer victimization at school is a worldwide problem with significant implications across various stakeholders. Despite 50 years of efforts to solve the problem, the results have been disappointing. However, a critical examination of current research has identified limitations and potential solutions, including the use of reliable measures, cross-national data analysis, and a social-ecological perspective. These solutions have been integrated into recent interventions, such as training teachers to create a supportive classroom climate and encouraging student-bystanders to adopt pro-defending and antibullying attitudes. It is important to focus on developing an interpersonally supportive classroom climate at the beginning of the school year to promote positive social norms and attitudes among students.