May 12, 2001

EFFECTIVE ANTI-BULLYING PROGRAMS

The Colorado legislature, following the lead of several other states, has passed a law requiring all schools to adopt policies against bullying. But it will be an empty gesture unless the policies are effective.

"People can waste a lot of time if they just rely on their intuition," said Stan Davis, a social worker and guidance counselor who participated in the Maine Project Against Bullying.

One traditional response is that it's all "sticks and stones," and that victims just need to learn how to deal with it.

Think about public attitudes 20 years ago toward sexual harassment or spousal abuse, Davis said. The dynamics of bullying are parallel: people who do these things gratify themselves by dominating others. The victims are not at fault.

His advice: Read the research.

The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, located at the University of Colorado in Boulder, did just that. For their "Blueprints" list of programs with demonstrated records of success, they chose the "Bullying Prevention Program," developed first in the 1980s by Dan Olweus at the University of Bergen, Norway, but since replicated in several other countries including the United States. The program typically reduces bullying behavior by half.

The characteristics of bullying:

-- It is aggressive behavior or intentional harm-doing

-- It is carried out repeatedly and over time

-- It occurs within an interpersonal relationship where there is an imbalance of power.

-- It can be physical, like hitting, kicking or shoving; it can be verbal, like name-calling, malicious teasing or threatening; it can be indirect, like ostracism or rumormongering.

Boys are more likely than girls both to be bullies and to be victims. In a major study of bullying among American children in grades six through 10 that appeared in the April 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, 25.9 percent of boys reported bullying others more often than once or twice a semester, compared with 13.7 percent of girls. Also, 20.7 percent of boys reported they were victims of bullies that often, and 13.7 percent of girls. Another 24 percent said they were bullied "once or twice" in the current semester.

The problem is worst in middle school, with 24.2 percent of sixth-graders saying they've been bullied often. That declines to 9.4 percent by 10th grade -- but part of that decline may be because by 10th grade, students start to drop out.

Most bullying occurs on the playground or in the classroom, but also elsewhere in school or on the way to or from school. It's not that school causes bullying, Davis said; it's just that school is a place children have to be, and where they can't avoid bullies.

The first step in the Bullying Prevention Program is a school survey to determine the extent of the problem.

That's essential, said Jane Grady, assistant director of the Center.

"Many principals are in denial," she said. "They think there isn't a problem, and there is."

But if a school really does have bullying under control, and the survey shows it, then it may not need to divert additional resources from other high-priority programs.

The aim of the program is to create a school climate that at every level -- the school, the classroom, the individual student - reinforces the message that bullying is not tolerated.

The keys are warmth, positive interest and involvement by adults; adults who are authoritative and positive role models; firm limits to unacceptable behavior; and nonhostile, nonphysical negative consequences consistently applied in cases of unacceptable behavior.

These are, the Blueprints' author observes with gentle irony, the antithesis of child-rearing practices that are linked to the development of aggressive behavior, including general permissiveness and lack of clear limits.

It's also contrary to the prevalent belief that the teacher's proper role is as a facilitator, not an authority. Will teachers who believe it's wrong to make children memorize the multiplication table be willing to intervene when a child is being bullied?

The stakes are high, not only for what happens in school but later.

Olweus' research shows that as young adults, former bullies "had a fourfold increase in the level of relatively serious, recidivist criminality."

The Bullying Prevention Program is surely not the only effective one.

For example, Grady spoke well of a Denver-area program called "Bullyproofing Your Schools," though it hasn't yet had the exhaustive evaluation necessary for a program to qualify for Blueprint status.

With or without a nudge from their state legislature, most school districts take measures to prevent bullying They owe it to the victims to be certain those measures are effective.

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