In response to media reports of increased teasing and bullying in schools following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, we investigated its prevalence with a Virginia school climate survey completed by approximately 155,000 seventh- and eighth-grade students in 2013, 2015, and 2017. Survey results were mapped onto presidential election results…

Bullying among youth is recognized as a serious student problem, especially in middle school. The most common approach to measuring bullying is through student self-report surveys that ask questions about different types of bullying victimization. Although prior studies have shown that question-order effects may influence participant responses, no…

Bully victimization is associated with lower academic performance for individual students; however, less is known about the impact of bullying on the academic performance of the school as a whole. This study examined how retrospective administrator reports of both the prevalence of teasing and bullying (PTB) and the use of evidence-based bullying…

This article summarizes the accomplishments of research on school safety in the past quarter century, identifies important gaps, and indicates promising directions for further progress. Although closely related, there are distinguishable bodies of research on physical and psychological safety. Physical safety research concerns the prevention of…

Cross-sectional studies indicate how many students are victims of bullying at a single time, but do not tell us whether the same students continue to be bullied or whether there is a cumulative impact of bullying over time. This study examined the longitudinal stability and the cumulative impact of victimization in a sample of 382 students…

This study of 1,283 middle-school students examined the effect of an educational video designed to distinguish bullying from ordinary peer conflict. Randomly assigned classrooms of students either watched or did not watch a video prior to completing a self-report bullying survey. Compared to the control group, students who watched the video…

Schools often rely on anonymous self-report methods to measure bullying victimization, but these methods prevent school personnel from identifying those students who may require support. In contrast, this study employed peer nominations to identify student victims of bullying and used school counselor interviews to confirm the students' victim…

Although school climate has long been recognized as an important factor in the school improvement process, there are few psychometrically supported measures based on teacher perspectives. The current study replicated and extended the factor structure, concurrent validity, and test-retest reliability of the teacher version of the Authoritative…

School violence research is often concerned with infrequently occurring events such as counts of the number of bullying incidents or fights a student may experience. Analyzing count data using ordinary least squares regression may produce improbable predicted values, and as a result of regression assumption violations, result in higher Type I…

Researchers examining the effectiveness of schoolwide anti-bullying programs typically use student self reports to measure reductions in bullying. In contrast, researchers who study peer aggression frequently employ peer nominations. This study compared self reports of bullying with peer nominations in a sample of 355 middle school students. Self…

This study tested a model for understanding peer bullying as the product of aggressive attitudes and insecure attachment. A sample of 110 sixth grade students completed self-report measures that assessed attitudes toward the use of aggressive behaviour with peers and distinguished secure from insecure parental attachment. Bullying behaviour was…

Developmental research on social influences on adolescents can guide practices aimed to prevent homicidal youth violence. School shootings have repeatedly raised questions about the contributory role of bullying and entertainment violence, how news media publicity might produce copycat crimes, and whether stiffer criminal sanctions might have a…

Background: School climate is well recognized as an important influence on student behavior and adjustment to school, but there is a need for theory-guided measures that make use of teacher perspectives. Authoritative school climate theory hypothesizes that a positive school climate is characterized by high levels of disciplinary structure and…

The School Climate Bullying Survey (Cornell & Sheras, 2003) is a self-report survey used to measure attitudes and behaviors associated with school bullying. Two studies were conducted to examine the valid use of its three school climate scales: (a) Prevalence of Teasing and Bullying, (b) Aggressive Attitudes, and (c) Willingness to Seek Help.…

This quasi-experimental study examined the adoption of the Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines in 23 high schools. After training, school administrators and other staff members demonstrated substantial increases in knowledge of threat assessment principles and decreased commitment to zero tolerance approaches. Schools using the…