Schools in England are required to have an anti-bullying policy. A revised 42-item scoring scheme was used to report a content analysis of 200 anti-bullying policies. On average, school policies had 61% of items. Chi-square comparisons found an increase in policy coverage from 2008 to 2022, notably for mentioning cyber bullying and many types of…

Sexual minority youth are at greater risk for bullying victimization than their heterosexual peers but data on perpetration and cybervictimization is limited. Using representative data from seven European countries and one region (N = 14,545), this study compared traditional bullying victimization and perpetration, and cyberbullying victimization…

Despite evidence identifying bullying as leading to severe distress, few studies have focused on bullied adolescents with existing mental health conditions. With increasing prevalence rates, it is necessary to understand how these adolescents can be better safeguarded. To address the issue, this study reports the rarely conveyed viewpoints of…

Background: Bullying is widely acknowledged as one of the most harmful events in a child's life, leading to negative life experiences and outcomes. However, 'school effects of bullying' are rarely studied from an international perspective, especially with international large-scale data. Purpose: In this study, we aim to look at bullying through an…

Research shows that the attitudes of children and adolescents towards bullying are influenced by the school environment and their peer groups. Given the increased vulnerability to bullying for autistic children, this study explored whether neurotypical children's attitudes towards bullying and autism varied according to school exposure and…

Learning Together is a whole-school intervention, evaluated using a randomized controlled trial in southeast England, which reduced bullying and improved physical and mental health. This paper examines trial data using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to test hypotheses derived from embedded qualitative research about potential causal…

Herein we examine the dominant image of East Asian schools as marked by a darker side of widespread bullying, leading to high rates of youth suicide. First outlining the substantial literature on bullying in the English language, we turn to show how -- paradoxically -- the rates of bullying and suicide are no higher, or in nearly all cases, lower…

A great deal of bullying behavior takes place at school, however, existing literature has predominantly focused on individual characteristics of children associated with bullying with less attention on school-level factors. The current study, comprising 23,215 children (51% boys) recruited from Year 4 or Year 5 (M = 9.06 years, SD = 0.56 years)…

Bullying is defined in a variety of ways in different contexts, and each individual school in England is required to develop its own working definition, parameters and policy. This paper explores a variety of definitions from government and third sector organisations in the UK, making comparison with those from other contexts. In particular, it…

Sibling bullying is highly prevalent and has been found to have adverse effects on mental health lasting into early adulthood. What is unknown is what predicts sibling bullying roles (uninvolved, victim, bully-victim and bully). This study aimed to identify precursors of sibling bullying roles in middle childhood using a large sample of 6,838…

Background: Bullying is a public health concern for the school-aged population, however, the health outcomes associated with the subtype of relational bullying are less understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between relational bullying and health-related quality of life (HRQL) among young people. Methods: This study…

Despite a large amount of research focusing on bullying and exclusion in secondary schools, there is far less research focusing on cross-gender bullying and 'popular' students who experience bullying. This research provides an analysis of interactions between male and female students (aged 13-14) in a school in England. The data provides multiple…

This article reports on the complex web experienced by young people when making decisions to report bullying in school. The study was conducted in the secondary school of an independent day and boarding school in the east of England. A Participatory Action Research approach was used with student voice and perspective at its core. This study…

Background: Bullying remains a persistent phenomenon in schools, but the extent to which day-to-day policies and practices relate to bullying prevalence has not been widely studied. In this study, we use an educational effectiveness framework to interrogate this relationship. Aims: The aim was to study the relationship between school factors and…

This original study presents a content analysis of 100 primary and post-primary school anti-bullying policies in Northern Ireland using a 36-item scoring scheme. Overall schools had 52% of the items in their policies. Most schools included reference to physical, verbal, relational, material and cyberbullying but a minority mentioned racist,…