Anti-Bullying Programs In Schools May Do More Harm Than Good

Anti-bullying programs in schools may be doing more harm than good.

Programs that enlist fellow students to intervene or help support the victim can lead to an increase in bullying and make it worse for the victims, according to a new study.

Peer involvement is a popular feature of anti-bullying programs at many schools, prompted by the belief that they can prove more effective than teacher-led interventions alone. This has seen many schools train students as playground buddies, given the job of trying to solve problems between children without the need for adult involvement.

Previous research has shown that the actions of bystanders, such as laughing or joining in, can intensify bullying, while the majority of playground incidents have been found to stop within 10 seconds of a peer intervention.

But there is little evidence that it was the peer interventions themselves that caused the bullying to stop, and no indication that training peers to intervene would have the same effect as spontaneous interventions based on feelings of empathy and injustice, according to the researcher behind the new study.

Instead, she identified that training peers to get involved in a bullying incident could increase both the severity of victimization and the level of distress among victims. Victims can feel disempowered if peers intervene to protect them, the presence of trained anti-bullying students can actually reinforce or provoke bullying, and interventions can erode wider peer support for the victim, the study found.

‘Many school bullying prevention programs encourage and train peer bystanders (helpers) to get actively involved in assisting with possible instances of bullying,’ said Karyn L. Healy, research officer from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute and the University of Queensland, Brisbane, author of the study.

‘Although this approach is very common and well-intentioned, there is no evidence that it helps victims. Encouraging peers to actively defend victims of bullying may actually produce adverse outcomes for victims.’

Involving other students can make an incident more public, which can damage the victim’s social status, while if peers step in then it stops the victim from dealing with it themselves, making them look weak in the eyes of the bully, Healy said.

Students trained in intervention strategies may feel it gives them higher status or may enjoy the feeling of belonging, potentially leading them to misuse their power and intervene where it was not necessary, she added.

The apparent success of anti-bullying programs involving peers may be due to other elements of the strategies, such as staff training and interventions, parent newsletters or lessons incorporating anti-bullying messages, according to the study, published today in Child Development Perspectives, the journal of the Society for Research in Child Development.

Evaluation of anti-bullying programs can also often be based entirely on whether bullying incidents have fallen, and does not always take into account the overall impact on the victim, Healy said.

Instead, schools should focus on strategies that examine the outcomes for victims, as well as on the bullying incidents themselves. Approaches are likely to be more effective if they support victims to stand up for themselves, are motivated by genuine empathy, rather than a desire to help, and do not provoke bullies or increase the visibility of victimization, Healy added.

Source Forbes