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TITLE OF GOOD PRACTICE:

Effectiveness of Programmes to Reduce School Bullying

KEYWORDS:

Scholarly research document, indepth reviews of programmes from many different countries, useful conclusions and recommendations

GOOD PRACTICE TYPOLOGY:

Researches

TARGET GROUPS:

Policy Makers, Researchers, School Directors

WORKING GROUP COORDINATING THE INITIATIVE:

Publisher: Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention
Authors: Maria M. Ttofi, David P. Farrington and Anna C. Baldry

COUNTRY WHERE IT TOOK PLACE:

United Kingdom / Sweden

LANGUAGE OF THE REVIEW:

English

DEFINITION OF TARGET GROUP:

Policy Makers, Researchers, School Directors.

DESCRIPTION OF THE GOOD PRACTICE:

Published in 2008, this report presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of anti-bullying programmes based on very specific criteria. Extensive searches were carried out to find reports on anti-bullying programmes in schools. A total of 593 reports were found, but only 59 of these (describing evaluations of 30 different programmes) were selected for inclusion in this review.

Studies were included in this review if they evaluated the effects of an anti-bullying programme by comparing an experimental group who received the intervention with a control group who did not. Four types of research design were included: a) randomized experiments, b) experimental- control comparisons with before and after measures of bullying, c) other experimental-control comparisons and d) age-cohort designs, where students of age X after the intervention were compared with students of the same age X in the same school before the intervention. Also, studies were included if bullying was measured using a self-report questionnaire and if the initial sample size (the total number of children in experimental and control conditions) was at least 200.

RESULTS:

This 'Good Practice' is a lot of 'Good Practices' rolled into one, as it is a review of a number of different interventions/programmes to combat bullying that have been developed and tested in school setting. Each programme reviewed includes statistical information on success/effectiveness rates.

EVALUATION:

This report/systematic review is for Local Government Officers, Head teachers and researchers who are interested in a really in-depth professional review of the effectiveness of anti-bullying programmes from across many countries of the world.

Systematic reviews are one means of helping people to pick their way through the jungle of research findings. This review combines a number of evaluations that are considered to satisfy a list of empirical criteria for measuring effects as reliably as possible. The results of these evaluations are then used to calculate and produce an overall picture of the effects that a given measure does or does not produce. The review aims to systematically combine the results from a number of studies in order to produce a more reliable overview of the opportunities and limitations associated with a given bullying prevention strategy.

Much of the content of the review is about the technicalities of how each country's project has been undertaken but for those more interested in the success rate of the various interventions / programmes reviewed we recommend the descriptions in section 4, pages 30-50, these we feel are useful to enable the reader to identify programmes which may be of interest for further investigation / implementation.

We also recommend the conclusions section which identifies the most important programme elements associated with a decrease in bullying. These were parent training, improved playground supervision, disciplinary methods, school conferences, information for parents, classroom rules, classroom management, and videos. The conclusions also suggest that programmes inspired by the work of Dan Olweus worked best.

The most important programme elements that were associated with a
decrease in victimization were videos, disciplinary methods, work with peers, parent training, cooperative group work and playground supervision. In addition, the duration of the programme for children and teachers, and the intensity of the programme for teachers, were significantly associated with a decrease in victimization.

Finally, for those interested in sources for further research there is a very extensive list of references at the end of the report. pages

COMMENT:

A PDF copy of the review is available from the following link: http://www.bra.se/extra/pod/?action=pod_show&id=1&module_instance=11. Click on the flag of your langage of choice and then enter the document title in the search engine.

For further in for information on the success or otherwise of different interventions in different countries we also recommend a book called 'Bullying in Schools' edited by Peter K Smith, Debra Pepler and Ken Rigby which follows a similar path by assessing a variety of different intervetion programmes across the world.

NAME OF COMPILER:

Roger Murfin

NAME OF INSTITUTION:

Wilsthorpe Community School

ROLE:

Business Manager

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