Giving Compass' Take:

• Despite research evidence showing effective anti-bullying methods for schools to adopt, The Hechinger Report explains that current actions being taken do not align with what is needed to make a difference.  

• How can schools use this research to improve their efforts to protect vulnerable students? What can be done about bullying on social media and outside the classroom?

• Learn about the responsibilities of school districts to protect students from bullying. 

What should schools do to address and prevent bullying?

The scientific evidence on what works is complicated.

There’s a whole cottage industry of consultants selling anti-bullying programs to schools but academic researchers say there is no proof they work. There are some small studies with positive results. But when reputable researchers study efforts to expand these strategies across schools among many students and compare bullying rates with those at schools that didn’t receive the intervention, there tends not to be a difference. For example, this 2007 review of anti-bullying programs found “little discernible effect on youth participants.”

“A lot of us know the dirty secret that these [bullying-prevention] programs don’t work out in the real world,” said Ron Avi Astor, an educational psychologist at the University of Southern California and an expert in bullying prevention. “All of us talk about it.”

Read the full article about research evidence on bullying prevention by Jill Barshay at The Hechinger Report.