Four Decades of Research on School Bullying

An Introduction

Shelley Hymel University of British Columbia

Susan M. Swearer University of Nebraska–Lincoln and Born This Way

Foundation, Los Angeles, California

This article provides an introductory overview of ﬁndings

from the past 40 years of research on bullying among

school-aged children and youth. Research on deﬁnitional

and assessment issues in studying bullying and victimiza-

tion is reviewed, and data on prevalence rates, stability,

and forms of bullying behavior are summarized, setting the

stage for the 5 articles that comprise this American Psy-

chologist special issue on bullying and victimization. These

articles address bullying, victimization, psychological se-

quela and consequences, ethical, legal, and theoretical

issues facing educators, researchers, and practitioners,

and effective prevention and intervention efforts. The goal

of this special issue is to provide psychologists with a

comprehensive review that documents our current under-

standing of the complexity of bullying among school-aged

youth and directions for future research and intervention

efforts.

Keywords: bullying, victimization, school violence

chool bullying has been around for as long as

anyone can remember, featured in Western litera-

ture for over 150 years (e.g., Charles Dickens’s

Oliver Twist [Dickens, 1839/1966]; Thomas Hughes’s Tom

Brown’s School Days [Hughes, 1857/1892]). Today, bul-

lying permeates popular culture in the form of reality TV

and violent video games, and in our free-market, capitalist

society. In contrast, empirical research on bullying is a

relatively recent focus, the earliest studies emerging in the

1970s in Scandinavia (Olweus, 1978). In North America,

public concern about school bullying increased dramati-

cally in the late 1990s, owing in large part to the tragic

deaths of our youth by suicide (Marr & Fields, 2001) or

murder, especially the 1997 murder of Rina Virk (Godfrey,

2005) and the Columbine massacre in 1998 (Cullen, 2009).

Since then, bullying has received unprecedented attention

in the media and in academia, both nationally and interna-

tionally (e.g., Jimerson, Swearer, & Espelage, 2010; Smith,

Pepler, & Rigby, 2004; Swearer, Espelage, Vaillancourt, &

Hymel, 2010), and remains a signiﬁcant concern among

parents and educators. Inspired by the 2011 U.S. White

House Conference on Bullying, hosted by President and

First Lady Obama and the Department of Education, this

special issue was undertaken, inviting recognized scholars

to critically review current research and theory on school

bullying, in an effort to inform future research and practice.

Here, we describe some of what we have learned over the

past 40 years, setting the stage for the ﬁve articles that

comprise this special issue.

What Is Bullying and How Do We

Assess It?

Following the pioneering work of Olweus (1978, 1999,

2001), bullying has been deﬁned as a subcategory of inter-

personal aggression characterized by intentionality, repeti-

tion, and an imbalance of power, with abuse of power being

a primary distinction between bullying and other forms of

aggression (e.g., Smith & Morita, 1999; Vaillancourt,

Hymel, & McDougall, 2003). Scholars generally endorse

these characteristics, as does the U.S. Centers For Disease

Control (Gladden, Vivolo-Kantor, Hamburger, & Lump-

kin, 2014), the American Psychological Association (Van-

denBos, 2007), and the National Association of School

Psychologists (2012). However, assessments of bullying do

not always emphasize these components (see Hamburger,

Basile, & Vivolo, 2011, Compendium of Assessment

Tools), making distinctions between bullying and other

forms of aggression less clear (see Rodkin, Espelage, &

Hanish, 2015). Moreover, children’s descriptions of bully-

ing rarely include these deﬁnitional criteria (Vaillancourt et

Editor’s note. This article is one of six in the “School Bullying and

Victimization” special issue of the American Psychologist (May–June

2015). Susan M. Swearer and Shelley Hymel provided the scholarly lead

for the special issue.

Authors’ note. Shelley Hymel, Department of Educational and Counsel-

ling Psychology and Special Education, University of British Columbia;

Susan M. Swearer, Faculty of Education, Department of Educational

Psychology, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Shelley Hymel and Susan

M. Swearer are Co-Directors of the Bullying Research Network (http://

brnet.unl.edu).

The authors wish to acknowledge the support received for this work,

including support to the ﬁrst author from the Edith Lando Charitable

Foundation, the University of British Columbia Faculty of Education

Infrastructure Grant, and the Canadian Prevention Science Cluster, funded

through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada,

and support to the second author from the Andrew Gomez Dream Foun-

dation, the Woods Charitable Fund, and the College of Education and

Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Shelley

Hymel, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, 2125 Main

Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4 or Susan M. Swearer, 40 Teachers College

Hall, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Nebraska–Lin-

coln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0345. E-mail: [email protected] or sswearer@

unl.edu

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Vol. 70, No. 4, 293–299 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038928

al., 2008), leading many researchers to provide deﬁnitions

of bullying in their assessments.

Much debate exists regarding the best method and

informant for assessing bullying and victimization (e.g.,

Cornell & Cole, 2012; Swearer, Siebecker, Johnsen-Fre-

richs, & Wang, 2010), with measurement issues heralded

as the “Achilles heel” of bullying research (Cornell, Sheras,

& Cole, 2006). Although some suggest use of multiple

informants to establish psychometric adequacy (e.g., Ju-

vonen, Nishina, & Graham, 2001), the reality of assessing

a complex, underground behavior involving multiple par-

ticipants and inﬂuenced by multiple factors is that there

may be no single “gold standard” for accuracy. Bullying

has been assessed via parent, teacher, and peer reports, as

well as direct observations, but most rely on self-report

assessments, despite concerns about biases related to social

desirability, self-presentation, and/or fear of retaliation

(Pellegrini, 2001). Self-reports are economical and efﬁ-

cient, and give youth a much-deserved voice in the assess-

ment process, tapping perceptions of both victims and

perpetrators. Although more time consuming, peer assess-

ments are viewed as an alternative to self-reports (e.g.,

Cornell & Cole, 2012), especially given observational ev-

idence (Pepler, Craig, & O’Connell, 2010) that peers are

present in at least 85% of bullying incidents. Based on

information from multiple informants, peer assessments

can provide unique information about bullying. For exam-

ple, Chan (2006) identiﬁed two major patterns of bullying

using peer reports. “Serial bullies,” named as perpetrators

by multiple victims, accounted for nearly 70% of victim

reports. Most of the remaining reports reﬂected “multiple

victimization,” with several perpetrators bullying the same

individual. Self- and peer-reports, however, demonstrate

only modest correspondence (r range ⫽ .2 to .4; Branson &

Cornell, 2009; Crick & Bigbee, 1998; Graham & Juvonen,

1998; Österman et al., 1994; Pellegrini, 2001). Teacher and

parent reports are more suspect, given that bullying occurs

primarily in the peer group, especially in places with little

adult supervision (e.g., Vaillancourt, Brittain, et al., 2010).

Parents often have limited knowledge of what happens at

school, and teachers may not actually witness bullying

(Cornell & Brockenbrough, 2004) or may choose to ignore

it (Craig, Pepler, & Atlas, 2000).

Rather than debating the superiority of one approach

over another, we echo Juvonen et al. (2001) that these be

considered complementary sources of information, each

contributing to our understanding of bullying. Moreover,

selection of an assessment approach depends on the nature

of the research questions. If the accurate identiﬁcation of

victimized children is the focus, Phillips and Cornell

(2012) have demonstrated the utility of using a combina-

tion of peer assessments, conﬁrmed subsequently through

interviews by school counselors, underscoring the value of

investing greater efforts to assure accuracy in identiﬁca-

tion. A primary focus has been on evaluating school-based

interventions (see Bradshaw, 2015), for which peer reports

may be less sensitive to change over time than self-reports,

as they are often based on reputations that may not shift

despite behavior changes (Hymel, Wagner, & Butler, 1990;

Juvonen et al., 2001). At the same time, Frey, Hirschstein,

Edstrom, and Snell (2009) found self-reports to be less

sensitive to change than more costly and time-consuming

observations. Still, across informants, it is clear that far too

many of our youth are victims of bullying at school, a place

they are required by law to attend.

How Prevalent Is Bullying

and Victimization?

Documented prevalence rates for bullying vary greatly

across studies, with 10% to 33% of students reporting

victimization by peers, and 5% to 13% admitting to bully-

ing others (e.g., Cassidy, 2009; Dulmus, Sowers, & The-

riot, 2006; Kessel Schneider, O’Donnell, Stueve, &

Coulter, 2012; Nansel et al., 2001; Perkins, Craig, & Per-

kins, 2011; Peskin, Tortolero, & Markham, 2006). Such

variations reﬂect differences in assessment approaches, as

well as differences across individuals (sex, age), contexts,

and cultures. Typically, boys report more bullying than

girls, but girls report more victimization (e.g., Cook, Wil-

liams, Guerra, Kim, & Sadek, 2010; Olweus, 1993). De-

velopmentally, peer bullying is evident as early as pre-

school, although it peaks during the middle school years

and declines somewhat by the end of high school (e.g.,

Currie et al., 2012; Espelage & Swearer, 2003; Vaillan-

court, Trinh, et al., 2010). A recent Institute of Educational

Studies report, based on a national sample of over 4,000

youth aged 12 to 18 years (DeVoe & Bauer, 2011), showed

declines in victimization from 37% to 22% from Grade 6 to

12. Prevalence rates also vary across countries. In a recent

report by the World Health Organization (WHO; Currie et

al., 2012), examining bullying and victimization among

10-, 13-, and 15-year-olds in 43 countries, rates of victim-

Shelley Hymel

294 May–June 2015

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ization varied from 2% to 32% across countries and rates of

bullying varied from 1% to 36%.

Is bullying on the rise? Findings from the WHO

survey (Currie et al., 2012) indicated an overall decline in

peer victimization in most countries over previous years,

although the decline was small, usually less than 10% (see

also Rigby & Smith, 2011). In the United States, youth

reports of physical bullying declined from 22% in 2003 to

15% in 2008 (Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, & Hamby,

2010), but online harassment increased from 6% in 2000 to

11% in 2010 (Jones, Mitchell, & Finkelhor, 2013). Thus,

although traditional forms of bullying may be declining,

cyberbullying appears to be on the rise as access to tech-

nology becomes more ubiquitous.

How Stable Is Peer Victimization?

Peer victimization is often characterized as a rather stable

experience (e.g., “Once a victim, always a victim”), but

stability estimates vary as a function of time, age, and

methodology. Teacher and peer reports show higher stabil-

ity (e.g., r range ⫽ .5 to .7; Fox & Boulton, 2006; Hanish

et al., 2004) than self-reports (e.g., r range ⫽ .2 to .4;

Dhami, Hoglund, Leadbeater, & Boone, 2005; Fox & Boul-

ton, 2006; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996). Generally, vic-

timization is somewhat transient among younger children

(e.g., Buhs, Ladd, & Herald, 2006; Ladd & Kochenderfer-

Ladd, 2002), but becomes moderately stable for middle

elementary students, over both short intervals (4 to 5

months, Goodman, Stormshak, & Dishion, 2001; Ostrov,

2008) and across 1 or 2 years (Bellmore & Cillessen, 2006;

Ladd & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2002; Salmivalli, Lappa-

lainen, & Lagerspetz, 1998; Yeung & Leadbeater, 2010),

with 40% to 50% of students reporting consistent victim-

ization (Beran, 2008; Smith, Talamelli, Cowie, Naylor, &

Chauhan, 2004). As time intervals increase, stability esti-

mates decline, lending some hope for victimized students.

Between Grades 2/3 and 7/8, 15% to 20% of students

continue to be bullied (Kumpulainen, Räsänen, & Hent-

tonen, 1999; Schafer, Korn, Brodbeck, Wolke, & Schultz,

2005), and Scholte, Engels, Overbeek, de Kemp, and Hase-

lager (2007) found that 43% of 10- to 13-year-olds contin-

ued to be seen by peers as victims 3 years later. Across the

longest interval examined to date, Sourander, Helstelä,

Helenius, and Piha (2000) found that 12% of boys and 6%

of girls were consistently bullied from age 8 to 16. For

these youth, there seems little optimism for change. Re-

search over the past few decades has documented links

between victimization and a host of negative mental health,

social, and academic outcomes (see Card, Isaacs, &

Hodges, 2007; Hawker & Boulton, 2000; Swearer, Espel-

age, et al., 2010; Swearer & Hymel, 2015, for reviews),

with increasing evidence that victimization can “get under

the skin,” impacting neurobiological functioning (see Vail-

lancourt, Hymel, & McDougall, 2013). As part of this

special issue, McDougall and Vaillancourt (2015) move

beyond one-time, snapshot correlates to provide a critical

analysis of research on the longitudinal impact of peer

victimization over the years of childhood and adolescence,

with a focus on how peer victimization during the school

years plays out for adjustment in adulthood.

The Many Faces of Bullying

Bullying takes many forms, from direct physical harm

(physical bullying); to verbal taunts and threats (verbal

bullying); to exclusion, humiliation, and rumor-spreading

(relational or social bullying); to electronic harassment

using texts, e-mails, or online mediums (cyberbullying

Although physical and cyberbullying are often of greatest

concern, social and verbal bullying are the more common

forms experienced by students. For example, Vaillancourt,

Trinh, et al. (2010) found that 31% of Grade 4 through 12

students reported being physically bullied by peers and

12% reported being cyberbullied, whereas 51% and 37%

reported being verbally and socially bullied, respectively.

Students are often aware of rules prohibiting physical harm

to others, but verbal and social bullying are more difﬁcult

to identify.

Adults rely on youth to report bullying, especially in

its more covert forms, and classrooms in which students are

more willing to report bullying are characterized by less,

not more, victimization (Cortes & Kochenderfer-Ladd,

2014). Yet youth are reluctant to report bullying, given

legitimate fears of negative repercussions or ineffective

adult responses (see Oliver & Candappa, 2007). Positive

relationships between teachers and students may enhance

the likelihood of student reporting (e.g., Oliver & Can-

dappa, 2007), but this relationship is not always observed

(Cortes & Kochenderfer-Ladd, 2014), and with age, stu-

dents’ willingness to report bullying declines steadily

See www.stopbullying.gov/what-is-bullying/deﬁnition/index.html

for a more detailed description

Susan M.

Swearer

295May–June 2015

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(Aceves, Hinshaw, Mendoza-Denton, & Page-Gould,

2010; Kochenderfer-Ladd & Pelletier, 2008: Trach, Hymel,

Waterhouse, & Neale, 2010). Cortes and Kochenderfer-

Ladd (2014) found that students were more likely to report

bullying when they believed that teachers would respond

actively by involving parents and/or separating the students

involved, and less likely to report when they expected

teachers to punish the perpetrator, presumably for fear of

retaliation or ridicule.

Both boys and girls engage in all forms of bullying,

but sex differences are also evident, the most consistent

being boys’ greater involvement in physical bullying (e.g.,

Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz, & Kaukiainen, 1992; Cook et al.,

2010). Some studies show higher rates of relational, verbal,

and cyberbullying among girls (e.g., DeVoe & Bauer,

2011; Vaillancourt, Trinh, et al., 2010), but sex differences

do not emerge in all studies (e.g., Kokkinos & Panayiotou,

2004; Marsh et al., 2011; Prinstein, Boergers, & Vernberg,

2001; Slonje & Smith, 2008; Storch, Brassard, & Masia-

Warner, 2003). Future research is needed to understand the

impact of these different forms of bullying, although a

growing body of research suggests that cyberbullying is

more distinct from traditional or face-to-face forms than

originally thought (see Bauman, Cross, & Walker, 2013;

Kowalski, Limber, & Agaston, 2012; Runions, Shapka, &

Wright, 2013).

Different Types of Bullies

Over the past 40 years, stereotypes of bullies as socially

incompetent youth who rely on physical coercion to resolve

conﬂicts have diminished as studies document wide indi-

vidual differences among children who bully. In his early

research, Olweus (1978, 1993) distinguished between chil-

dren who bully others and those who both bully others and

are victimized. These “bully victims” have been character-

ized as hyperactive, impulsive, and as experiencing more

peer rejection, more academic difﬁculties, and more stress-

ful and harsh home environments (see Schwartz, Proctor, &

Chien, 2001), but represent only a small portion (1% to

12%) of students (Dulmus et al., 2006; Nansel et al., 2001;

Solberg & Olweus, 2003; Spriggs, Iannotti, Nansel, &

Haynie, 2007). Over the past four decades, research has

also shown that many bullies are socially intelligent

(Björkqvist, Österman, & Kaukiainen, 2000; Sutton, Smith,

& Swettenham, 1999a, 1999b) and enjoy considerable sta-

tus in the peer group (Vaillancourt et al., 2003), leading to

distinctions between socially marginalized and socially in-

tegrated bullies (Farmer et al., 2010). Adults may be less

able to recognize bullying perpetrated by students who

appear to be socially competent, well-functioning individ-

uals. Moreover, if bullying is viewed as a reﬂection of

power and status in the peer group, it is difﬁcult to con-

vince students to abandon such behavior. In their review of

our current understanding of bullying, Rodkin et al. (2015)

critically evaluate evidence for various subtypes of bullies

and explore the mechanisms and motivations underlying

them.

Can We Effectively Address Bullying?

Given a growing body of evidence on the concurrent and

long-term consequences of bullying for both bullies (see

Rodkin et al., 2015) and victims (see McDougall & Vail-

lancourt, 2015), considerable emphasis has been placed on

ﬁnding the most effective ways to address bullying, clini-

cally, legally, and educationally. This research is the focus

of the three articles in this special issue. As research in

psychology and neuroscience emphasize the interaction of

individual vulnerabilities, context effects, and experiences

with bullying and victimization, Swearer and Hymel

(2015) explore the utility of a social-ecological, diathesis-

stress model for understanding bullying as a systemic prob-

lem, with efforts to address bullying by impacting the

contexts in which such behaviors occur. Cornell and Lim-

ber (2015) review current efforts to address bullying in the

United States through legal and policy decisions and their

implications. Finally, Bradshaw (2015) provides a critical

analysis of research on how schools can best address the

problem of bullying, reviewing evidence for the effective-

ness of school-wide, universal antibullying programs.

Research over the past four decades on school bully-

ing has contributed greatly to our understanding of the

complexity of the problem as well as the challenges we

face in addressing it. Although questions still outnumber

answers, our hope is that this special issue serves as an

impetus for further research on bullying as well as greater

efforts to address the problem. In the words of one victim-

ized youth,

In conclusion, there is no conclusion to what children who are

bullied live with. They take it home with them at night. It lives

inside them and eats away at them. It never ends. So neither

should our struggle to end it. (Sarah, age 16)

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