Bullying Prevention
Conflict resolution and bullying prevention are natural partners. A comprehensive violence prevention plan should include both. Schools that have a solid conflict resolution program in place are ideally positioned to engage in bullying prevention as a next step. Conflict resolution teaches students how to solve problems when power is fairly equal and when both parties have some interest in resolving the conflict. Bullying, on the other hand, occurs when one party has more power, that party has no interest in resolving the problem, and he is primarily interested in hurting the other. In these circumstances, conflict resolution techniques are not likely to be effective, so other methods must be in place. (To learning more about bullying prevention, please visit our online learning module.)
A bullying prevention program should teach students how to distinguish normal peer conflict, which responds well to conflict resolution strategies, from bullying violence, which warrants a different set of strategies. Once students understand which type of conflict they are dealing with, they can decide which strategies to use. There are several factors (for example, contextual factors and personality traits) that determine when some strategies are more appropriate than others.
Rethinking the deeper impacts that bullying has on our school culture is important for existing conflict resolution programs. While many such programs have a long history of creating safe and caring youth cultures and providing students and staff with specific skills to confront injustice, the recent attention to bullying has expanded the importance of this work and has provided language and additional strategies for surfacing and handling this more serious form of conflict and violence. Likewise, bullying prevention programs can benefit from the comprehensive experience that conflict resolution programs offer.
Videos of Possible Interest
- Puppet Show – Kids Against Bullying
- The Transformation of West Philadelphia High School: a story of hope
- Another Bully Busters Song
- Peaceful School Bus Program – Hazelden Foundation
- On-the-Spot Bullying Prevention
- Cyberbullying (UNICEF)
- Girls Bullying
- Cyberbullying Toolkit: Webinar Archive
- Overview of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program
- Teaching Students How to “Stand Up” to Bullying – Webinar Archive
- Cyberbullying Toolkit for Educators
- Bullied: A Student, a School and a Case That Made History
- PAX Good Behaviour Game
- Students Take on Cyberbullying
- On-the-Spot Mediation: how to use your skills in everyday life
- Help Increase the Peace Students Bullying Research Project
- Social Emotional Learning via The Heart Story (RCCP)
See MORE VIDEOS...
Sample Catalog Resources
Below you'll find a randomized listing of up to 20 related items (we may have more...) drawn from our Resource Catalog.
| Resource Title | Description | Links |
|---|---|---|
| Bully Prevention in Positive Behavior Support for Middle Schools | This 45-page handbook focuses on school-wide positive behavior support, explicit instruction, and a redefinition of the bullying construct in a middle school. | |
| Steps to address bullying at your school: tips for school administrators | Pdf document with advice to school administrators on addressing bullying at school. | |
| Cyber bullying | Word document examining bullying in cyberspace, with advice to parents and young people from Aman Batheja. | |
| International network on school bullying and violence: March 2007 overview | Powerpoint presentation overview of the work of the International Network on School Bullying and Violence whose aim is to, "stimulate and support more effective measures against school bullying and violence." | |
| Misdirections in bullying prevention and intervention | Pdf document which discusses mistakes made in dealing with bullies and suggestions for alternative strategies. | |
| Bullying behavior chart | Pdf document in table form which outlines three types of bullying, (physical, emotional and social), as well as levels of severity, with behaviors in each section, adapted from, "New Jersey cares about bullying." | |
| Scope and impact of bullying | Pdf document which discusses bullying. | |
| Stop Bullying Now Activities Guide | A 12-page pdf of activity ideas for preventing bullying in schools and youth serving organizations. | |
| Tug of war - Peace Through Understanding Conflict | This 10-chapter 104-page book, available as a pdf, is for youth ages 8-16 interested in a peaceful world - and in understanding the forces that cause conflict, both in personal relationships and across the globe. Tug of War describes: 1) What the roots of war are. 2) How we create "The Enemy". 3) A new way to handle violence. Illustrated by award-winning artist, Rod Cameron. Part of the Education for Peace Series by Atrium Society Publications | |
| Kids Working It Out Resource Appendix | A listing of books, publications and websites provided in the appendix to Tricia S. Jones and Randy O. Compton (Eds.) 2003 book Kids Working It Out: Stories and Strategies for Making Peace in Our Schools. | |
| Measuring Bullying Victimization, Perpetration, and Bystander Experiences: A Compendium | This compendium (128-page pdf) provides researchers, prevention specialists, and health educators with tools to measure a range of bullying experiences: bully perpetration, bully victimization, bully-victim experiences, and bystander experiences. The compendium represents a starting point from which researchers can consider a set of psychometrically sound measures for assessing self-reported incidence and prevalence of a variety of bullying experiences. | |
| Community-based bullying prevention: tips for community members | Pdf document, geared toward community members, discussing bullying prevention. | |
| Social and Emotional Learning and Bullying Prevention | 21-page briefing paper prepared for the National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and the Social and Emotional Learning Research Group at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Schools using a social and emotional learning (SEL) framework can foster an overall climate of inclusion, warmth, and respect, and promote the development of core social and emotional skills among both students and staff. Because bullying prevention is entirely congruent with SEL, it can be embedded in a school's SEL framework. The aims of this brief are to (a) provide a basic description of a school-wide SEL framework, (b) illustrate the relationship between social and emotional factors and bullying, and (c) explain how an SEL framework can be extended to include bullying prevention." | |
| Bullying prevention: CRETE training day 3 | Powerpoint presentation for educators on bullying and ways to prevent bullying behavior. | |
| Involvement of law enforcement officers in bullying prevention | Pdf document examining ways in which law enforcement personnel can be involved in the prevention of bullying. | |
| STOP: On-the-spot bullying intervention | Word document presenting actions and statements for on-the-spot intervention of bullying behavior. | |
| Bullying in cyberspace | Word document examining bullying in cyberspace. | |
| Educational resources: articles, books, films about bullying and teasing | Word document provides list of books, articles and films on bullying and teasing. | |
| Research-based books and articles on bullying and peer victimization | Pdf document presents list of books and articles on bullying and peer victimization. | |
| Assessing the status of your school's comprehensive bullying prevention plan | Pdf document which presents a series of questions to help educators determine the status of bullying programs, based on Dan Olweus's, "Bullying prevention program." |