ABSTRACT
Th is chapter will describe the characteristics of elementary school classrooms that can foster or discourage peer bullying. Classrooms are important contexts for understanding bullying because most bullying interactions occur among classmates (Salmivalli et al., 1996). In particular, two features of classrooms are highly relevant to understanding bullying: (1) the quality of social relationships in the classroom; and (2) the support for students’ autonomy and self-regulation. Th ese environmental characteristics represent a social ecology that interacts with individual characteristics of the students to determine the nature and prevalence of peer bullying in any classroom. Th us, bullying could be diminished by introducing routines and practices that alter the classroom ecology so that it is less tolerant of bullying.
