ABSTRACT
Much of our knowledge about bullying behaviors comes from research conducted over the past several decades in Europe, Australia, and Canada. For the past decade, research in the United States lagged behind our European, Australian, and Canadian counterparts. This book seeks to fill this void by forwarding research about bullying across contexts that has been conducted with participants in the United States. In this chapter, we will propose a social-ecological framework within which bullying occurs. We will argue that bullying has to be understood across individual, family, peer, school, and community contexts. Bullying and victimization are ecological phenomena that are established and perpetuated over time as the result of the complex interplay between inter-and intra-individual variables (Swearer & Doll, 2001). In order to develop and implement effective bullying prevention and intervention programs, we must understand the social ecology that establishes and maintains bullying and victimization behaviors.
