ABSTRACT
The authors begin with a discussion of the establishment of bullying as a scientific concept, emphasizing a good definition and a suitable instrument for measurement, convergent and discriminant validity, and sensitivity to real change. The main focus of the chapter is an overview of six large-scale effect evaluations of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) in Norway. Results from these six studies, comprising a total of 225 elementary schools and 54,000 students, constitute a unique record of positive replications, with a highly significant overall absolute reduction of bullied students by 4.4 percentage points (relative change by 33%) after 8 months of intervention. For bullying other students, absolute reduction amounted to 2.2 percentage points (relative change = 43%). Given concerns about a marked lack of successful anti-bullying interventions in the US, the authors include a short description of their study in Pennsylvania with more than 70,000 students, which showed improvements in almost all grades studied (3–11) after implementation of the OBPP. In addition, a new Norwegian study is described, which documents long-term decreases in being bullied, two to eight years after original implementation for schools that continued to use the OBPP schools, compared with schools that had likely discontinued its use. The chapter ends with a discussion of some common challenges in implementation of the program, including resistance and scepticism from staff, a focus on simple approaches, lack of preparedness, implementation with fidelity, and administrator turnover.
