Research on bullying prevention and intervention has mostly focused on whole-school programs, often emphasizing their success, as these programs tend to reduce bullying compared with schools that follow their usual practices. Much less attention has been paid to evaluating the effectiveness of adult intervention addressing specific bullying cases once they have come to light. However, existing evidence suggests that bullying continues in 20–30% of cases despite adult intervention, even in schools implementing whole-school antibullying programs. To better understand why bullying sometimes persists, it is important to shift the focus to bullying cases in which intervention is unsuccessful.
In the study “Interventions That Failed: Factors Associated with the Continuation of Bullying After a Targeted Intervention”, we examined how often teachers’ targeted intervention fails to stop bullying and whether these unsuccessful actions are related more to differences between schools or to differences between individual bullying cases. We also explored which characteristics are associated with intervention failure.
Data were collected annually between 2011 and 2016 through online surveys from students in 2,107 Finnish comprehensive schools implementing the KiVa antibullying program. These unsuccessful interventions were examined from the perspectives of both victimized students and bullying perpetrators.
Every fourth attempt to intervene in bullying is unsuccessful
Although interventions were generally effective, they were unsuccessful in approximately one out of four cases. Specifically, 27% of students whose victimization had been addressed by adults at school reported no improvement in their situation after the intervention. Similarly, 21% of students who had bullied others reported no reduction in their bullying behavior following the intervention.
Unsuccessful interventions were explained mostly by differences between bullying cases and the students involved. However, the success of interventions also varied across schools.
Factors associated with intervention success
The findings from the study emphasize the importance of intervening early. Interventions were more successful among younger students and when bullying was less frequent and had lasted for a shorter period of time. Being both victimized and involved in bullying others, exposure to multiple forms of bullying, and lack of social support also affected intervention success. In particular, interventions were less successful when a student had been both victimized and had bullied others, when online bullying was involved, or when a victimized student had no friends in the class.
Teachers and parents play an important role as well. Interventions were more likely to succeed when the students who had bullied others held antibullying attitudes and believed that their teachers and parents were against bullying.
Conclusions
Understanding the challenges of anti-bullying interventions and identifying effective ways to address the most difficult cases require attention to the characteristics of each bullying case. However, intervention success varied between schools as well, regardless of the specific bullying case being addressed. This suggests that future studies should also examine school-level factors that may help explain these differences in intervention effectiveness.
Blog is based on a study:
Johander, E., Turunen, T., Garandeau, C. F., & Salmivalli, C. (2024). Interventions That Failed: Factors Associated with the Continuation of Bullying After a Targeted Intervention. Int Journal of Bullying Prevention, 6, 421–433. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-023-00169-7
Author:
Eerika Johander, PhD, is Senior Researcher at the INVEST Research Flagship Center at the University of Turku.