Research on School Bullying and Victimization: What Have We Learned and Where Do We Go from Here? [Mini-Series]

This special i,sue nn bullying and victimization in Schooll',I'rc!l%gr Rel'ieu' highlights current research elTol1:> in American schools on bullying and peer victimization. and how this research can inform prevention and intervention planning. nlis introductory article provides a brief overview of several major insights gained over the last decade from research on bullying in school-aged youth and sets the stage for the special issue. Research on psychosOl:ial currelates in bullying behaviors is reviewed and four insights that provide directions fur future research are derived. The contributing authors in the special i,sue augment these insights by examining the intluence of the peer ecology on bullying (Rodkin & Hodges. 20031. using longitudinal and multivariate melhodologies in bullying research (Long & Pellegrini. 20(3). assessing the climales within the schuol where bullying typically occurs (letT. Power. Cosligan. & Manz. 20m I. exploring implementation issues of school-wide bullying prevention programming (Orpinas. Home. & Staniszewski. 2003 I. reviewing laws and policies lo address bullying (Limher & Small. 20(3), and challenging researchers to reach a consensus on bullying research (Furlong. Morrison. & Greif. 20m). School bullying among children and adolescents has been the focus of many international studies over the last 30 years. In his seminal research, Norwegian scholar Daniel Olweus ( 1972) coined bullying a" "mobbing." and defined it as an individual or a group of individuals harassing, tcasing. or pestering another person. However, it was not until 1982 that school officials in Norway turned their attention to school bullying, and did so only after three 14-year-old boys committed suicide as a result of extreme harassment from classmates (Olweus, 1993). Following these events. the Ministry of Education in Norway launched a national campaign against bullying in which a prevention program was implemented in every primary and secondary school. Indeed. many other countries have recognized bullying as a serious concern. including England. Italy. Canada. Japan. the United States. and Australia. to name a few. Recent events in the United States raise some issues about the transportability of international findings to the culture of American Address correspondcnce rcgarding this article to Dorothy L. Espelagc. Ph.D.. Derallmcnt of Educational Psychology. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. College of Education. 226 Educatiun Building. 1310 South Sixth Street. Champaign. lL 61820-6lJ90; E-mail: [email protected]. l65 Copyright 2003, National Association of School Psychologists. Used by permission.