Why Does a Universal Anti-Bullying Program Not Help All Children? Explaining Persistent Victimization During an Intervention

Abstract

Although anti-bullying interventions are often effective, some children continue to be victimized. To increase knowledge of potential factors that might impede children's benefiting from an anti-bullying intervention, we examined potential reasons for individual differences in victimization trajectories during a group-based anti-bullying intervention. Data stem from a five-wave survey among 9122 children (7-12 years old; grades 2-5) who participated in the KiVa anti-bullying intervention (n = 6142) or were in control schools (n = 2980 children). Three trajectories were found in the intervention sample, representing children who experienced stable high, decreasing, or stable low/no victimization. A two-trajectory model of high and low trajectories represented the control sample best. Multinomial regressions on the intervention sample showed that children who experienced particularly high levels of peer rejection, internalizing problems, and lower quality parent-child relationships decreased less in victimization; thus these characteristics appeared to contribute to persistent victimization. The results call for tailored strategies in interventions aiming to reduce victimization for more children.

Peer victimization in single‐grade and multigrade classrooms

“…KiVa is a program aimed to reduce school bullying among children from grades 3-6 in elementary education (8-12 years) in the Netherlands (Huitsing et al, 2019;Kaufman, Kretschmer, Huitsing, & Veenstra, 2018). KiVa is a program aimed to reduce school bullying among children from grades 3-6 in elementary education (8-12 years) in the Netherlands (Huitsing et al, 2019;Kaufman, Kretschmer, Huitsing, & Veenstra, 2018).…”

“…Classrooms were drawn from the second wave of the KiVa study at the start of the school year (in October 2012). KiVa is a program aimed to reduce school bullying among children from grades 3-6 in elementary education (8-12 years) in the Netherlands (Huitsing et al, 2019;Kaufman, Kretschmer, Huitsing, & Veenstra, 2018). The 99 participating schools (66 intervention and 33 control schools) contained 25 schools with only single-grade classrooms, 39 schools with only administrative multigrade classrooms, 14 schools with only pedagogical multigrade classrooms, and 21 schools with both single-grade and administrative multigrade classrooms.…”

The Systematic Application of Network Diagnostics to Monitor and Tackle Bullying and Victimization in Schools

“…This is also relevant because marginalized students with low school well-being are in greater need of help than those who still enjoy going to school (Loukas and Pasch 2013;You et al 2008). Moreover, low school well-being is associated with maladjustment symptoms (Aldridge and McChesney 2018), which are risk factors for persistent victimization (Brendgen et al 2016;Kaufman et al 2018).…”

“…First, relational information cannot capture all parameters that affect group dynamics. For example, victims' internalizing symptoms or problems in their relationships with parents could be risk factors for being persistently victimized (Bowes et al 2013;Brendgen et al 2016;Kaufman et al 2018) but are not fully captured in the proposed diagnostics. However, a monitor for students should be practical to assess, including too many questions could increase the duration of filling in the monitor and can make the collected information less reliable.…”

“…Even the most effective interventions can only reduce victimization by up to 20% (Gaffney et al 2019). Students who are not helped by these interventions often remain victimized for 2 years or longer, because their problems are unnoticed or unaddressed (Brendgen and Poulin 2018;Kaufman et al 2018). Broader prevention may help to further reduce bullying but may not help teachers to recognize or respond to more complex situations, including persistent victimization.…”