A school near me has just held its "anti-bullying week" and the phrase, "lipstick on a pig" comes to mind. Such a campaign may raise awareness, but it will not change behavior.
Research shows that carrot and stick or reward and punishment approaches are not effective. Gold stars highlight what is exhibited, demerits teach how to conceal.
Words of the week or values-assemblies lead at best to joint singing of the appropriate phrases. Students quickly learn to play the game.
Posters and banners are easy to ignore, and are, or alternatively may be enhenced with at best mustaches and spectacles.
Spirit rallies frequently descend into "kill them all" chanting or something similar, hardly the desired effect of an anti-bullying effort. Even peer-based conflict resolution hsa been shown to increase bullying.
These campaigns have so trivialized the term and the concept that it has in many cases become meaningless. The worst thing is that anything a student or parent does not like is immediately labeled as "bullying" when more often than not it is boorish behavior and rudeness. Pre-schoolers, even lower grade-schoolers, rarely engage in bullying. At that age, almost all behavior is reactive, self-centered and impetuous.
Middle and high school pushing, shoving and blows rarely results from bullying, and where it does, physical bullying is relatively easy to spot and to address. What is hard to spot and is so dangerous is psychological bullying and none of those lipstick solutions will even touch this.
Bullying comes from culture and ths is the real issue. Schools can work on their own culture, aka "climate" and substantial evidence shows how school climate can does make a difference. However schools also exist within family climates and sociatel climates and those are more difficult to address.
Effective and successful strategies and approaches for changing school culture are well-documented, but at the very least they must be schoolwide, integrated horizontally and vertically so including board members, administrators, staff adn faculty and the youngest, and integrated into the curriculum. A set of comprehensive Policies and Practices aimed at school culture will have an effect, and not a bunch of slogans.
**Please leave your questions and comments below**
Further reading
When this happens at a school, the school itself is guilty of bullying
Something in this response's tone does not seem right
https://www.today.com/parents/how-stop-bullying-schools-what-works-what-doesn-t-t159669
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_are_the_best_ways_to_prevent_bullying_in_schools
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11280559
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