By National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Bullying has long been tolerated as a rite of passage among children and adolescents. There is an implication that individuals who are bullied must have "asked for" this type of treatment, or deserved it. Sometimes, even the child who is bullied begins to internalize this idea. For many years, there has been a general acceptance and collective shrug when it comes to a child or adolescent with greater social capital or power pushing around a child perceived as subordinate. But bullying is not developmentally appropriate; it should not be considered a normal part of the typical social grouping that occurs throughout a child's life.

Although bullying behavior endures through generations, the milieu is changing. Historically, bulling has occurred at school, the physical setting in which most of childhood is centered and the primary source for peer group formation. In recent years, however, the physical setting is not the only place bullying is occurring. Technology allows for an entirely new type of digital electronic aggression, cyberbullying, which takes place through chat rooms, instant messaging, social media, and other forms of digital electronic communication.

Composition of peer groups, shifting demographics, changing societal norms, and modern technology are contextual factors that must be considered to understand and effectively react to bullying in the United States. Youth are embedded in multiple contexts and each of these contexts interacts with individual characteristics of youth in ways that either exacerbate or attenuate the association between these individual characteristics and bullying perpetration or victimization. Recognizing that bullying behavior is a major public health problem that demands the concerted and coordinated time and attention of parents, educators and school administrators, health care providers, policy makers, families, and others concerned with the care of children, this report evaluates the state of the science on biological and psychosocial consequences of peer victimization and the risk and protective factors that either increase or decrease peer victimization behavior and consequences.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2016. 361p.

By Josine Junger-Tas and J.N. van Kesteren.

The Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). as well as the ministry of Justice have placed Social Cohesion, as an important subject of research, high on their agenda. In doing so the organization wants to respond to. major concerns in. Dutch society about the growing lack of social and economic integration of various groups. In this respect one might think in the first place of refugees and ethnic minorities, but of course the lack of social cohesion is not restricted to these groups. In fact, it has many faces. It may relate to certain specific population groups, which are relegated to the margins of Dutch society, but. it may also apply to some sub-sectors of the population, which find themselves in particularly unfavorable situations that impede their normal functioning and integration in society. In this respect one might think of the long-term unemployed, the disabled, the mentally disturbed, the alcohol and drug addicted, and the homeless who art roaming around in our big cities.

More in general our society has some difficulties in paying attention to those who are unable to cope with the requirements of our social system, including the criminal justice system. For example, with respect to the latter, it has taken a long time to assign a rightful place to victims of criminal offenses in criminal justice proceedings. Victims hardly had any rights and they were mainly seen and used as witnesses with the purpose of clearing up criminal cases.

One may wonder: is it not a characteristic of western culture to relegate all kinds of victims to the margins of society? Not only because they are frequently weak and cannot defend themselves, but also because they tend to reflect most clearly the shortcomings of our social system. Illustrative in this respect are the victims of domestic violence who simply have been ignored for centuries to be discovered as victims only since about the 1960's. Another example are the victims of school bullying. The problem of bullying has for a long time been considered as not serious and as something children have to sort out among themselves. Victims were considered as sissies who would benefit from being bullied? Even today some teachers claim that being bullied hardens children and teaches them useful lessons about human society. However, from the moment that victims of criminal offenses in general and victims of domestic and school violence in particular were 'discovered', and their situation was recognized as a social and legal problem, the scientific community has investigated the problem. Legal research has looked seriously to their position in the legal system and recommendations were made to improve that position in legal proceedings. In conjunction with this type of studies, criminological research concentrated on the victims as well as on their attackers. Numerous studies have been conducted on physical and sexual child abuse, wife battering and sexual abuse of women. The field of school bullying has been less explored although, since Dan Olweus' breakthrough studies in Norway in the 1970s, the subject: has been placed on the research agenda. One of the triggering elements in this respect was the finding that in a number of countries as diverse as Norway, Japan and England bullying had led to the suicide of several victims. The Meijers Institute has devoted a series of articles to the subject of social cohesion from a legal standpoint; they are published in this series as No. 6. In respect of the special position of the Meijers Institute as the research institute of the Faculty of Law of Leiden University, the institute is also interested in publishing criminological studies on social cohesion. The Meijers Institute considers the subject of school bullying relevant to the larger topic of social cohesion. Consequently we decided publish this study in our series and hope it will find a large and interested audience.

Deventer: Kluger Publications, 1999. 116p.

By European Parliament. Policy Department C - Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs.

This study provides an overview of the extent, scope and forms of cyberbullying in the EU taking into account the age and gender of victims and perpetrators as well as the medium used. Commissioned by the Policy Department for Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the LIBE Committee, the study illustrates the legal and policy measures on cyberbullying adopted at EU and international levels and delineates the EU role in this area. An analysis of legislation and policies aimed at preventing and fighting this phenomenon across the 28 EU Member States is also presented. The study outlines the variety of definitions of cyberbullying across EU Member States and the similarities and differences between cyberbullying, traditional bullying and cyber aggression. Moreover, it presents successful practices on how to prevent and combat cyberbullying in nine selected EU Member States and puts forward recommendations for improving the response at EU and Member State levels.

Brussels: European Parliament, 2016. 196p.

Institute of Medicine and National Research Council.

Bullying - long tolerated as just a part of growing up - finally has been recognized as a substantial and preventable health problem. Bullying is associated with anxiety, depression, poor school performance, and future delinquent behavior among its targets, and reports regularly surface of youth who have committed suicide at least in part because of intolerable bullying. Bullying also can have harmful effects on children who bully, on bystanders, on school climates, and on society at large. Bullying can occur at all ages, from before elementary school to after high school. It can take the form of physical violence, verbal attacks, social isolation, spreading rumors, or cyberbullying. Increased concern about bullying has led 49 states and the District of Columbia to enact anti-bullying legislation since 1999. In addition, research on the causes, consequences, and prevention of bullying has expanded greatly in recent decades. However, major gaps still exist in the understanding of bullying and of interventions that can prevent or mitigate the effects of bullying.

Building Capacity to Reduce Bullying is the summary of a workshop convened by the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council in April 2014 to identify the conceptual models and interventions that have proven effective in decreasing bullying, examine models that could increase protective factors and mitigate the negative effects of bullying, and explore the appropriate roles of different groups in preventing bullying. This report reviews research on bullying prevention and intervention efforts as well as efforts in related areas of research and practice, implemented in a range of contexts and settings, including schools, peers, families, communities, laws and public policies, and technology. Building Capacity to Reduce Bullying considers how involvement or lack of involvement by these sectors influences opportunities for bullying, and appropriate roles for these sectors in preventing bullying. This report highlights current research on bullying prevention, considers what works and what does not work, and derives lessons learned.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2014. 150p.