Anti-Bully Programs in Schools Increase Risk of Being Bullied, Researchers Find

Researchers of a new study found that children studying in schools with anti-bully programs are more likely to be bullied than those that don't have such programs.

Researchers from the University of Texas Arlington found that anti-bully programs in schools were not quite having the desired effect. In fact, it was only aggravating the problem of bullying.

In a recently conducted study, researchers from the University found that children studying in schools with anti-bully programs were more likely to be bullied than the children whose schools didn't have such programs.

"One possible reason for this is that the students who are victimizing their peers have learned the language from these anti-bullying campaigns and programs," said Seokjin Jeong, an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at UT Arlington and lead author of the study, which was published in the Journal of Criminology.

For their study, Jeong and his co-author, Byung Hyun Lee, a doctoral student in criminology at Michigan State University, analyzed data from the 'Health Behavior in School-Aged Children 2005-2006 U.S. study.' The HBSC study has been conducted every four years since 1985 and is sponsored by the World Health Organization. The sample consisted of 7,001 students, aged 12 to 18, from 195 different schools.

The scientists found that younger students were more likely to become victims of bullying than older students. Bullying was at its peak among sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Researchers also found that boys were more likely to be physically bullied than girls, while girls were more likely to be victims of emotional bullying.

Authors of the study also noted that a lack of a supportive environment from parents and teachers was likely to increase the risk of bullying and its victimization.

They suggest that schools should focus on more sophisticated strategies rather than just implementing anti-bullying programs along with school security measures such as guards, bag and locker searches or metal detectors.