Speakers
Description
School bullying is a worldwide phenomenon. It causes harm to those involved, and to the school community where it occurs. It has immediate but also longer-term negative consequences on mental health, and well-being. As a research area, publications and interventions have increased exponentially since the 1970s/80s, with now hundreds of articles appearing every year. Its importance is recognized by the annual international day devoted to this topic since 2020 by UNICEF: International day against violence and bullying at school including cyberbullying (unesco.org) Apart from a handful of isolated publications, this now very substantial research program owes its genesis, at least in western countries, to the work of Professor Dan Olweus. Dan Olweus died on September 29th, 2020, at his home in Baerum, Norway, at the age of 89. For some 50 years he had worked on the topic of bullying in school, right up to a few days before his death. He developed the first widely used questionnaire to survey the issue of bullying and victimization (the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire, or OBQ); was instrumental in designing the first intervention campaign against school bullying in Norway, in the 1980s; developed a multi-layered program of intervention, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP), used in many countries; and inspired many other scholars across the globe to start researching and tackling this vitally important human issue. This symposium aims to honour the work and legacy of Dan Olweus, generally seen as the ‘founding father’ of this area of research.
Keywords
Bully Victim Olweus Questionnaire Intervention
Additional field for symposia
Vassiliki Artinopoulou is Chair and Yuichi Toda is co-Chair
Paper 1: Peter K Smith Overview and the early years in Sweden
This paper will summarise how research on school bullying has developed since the early work in the 1970s and 1980s. Using bibliometric data, it will illustrate the massive growth in publications over recent decades. Main trends will be identified, including main foci of research interest, the emergence of cyberbullying as a phenomenon in this century, increasing cross-national collaborations, and the increase in meta-analyses as individual studies have proliferated. The topic can now be considered as a research program on a world-wide basis. The paper will continue with an account of Dan Olweus’ early career, his work on aggression, his PhD, and his increasing interest in school bullying. It will conclude with an assessment of the impact of Dan Olweus’ work, and his legacy to future researchers and practitioners.
Paper 2: Erling Roland Norway and the First Nationwide Campaign against Bullying
This paper describes how Dan Olweus and I worked together in designing the first Norwegian campaign and pictures Olweus’ principal understanding at that time of aggression and bullying. We wrote a small book for the schools (Olweus & Roland 1983), which outlined a definition of bullying, main dynamics, and anti-bullying efforts, which is reviewed. A questionnaire to evaluate the effect of the campaign was also worked out. The paper finishes by comments on how the content of the campaign and the questionnaire became central in Olweus’ later anti-bullying program.
Paper 3: Kyrre Breivik Norway and the later years
Dan Olweus was actively publishing and conducting research on bullying until his death in September 2020. This paper will present the main contributions throughout the last 25 years of his career. This includes some large-scale implementations and evaluations of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) in Norway and the US. Together with colleagues, he also published several influential papers on the measurement of bullying, cyber bullying, and long-term effects of OBPP during the later years of his career. The chapter will also include some glimpses of Dan Olweus’ involvement in various debates in the media about issues such as the definition and measurement of bullying as well as the effect of the OBPP.
Paper 4: Wenxin Zhang Dan Olweus and School Bullying Research in China: Impact and Impetus
This paper summarizes and discusses Olweus’ enormous impact on school bullying research and intervention practice in China and the inspirations that his ground-breaking work has produced for professionals in the country in pursuing the scholarship of school bullying and effective strategies to protect the wellbeing of its large population of youth in recent years. The paper will be organized around four topics: (1) Olweus’s definition of bullying and the indigenous study of the construct of qiling or qifu (Chinese equivalent of the term of bullying) in China, including etymological and empirical approaches such as interview, and hypothetical scenarios, and cartoon study designed by Peter Smith; (2) Application of the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire and its psychometric properties in Chinese samples; (3) Inspirations of the OBPP on prevention and intervention programs in China; (4) New progresses in school bullying basic research and practice in recent years in China, with a focus on the 3-H Anti-bullying Program developed by Wenxin Zhang and his colleagues, and its implementation.
Paper 5: Sue Limber The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program – Norway and overseas
This paper will provide an overview of the development and evolution of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP) over the course of the past 40 years. It will describe the impetus for the original program in Norway; its goals, principles, and program elements; the dissemination of the OBPP around the world; and adaptations to the program to respond to cultural contexts and current educational conditions. This chapter will also review the extensive research on the effectiveness of the OBPP, from initial evaluations in Norway, to current and ongoing research around the world, including Scandinavia, Germany, Lithuania, and the U.S.
| Please indicate what type of scientific contribution it is | Not applicable |
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| Please also indicate what kind of contribution it is: | Scientific |
