One important area of focus in support of the whole student is school environment. A key aspect of school environment is student culture, and we might even say cultures, that can evolve within particular classrooms and other collective spaces and activities, grades, and, gender groups. New research led by renowned bullying expert Dorothy Espelage suggests that a positive, high empathy, low-tolerance for bullying student culture may be essential to enabling peer intervention on behalf of bullied students.

Study examines what factors may predict intervention to stop bullies

by Sharita Forrest / U Illinois Press Release / 19 December 2011

Prof. Dorothy Espelage, educational psychology

A new study of more than 346 middle-school children indicates that boys are less likely than girls to intervene to protect a bullying victim, especially if the boy is a member of a peer group in which bullying is the norm. The study also suggests that anti-bullying programs that focus on bystander intervention and empathy training aren’t likely to have much impact unless attention is given to reducing bullying perpetration within children’s peer groups.

The study, led by educational psychologist Dorothy Espelage at the University of Illinois, examined the attitudes and behaviors of sixth- and seventh-grade students and their networks of friends to determine if certain factors – such as gender, empathy and belonging to peer groups that perpetrate bullying – might be predictive of bystander intervention.

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Image Source: article (staff photographer L. Brian Stauffer)