Bullying A Guide to Research, Intervention, and Prevention

With the increased recognition of the devastating effects of bullying, there is now a tremendous amount of information available on its prevalence, associated factors, and the evaluation data on well known school-wide anti-bullying education, prevention, and intervention programs. Yet numerous complex issues span individual and societal variables---including individual characteristics and vulnerability, peer and family relationships and dynamics, classroom and school milieus, and stigma and discrimination---making the task of understanding, assessing, and responding to bullying on the ground complicated for researchers and nearly impossible for school-based practitioners. Untangling some of the thorny issues around what causes and constitutes bullying, including how to think differently about overlapping phenomena such as racism, sexism, homophobia, or sexual harassment, Faye Mishna presents an exhaustive body of empirical and theoretical literature in such a way as to be accessible to both students and practitioners. Chapters will equip readers to think critically about contexts, relationships, and risk and protective factors that are unique to individual students and schools, and to effectively assess and design multi-level interventions for a variety of aggressive behaviors. Paying particular attention to emerging types of victimization, such as cyber bullying, and to vulnerable groups, such as LGBTQ youth and students with disabilities, Mishna distills the key elements of successful interventions with both victims and aggressors and includes case examples and practice principles throughout. The result is an integrated, nuanced synthesis of current and cutting-edge scholarship that will appeal to students, practitioners, and researchers in social work, education, and psychology.

1. The Context of Bullying: Definition, Prevalence, and Controversies. 2. Individual, Family, and Social Factors Associated with Bullying. 3. Theories that Help to Understand Bullying. 4. Pinning the Tail on the Donkey: Conceptualizing, Identifying, and Responding to Bullying. 5. The School: Multiple Levels and Systems. 6. Cyber Bullying in a Cyber World. 7. Bullying within Friendships. 8. Challenges and Obstacles: Intervention and Treatment. 9. Intervention and Treatment: Relationships. 10. Treatment Intervention, Collaboration, and Consultation. Notes. References. Index.

Faye Mishna, PhD, is Professor and Dean at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto.