Bullying comprises a range of aggressive behaviors, which may include physical, verbal, or psychological/relational aggression. It can occur in the school environment (“school bullying”) or online (“cyberbullying”), and individuals can engage in bullying as perpetrators or victims, as well as bystanders, defenders, or reinforcers of those behaviors.
Bullying prevention programs (whether in school or in other settings) can be characterized by different methods, scopes, and objectives, as their building blocks vary depending on the intervention’s target audience.
For perpetrators and victims, these include prevention-themed curricular materials, teacher training, individual attention to victims, informative conferences, meetings with parents, and cooperative work with experts, among others. Interventions focused on bystanders may include classroom dramatizations, reproduction of videotaped scenes, using interactive technological resources, and so on.
Specifically in relation to cyberbullying, intervention and prevention programs adopt several different approaches to discourage student participation and develop responses to negative online behaviors. In general, these approaches can be categorized as individual-level, multilevel, and universal.
Individual-level strategies focus on students and aim to improve their emotional skills and perceived self-efficacy when dealing with cyberbullying. The programs also teach students alternatives for responding to this type of bullying, either through assertiveness or humor, through parental or teacher assistance, or by interrupting the interaction. The multilevel systemic approach may involve a combination of classroom, teacher/student, family, or individual strategies. The universal approach involves school-wide strategies to address cyberbullying.