Study examines antibullying policies, bullying in 25 states

Currently, 49 states have antibullying laws in place, although there has been very little empirical examination of their effectiveness.

Mark L. Hatzenbuehler, Ph.D., of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, and coauthors used data from 25 states to evaluate the effectiveness of antibullying legislation in reducing students' risk of being bullied and cyberbullied.

Data on antibullying legislation came from the Department of Education (DOE), which had recommended a framework for antibullying laws that was disseminated to schools across the country. In a 2011 report, the DOE reviewed the extent to which state antibullying laws adhered to those recommendations and found substantial heterogeneity across state policies. The report identified 16 components divided into four broad categories: definitions of the policy, district policy development and review, mandated procedures, and strategies for communication, training and legal support. Policy variables from 25 states were linked to data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System on bullying and cyberbullying.

The final study sample included 59,472 students in 9th through the 12th grades in public and private schools. The authors report students in states with at least one DOE legislative component in the antibullying law had 24 percent lower odds of reporting bullying and 20 percent lower odds of reporting cyberbullying.

Three individual components of antibullying legislation were consistently associated with decreased odds of being bullied and cyberbullied: statement of scope, description of prohibited behaviors, and requirements for districts to develop and implement local policies, the study reports.

The authors caution they can only infer about associations between antibullying policies and rates of being bullied because the data were cross-sectional and they cannot test causal associations.

"Bullying is a multifaceted phenomenon that requires a multipronged approach. Although antibullying policies by themselves cannot completely eradicate bullying, these data suggest that such policies represent an important part of a comprehensive strategy for preventing bullying among youth," the study concludes.