Effectiveness

• Mixed evidence for effectiveness

  • Bauer et al,7 American schools compared to 3 control schools
  • reported bullying behaviours were minimal,when analysed by ethnicity,28% reduction in relational bullying and 37% reduction in physical bullying but only among white students
  • only have some narrow benefits
  • failure to randomly allocate schools to programme or control raises if benefits were due to programme or pre-existing conditions
• Limited support from meta-analyses

  • Ttofi and Farrington,89 studies and found programmes based on Olweus work were effective
  • Effectiveness varied between countries,working better in Norway than USA
  • raises questions about the effectiveness of OBPP outside of Norway
• Methodological issues

  • the way OBPP measures bullying has some problems
  • programme makes the children talk about bullying in class,not all bullying may be reported,making the programme look more effective than it actually is