School Bullying in Primary and Secondary Education: Dynamics, Impacts, and Evidence-Based Interventions

This comprehensive review synthesizes recent international empirical work on school bullying, systematically integrating theoretical frameworks, measurement methodologies, prevalence patterns, and multi-level socio-ecological outcomes. Specifically, this paper explicitly bridges Social Identity Theory and Moral Disengagement to explain the psychological mechanisms driving participant roles and chronic perpetration. It further examines the boundaryless reach of cyberbullying, characterizing its unique socio-technical dynamics and presenting targeted digital interventions, such as value-based digital citizenship education, real-time computational bystander bots, and modernized policy frameworks. Given the mixed evidence of universal programs, this paper dedicatedly examines implementation realities in low-resource settings, validating peer-led 'Agents of Change' networks and exploring cross-cultural adaptation challenges. To establish a robust business case for stakeholders, the paper provides an economic synthesis of cost-effectiveness and return-on-investment across universal programs (such as Olweus and KiVa) and localized peer-led alternatives. Additionally, gender-specific neurodevelopmental, somatic, and psychosocial trajectories are mapped to inform gender-responsive pedagogy (GRP). Ultimately, this review serves as a roadmap for researchers, educators, and policymakers to move beyond fragmented prevention models toward robust, data-driven, and culturally sensitive multi-sectoral frameworks.

school bullying, victimization, gender-responsive pedagogy, cyberbullying, cost-effectiveness, measurement invariance.

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