This study investigates the correlation between teachers’ efforts to prevent bullying and their perceptions of school climate. The quantitative data were collected from 82 teachers (76.8%females, respondents’ mean age = 44.91 years [ SD = 9.91]) from 13 Norwegian schools running the Olweus Bully Prevention Program (OBPP). Descriptive analysis of the teachers’ efforts within OBPP at the school, classroom, and individual levels, and simple linear as well as multiple regression analyses were applied. The current study revealed that teachers acted differently within OBPP at the school, classroom, and individual levels, and that their perceptions of school climate differed. A significant positive correlation was found between the teachers’ efforts within OBPP at the all-level variable and the general school climate variable. Implications for the teachers’ efforts to prevent school bullying through OBPP and the significance of the study results for the whole school community are discussed, and limitations of the current study are pointed out.

As early as 1969, the Swedish physician Peter-Paul Heinemann introduced the Swedish term mobbing and then later on, mobbning (translated as “bullying” in English), in Sweden through a debate article (Heinemann, 1969) and then later, and in greater depth, in his book Mobbning: Gruppvåld bland barn och vuxna (Heinemann 1972). With reference to the ethologist Konrad Lorenz (1968), from whom he also borrowed the term mobbing, Heinemann assumed that bullying was a form of group violence toward deviant members. The term and his ideas became widespread in Sweden in 1969 through a series of articles in one of Sweden’s most influential daily newspapers, Dagens Nyheter (Larsson 2008; Nordgren 2009).

In this article, we investigate how a process drama can be used in efforts against school bullying in a new digitalised society, specifically, what kinds of initiatives Norwegian adolescents make use of in process drama as anti-bullying prevention and what kinds of attitudes towards this kind of prevention work they emphasise. In the project Drama & Bullying (2017-2020),95 16- year-old 10th-graders participated in different roles, explored the drama conventions, and thus developed a deeper insight into bullying and its prevention. The participants adjusted the original story that was provided to fit their presentday challenges.

In the literature about bullying prevention and intervention, still little is known about teacher and school characteristics possibly affecting an implementation of a whole-school approach anti-bullying programme. This study investigates the relations of teachers’ anti-bullying components at classroom and individual levels with teachers’ sociodemographics (gender, age, work experience and teaching in primary vs lower and upper secondary school) and school features (size, and duration of working with a whole-school approach anti-bullying programme). Teachers ( n = 1576) in 99 Lithuanian schools implementing the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program answered a standardised online self-administered questionnaire. Through an Exploratory Factor Analysis (Principal Axis Factoring extraction method), we individuated a model of teachers’ implementation of anti-bullying components, consisting of three dimensions: classroom management, tutorship (organisation of class meetings and work with parents) and direct intervention into bullying incidents. In multilevel analyses, significant associations emerged between the three dimensions, teacher socio-demographics and school characteristics. Female teachers put more effort than male teachers into classroom management, tutorship and intervention into bullying incidents. Younger teachers put more effort than older teachers into all the three dimensions. Primary school teachers put more effort into classroom management and tutorship dimensions. Teachers with more working experience put more effort into intervening into bullying incidents. Lastly, teachers from certified Olweus schools with a longer duration of implementing the OBBP put more effort into direct intervention into bullying incidents. These results shed light on relevant characteristics affecting teachers’ efforts within anti-bullying components that need to be considered when implementing interventions.

This study investigates similarities and differences in Lithuanian and Norwegian teacher practices aimed at preventing school bullying by applying a whole-school approach anti-bullying programme. The quantitative data was collected from 1576 teachers from 99 schools in Lithuania, and 82 teachers from 13 schools in Norway that have implemented the Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme (OBPP). The comparative analysis of the study results indicates that Norwegian teachers are slightly more active in working with the OBPP on the school and individual levels, as well as in working with the programme in general. The study reveals that female teachers are more active than male teachers on the classroom and individual levels of the OBPP as well as the whole programme, and that primary education teachers are more active than lower secondary education teachers on the classroom level of the OBPP. The implications of teacher practices aimed at preventing bullying by applying the OBPP are discussed, and limitations of the current study emphasised.