Does the Content of Anti-Bullying Policies Inform us About the Prevalence of Direct and Relational Bullying Behaviour in Primary Schools?

The current study investigated whether the quality of school anti-bullying policies allows the drawing of any conclusions about the extent of bullying problems in schools. That is, do schools with a more detailed anti-bullying policy have lower rates of bullying? A total of 2377 children in primary schools (six year olds/year two: 1072; eight year olds/year four: 1305) were individually interviewed using a standard interview about bullying experiences. A detailed content analysis scheme that closely followed the core whole-school intervention approach was carried out on a total of 34 schools: 24.5% of the children reported being directly victimised very frequently and 45.9% reported being relationally victimised frequently or very frequently. No correlation between the content and quality of anti-bullying policies and the prevalence of direct bullying behaviour was found. Conversely, an inverse relationship was found for relational bullying behaviour: schools with the most detailed and comprehensive anti-bullying policies had a higher incidence of relational bullying and victimisation behaviour. Inspection of school anti-bullying policies per se provides little guide to the actual amount of direct bullying behaviour in schools.