What Explains the Perception of Having Shared Practices Among School Staff for Anti-bullying Work?

International Journal of Bullying Prevention https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-024-00271-4 ORIGINAL ARTICLE What Explains the Perception of Having Shared Practices Among School Staff for Anti‑bullying Work? Miia Sainio1,2 · Sanna Herkama3 · Minna Torppa2,4 · Tuija Aro2,5 · Pilvi Hämeenaho6 Accepted: 8 October 2024 © The Author(s) 2024 Abstract A comprehensive, whole-school approach that demands commitment from all staff members is a recommended basis for effective and systematic anti-bullying work. Central to this approach is the collective agreement among school staff on the implementation of specific practices. This survey study investigates the extent to which Finnish basic education (grades 1–9) school staff (n ~ 400) perceive that they have shared and actively implemented anti-bullying practices in their school and the factors explaining variation in these perceptions. While staff generally reported having shared and actively implemented anti-bullying practices, variation was observed both within and between schools. Professional role, school size, perception of well-being values at school, leadership promoting well-being, and utilization of manualized program explained the variation in the perception of shared practices in the random intercept model. Qualitative analyses supplemented the quantitative findings, indicating that having a specific named program—either a manualized program or a self-developed one—was associated with the perception of shared and actively used practices, emphasizing the necessity for a structured approach. Our results underscore individual and contextual factors fostering a collective understanding of bullying prevention and intervention. Achieving such consensus is essential but not always achieved, posing a risk for ineffective bullying prevention efforts in schools. Keywords Bullying · Anti-bullying work · Intervention · Prevention · School School bullying has been under extensive research for decades (Smith et al., 2021). Research has shown the serious, in some cases even lifetime, negative consequences for bullying victims (e.g., Brendgen & Poulin, 2018; deLara, 2019; Sourander et al., 2016; Wolke & Lereya, 2015) and distress, * Miia Sainio 1 Department of Education, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland 2 Centre of Excellence in Learning Dynamics and Intervention Research (InterLearn), University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland 3 INVEST Research Flagship Centre, University of Turku, Turku, Finland 4 Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland 5 Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland 6 Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland anxiety, and depression among bystanders witnessing bullying (Midgett & Doumas, 2019; Rivers & Noret, 2013; Rivers et al., 2009). The consequences can also be harmful to the ones involved in perpetrating peers (Ttofi et al., 2011, 2016). School is one of the most important contexts to prevent and end the vicious cycle of bullying and its potential consequences. Previous studies have highlighted the importance of teachers’ anti-bullying attitudes, efforts, and systematic implementation of anti-bullying practices (Haataja et al., 2014; Saarento et al., 2013; Serdiouk et al., 2015; Veenstra et al., 2014). However, a single teacher—no matter how capable, willing, and competent—is not able to take alone the responsibility of preventing bullying. Hence, adopting a whole-school approach provides a solid foundation for anti-bullying efforts (Cantone et al., 2015; Espelage, 2014; Gaffney et al., 2021; Pearce et al., 2022; Valle et al., 2020). This requires commitment from the entire school staff and interdisciplinary collaboration among various professionals, and importantly, the designated anti-bullying practices should be agreed upon and shared within the school. If the staff members are not aware of or do not agree on how to Vol.:(0123456789) International Journal of Bullying Prevention prevent and intervene in bullying, it is likely that chosen practices are not implemented, will not be sustained, and eventually fail to produce the desired effects (Olweus et al., 2020). Although an increasing number of studies have examined factors that facilitate the implementation and sustainment of whole-school anti-bullying programs (Herkama et al., 2022; Pearce et al., 2022; Sainio et al., 2020; Sullivan et al., 2021), there is little understanding of within-school commitment and consensus on anti-bullying practices. In the present study, we focus on the perceptions of shared and actively implemented anti-bullying practices within the school. Using comprehensive data from the entire school staff, we examine both individual (gender, work experience, professional role) and contextual (school size and type, perceived school values, resources, leadership, and use of anti-bullying program) factors potentially explaining school staff members’ perceptions of having shared and actively implemented anti-bullying practices in their school. The findings guide schools to focus on factors that contribute to the development of effective whole-school anti-bullying practices. Shared Anti‑bullying Practices as the Basis for Whole‑School Anti‑bullying Work The reasoning behind advocating for the whole-school approach in bullying prevention stems from both the nature of bullying and the conclusions drawn from studies on the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs. Bullying is a complex problem, thus also the strategies for prevention and intervention should be systemic (Vreeman & Carroll, 2007). Accordingly, the whole-school approach typically means that the whole school community is involved in anti-bullying practices (Gaffney et al., 2021). This involves shared school ethos and policies along with coordinated activities and collaboration across disciplines (Goldberg et al., 2019) and often is distinguished from interventions that target only bullies and victims, or which are only classroom-based (Cantone et al., 2015). Several systematic reviews and metaanalyses on the effectiveness of anti-bullying programs have implied that a whole-school approach is associated with greater effectiveness in comparison to programs that were not whole-school based or were classroom-based only (Cantone et al., 2015; Gaffney et al., 2021; Goldberg et al., 2019; Vreeman & Carroll, 2007). Naturally, merely having a whole-school approach is not the key to success, but the practices need to be actively and systematically implemented across the school and with continued effort (Huitsing et al., 2019; Johander et al., 2021; Olweus et al., 2020; Sainio et al., 2020). Such systematic and sustained anti-bullying work requires that most school staff is aware of the chosen anti-bullying practices and principles (Herkama et al., 2022). Commitment, staff buy-in, and ownership of the chosen practices have been referred to as (...truncated)