From 2013 to 2014, researchers conducted 47 semi-structured interviews with school and district administrators in Iowa about its 2007 anti-bullying law. Administrators identified many policy implementation challenges related to funding and staff, prevention programs, applying the law’s bullying definition in investigations, and understanding the school’s jurisdiction for policy enforcement. They also raised contextual barriers to implementation, like media portrayals of bullying and parental attitudes.
This study, published in Injury Epidemiology, finds that bullying victimization increased one year following the passage of an anti-bullying law in Iowa, possibly due to either improved reporting or over-identification, and did not start to go down until three years after the law was implemented.
This Knowledge Asset includes information about the impacts of bullying; the public health framework for anti-bullying laws; the language and content of these laws; and current evaluation studies on the implementation and effectiveness of anti-bullying laws.
This new report finds more than 70 Oregon school districts changed their anti-bullying policies last year to better protect students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, but nearly one in three school districts still does not comply with state law.
