Breaking the Silence: How To Respond to and Prevent School Bullying in Children and Adolescents?

Dear Colleagues,

School Bullying, both online and offline, continues to pose significant challenges to the social, emotional, and physical wellbeing and development of students in educational settings. It is widely defined as repeated aggressive behaviour intended to harm another individual or group, marked by a power imbalance between the perpetrator and the victim. School bullying has long been a pervasive issue, affecting children and adolescents across multiple mental health domains, inflicting social, psychological, and educational consequences for those involved.

The nature of school bullying has become more dynamic, nuanced, and difficult to respond to and prevent, both within and outside the school environment. With the development of technology introducing new platforms for aggression, including cyberbullying, the need for timely, evidence-based responses on how to respond to and prevent school bullying in children and adolescents is crucial.

Bullying and social rejection remain pervasive issues affecting children's emotional well-being, development, and academic outcomes. Despite increased awareness, many victimized children continue to suffer in silence due to fear, shame, or lack of trust in adults. This gap between experience and disclosure limits timely intervention and prolongs emotional harm. Furthermore, traditional assessment and intervention strategies may not fully capture the subtle dynamics of peer exclusion or be accessible in diverse cultural and educational contexts. A focused Special Issue can shed light on innovative, evidence-based tools and practices that not only detect and assess bullying, but also empower children to share their experiences and access support early. By emphasizing both prevention and responsive intervention, this issue aims to contribute meaningfully to the field of child and adolescent well-being.

The aim of this special issue is to explore both the individual and systemic drivers of school bullying, while also highlighting promising strategies for prevention, intervention, and support for children and adolescents affected by it. The aim of this special issue is to bring together and spotlight research that:

• Examines the contextual and situational factors that constrain or support efforts to respond to and prevent school bullying.
• Examines the roles and views of different stakeholders, including children, adolescents, teachers, and parents/guardians on how to respond to and prevent school bullying.
• Explores intersectional vulnerabilities such as race, gender, sexuality, and disability in the context of school bullying intervention and prevention.
• To address the frequent gaps between the experience of victimization and its disclosure by exploring strategies that encourage children to report bullying and social exclusion.
• To highlight innovative approaches for evaluating, preventing, and intervening in cases of bullying and peer rejection.

We welcome a range of original empirical research across different methodologies and theoretical contributions. Research focusing on other clearly related subtopics may be considered. We also welcome studies looking at either traditional bullying, cyberbullying, or other related forms of online and offline aggression.

Please do get in touch if you want to discuss any potential ideas and/or submissions.

Dr. Peter J.R. Macaulay
Prof. Dr. Michael John Boulton
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• bullying
• cyberbullying
• intervention and prevention
• aggression
• psychiatry and behavioral health
• child and adolescent psychiatry