On April 20, 1999, two students in Littleton, Colo., acted on their plan to murder as many people at Columbine High School as possible. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, members of the senior class, shot 13 people to death that day before killing themselves.

Colorado's governor appointed a commission to investigate the massacre. Of the many contributing factors, one is described in the commission's report as "a pervasive problem in American schools." That problem is bullying.

The commission did not conclude that bullying alone caused the Columbine killings. However, it noted reports that bullying at Columbine High School was "rampant." During public hearings, commission members also discovered that students who experienced bullying at Columbine included both Klebold and Harris.

Bullying is when someone repeatedly and on purpose says or does mean or hurtful things to another person who has a hard time defending him or herself. Research about bullying in American schools points to a persistent problem. The first nationally representative study, published in 2001, included over 15,000 students in grades 6 through 10. Seventeen percent of them reported having been bullied during the school term. Eight percent had been bullied at least once a week.

However, data from such studies represent averages. Bullying at one school may be two to three times more common than at another school in the same district.

Dan Olweus, Ph.D., professor at the Research Center for Health Promotion at the University of Bergen in Norway, is widely acknowledged as the foremost expert on the problem of bullying and its solutions. He began developing bullying prevention programs in 1983 after three boys in northern Norway committed suicide--probably as a result of sustained bullying by peers.

Since then, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program has been used by schools in Norway, Sweden, England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Germany, Australia, Japan and the United States. Six studies of the Olweus program involving 40,000 students indicate 30 to 70 percent reductions in bullying. The program is backed by 35 years of research and is recognized as a model program by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

"The negative effects on the bullied students are so devastating and often quite long-term," said Olweus. "It is simply a fundamental human right for a student to have a safe school environment and to be spared the repeated humiliation that comes from being bullied."

Bullying also has lasting consequences for perpetrators. "If their merciless and malicious behavior is not stopped and moved into a more prosocial direction," Olweus says, "many of them will continue on an antisocial path involving criminality, drug use, and destructive personal relationships, as documented in our research."

Some attempts to prevent bullying take the form of curricula to be presented in individual classrooms. In contrast, the Olweus program involves everyone who comes into contact with students--teachers, administrators, support staff, cafeteria workers, custodians, parents, and more.

Focusing on students aged 6 to 15, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program works on four levels at once:

• At the school level, educators form a bullying prevention committee, administer the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire, introduce rules against bullying, and train staff members about bullying and how to effectively address it.
• At the classroom level, teachers hold regular class meetings to talk about bullying and establish rules against bullying.
• At the individual level, educators meet with students who bully others, students who are bullied, and the involved parents.
• At the community level, messages about bullying prevention are featured on billboards, in the local news, and other public media.

The result is that anti-bullying messages are delivered consistently in many contexts. Over time, this can change a school culture.

"When I started my work in this area in the early 1970s, parents of a bullied child who turned to the school for help were often met with phrases like Bullying is part of growing up, Kids are kids, or She or he must learn to stand up for her or his rights," Olweus says.

Today, at least 25 states have adopted legislation against bullying, and many schools are working energetically to prevent and counteract bullying.

The Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, coauthored by Sue Limber, Ph.D., is published by Hazelden. An updated version of the program will be available in June.

--Published February 19, 2007