More than 16 percent of U.S. schoolchildren say
they have been bullied by other students, according
to a survey funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Another 13 percent of students say they have bullied other students, but have not been victims of bullying themselves. The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association (April 25, 2001).

The NICHD researchers surveyed 15,686 public, private, and parochial school students across
the country in grades six through ten. The children were asked to complete
a questionnaire that asked how often they either bullied other students or were the target of bullying behavior.

In all, a total of 29.9 percent of the students surveyed reported moderate or frequent involvement in bullying, either as a bully (13.0 percent), one who
was bullied (10.6 percent), or both (6.3 percent).

Bullying occurred most
frequently in sixth through eighth grades, with little variation between urban, suburban, town, and rural areas. Males were both more likely to bully others and more likely to be victims of bullying than were females.

The study’s authors reported that both bullies and their victims were more likely
to have difficulty adjusting
to their environment both socially and psychologically. In addition, bullies were more likely to be involved
in other problem behaviors such as smoking and drinking alcohol.

The NICHD is part of the National Institutes of Health, the biomedical research arm of the Federal government. For more information, visit the
NICHD Web site at www.nichd.nih.gov.


Children learn best when they feel safe, secure, and respected. But significant numbers of students across the country are targets of bullying by their peers. Bullying is serious business. Once thought to be simply an unpleasant rite of passage, bullying can actually result in long-term social, academic, psychological, and physical consequences.

A recent study of school shootings shows just how serious bullying can be. Conducted by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Secret Service, the Safe School Initiative was an extensive examination of 41 individuals who had committed 37 incidents of targeted school violence. The goal of the Initiative was to better understand and ultimately prevent future school-based attacks.

Researchers examined investigative, school, court, and mental health records and conducted in-depth interviews with 10 of the attackers in order to gain insight into their motives, life circumstances, relationships with others, and other information that could be useful in understanding their pre-incident thinking and behavior.

One of the key findings of the Safe School Initiative was that many attackers had felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others prior to the event. Bullying was not a factor in every case, and clearly not every child who is bullied in school will pose a risk for targeted school violence. However, in a number of the incidents studied, attackers described being bullied in terms that suggested that these experiences approached torment.

For example, in one case, most of the attacker’s schoolmates described him as “the kid everyone teased.” In witness statements from that incident, schoolmates alleged that nearly every child in the school had at some point thrown the attacker against a locker, tripped him in the hall, held his head under water in the pool, or thrown things at him. Several schoolmates noted that the boy acted differently in the days preceding the attack, seeming more annoyed by and less tolerant of the teasing than usual.

The prevalence of bullying found in this and other recent studies highlights the importance of efforts to prevent and reduce bullying in America’s schools. Educators can play a key role in ensuring that schools not only do not permit bullying but also empower students to let adults know if other students are being bullied.

What Is Bullying?

According to Dr. Dan Olweus, one of the world's leading authorities on bullies and their victims, a student is being bullied when he or she is exposed repeatedly and over time to negative actions on the part of one or more other students.

A negative action is an intentional, aggressive behavior that can be either physical—such as hitting, kicking, or pushing—or indirect, such as name-calling or shunning. For these acts to be defined as bullying, an imbalance of power must exist between the bully and the victim.

In short, for an action to be defined as bullying it must:

  • be intentional,
  • be repeated over time, and
  • occur in a relationship in which there is an imbalance of power.

<continued on the next page: Bullying Prevention in the School>
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