What Program Works with Bullying in School Setting? Personal, Social, and Clinical Implications of Traditional and Innovative Intervention Programs

AbstractBullying and cyberbullying (the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate behavior to harm others) are usually considered as the most prevalent types of school violence. In the literature, aggression is often conceptualized as emerging, being maintained, and modified by child's personality characteristics and the interactions between these and the social contexts (e.g., peers, family). The available research has certainly helped to improve the anti-bullying intervention programs and to predict models of victimization and perpetration, nevertheless there are still several difficulties in the management of specific prevaricating situations, due to the tendency to: (1) do not consider the subjective point of view of children and their definition of aggression, often different from the one proposed by adults (2) underestimate the role of adults and their relationships with the victims in modifying or exacerbating hostilities between peers (3) conceptualize bullying as an individual phenomenon (the characteristics of the bully and the victim) rather than interpersonal and socially constructed. The bullying phenomenon will be discuss departing from the critical analysis of different conceptualizations and introducing a relational perspective deriving from the labelling theory and Interactionism. Operational suggestions and strategies for teachers and families dealing with deviant minors will be presented