After three boys committed suicide in 1982, this doctor founded a heroic anti-bullying program
How Dr. Dan Olweus rallies entire communities to step up
In 1982, three adolescent boys in northern Norway, ranging from age 10 to 14, killed themselves within just a few months. It turned they had all been the victims of severe bullying in school, and their deaths ignited a national panic. In response, the government called on the foremost expert in bullying behavior and prevention, Dr. Dan Olweus.
Olweus is considered the founding father of anti-bullying research. Besides his comprehensive studies and effective training programs, he introduced a powerful perspective on peer abuse. “Every individual should have the right to be spared oppression and repeated, intentional humiliation, in school as in society at large,” he said. “No student should have to be afraid of going to school for fear of being harassed or degraded, and no parent should need to worry about such things happening to his or her child.” He believed school safety was a fundamental human right.
Actually, he still does. At 86 years old, Olweus spoke at the 2017 World Anti-Bullying Forum in Sweden this past May. Nearly 50 years ago, he began a lifetime of research that advocates for students and has dramatically decreased instances of bullying worldwide. His school-wide method — known as the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program — has been implemented in over a dozen countries.
Years before the deaths of the three boys, Olweus received his doctoral degree as a professor of psychology in 1969 at the University of Umeå, Sweden, his country of birth. He didn’t waste any time. The following year, he launched the first scientific study of bullying problems in the world. Following the cases of 800 boys in Stockholm, the study laid out the “basic anatomy of bullying,” said Olweus.
Olweus was careful to note that bullying was not a new problem at this time in history. In his most widely read book, 1993’s Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do, which has been translated into 25 languages, he acknowledges that the phenomenon has existed for centuries, as referenced in literature and first-hand accounts. Even Olweus, who was trained as a trait psychologist, at first suspected that aggressive tendencies were innate and unlikely to be reduced via treatment. But until the early 1970s bullying was not studied systematically, and even then it was mostly studied in Scandinavia. What Olweus discovered expanded his hope that kindness and empathy could be learned.
Olweus’s definition of a bullying target was broad, yet clear: “A person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself.” He specifies that “negative actions” can be physical, verbal, or nonverbal, anything from making gestures to deliberately excluding someone from a group. Often, this latter form of bullying, known as indirect bullying, is harder to spot but uses dangerous social isolation as a weapon. Bullying relies on a real or perceived imbalance of strength, which the bully recognizes and exploits in the form of harassment.
Bullying is a serious threat in schools, argued Olweus in a 2009 interview. Students who are or who have been bullied can experience anxiety, depression, weakened school performance, psychosomatic issues such as stomachaches and headaches, or suicidal thoughts. Based on his research, anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of schoolchildren are affected, a huge proportion. According to a 2015 national Youth Risk Behavior survey, 34 percent of students that identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual were bullied on school property, and those students are 91 percent more likely to be bullied than their heterosexual peers. Olweus is careful to note that while targets of bullying are the primary focus in prevention, bullying affects others as well. The aggressors often prize violence as a way to solve problems; they are impulsive and have little empathy. If their rule breaking is not addressed, they may apply their behavior to other antisocial activities, such as criminality and drug abuse. By the time they are 24 years old, 60 percent will have committed a crime, according to Olweus. Others in the classroom or school environment, known as bystanders, are impacted with feelings of fear, apprehension, and stress.
But the research has been clear for more than 35 years. As far back as 1981, Olweus proposed legislation that would make it an illegal act to bully in Norway. But it wasn’t until a year after the three boys’ suicides that the Ministry of Education invested in a national campaign. They called on Olweus and his Bullying Prevention Program in the fall of 1983. Forty-two schools in Bergen, Norway participated. First, an anonymous questionnaire defined bullying and asked students to share if and when they had witnessed repeated, aggressive behavior. School officials were required to observe class behavior, and report instances of bullying in staff discussion groups. On the classroom level, teachers enforced anti-bullying rules and set meetings between students if issues arose. Students were taught to identify bullying behavior and reach out to victims, perpetrators, and parents if necessary.
After two and a half years of study, reported cases of bullying in participating Norwegian schools dropped by half. There was less theft, vandalism, and fighting. Students reported improved classroom climates, with more positive social relationships and an eagerness toward schoolwork.
With the success of the program, Norway expanded Olweus’s approach with five additional large-scale bullying prevention projects around the country, and the program was introduced to elementary schools as well. In the mid-1990s, both Norway and Sweden passed legislation against bullying.
It was around this time that America took notice. Olweus began working with stateside colleagues to implement his program in schools, with positive results. After the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, efforts doubled down. “A lot of people in the U.S. were working on peer relationships, classifying students as ‘popular,’ ‘rejected,’ ‘neglected,’ and so on. But they ignored bullying. This had to be addressed,” said Olweus. Today, after a recommendation from the Justice Department, thousands of schools representing almost every state have used the OBPP, primarily in grades three through 12. School districts reported up to a 40 percent reduction in bullying after only one year of the program. “Now we have programs that we know work well — there is no excuse to say that we don’t know what to do,” Olweus told Latitude News.
For his work, Olweus has received numerous awards, including recognition in 1976 for “outstanding aggression research” from the International Society for Research on Aggression, as well as a 2011 Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology Award, given by the American Psychological Association. But he knows his work is not complete. Fourteen percent of American students still report being bullied, and five percent report bullying others. Olweus’s program may continue to help, but bullying remains a treacherous issue for young people today. But students who are bullied are not alone in their suffering, and people want to help. Olweus is just one person among many who made sure of it.
If you or someone you know struggles with bullying, contact STOMP Out Bullying. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1–800–273–8255. For more resources in the U.S., see Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center.
