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Running Head: BULLYING AND SWPBIS When Prevention is Not Enough: School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports on Students’ Perception of Bullying BULLYING AND SWPBIS
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Copyright Year | 2018 |
| Abstract | Bullying continues to be a major concern in U.S. schools and is the focus of myriad prevention and intervention efforts. Researchers have recently cited school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) as a prevention framework for reducing school-based bullying. Therefore, we examined the effect of universal SWPBIS implemented with fidelity on students’ self-report of bullying victimization. We used school-level propensity score matching to compare 76,248 students’ self-report of bullying victimization in 118 schools that implemented SWPBIS with fidelity and 118 matched comparison schools. Random-effects regression models found no statistically significant difference between treatment groups on students’ self-report of bullying victimization. Recommendations and limitations are discussed. BULLYING AND SWPBIS 3 When Prevention is Not Enough: School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports on Students’ Perception of Bullying Bullying continues to be a major concern in U.S. schools and is the focus of myriad prevention and intervention efforts (Espelage, Rose, & Polanin, 2015; 2016; Ttofi & Farrington, 2011). Recent national data suggests that more than 1 in 5 (20.8%) school-aged youth reported being bullied by peers in school within a 12-month period (Musu-Gillette et al., 2018), and that bullying can have significant negative short and long-term effects on victims (Swearer, Espelage, Vaillancourt, & Hymel, 2010). In response, all U.S. states have passed anti-bullying legislation (Yell, Katsiyannis, Rose, & Houchins, 2016). It is clear that schools have a legal and ethical obligation to address bully victimization in their schools, but it remains unclear as to what practices, programs, or approaches should be implemented. Researchers have recently cited school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) as a prevention framework for reducing school-based bullying (Bradshaw, 2013; 2015). Therefore, we examined Bradshaw’s recommendation by evaluating the relation between SWPBIS implemented with fidelity and students’ self-report of bullying victimization. Bullying Defined Bullying is a subcategory of interpersonal aggression, including physical (e.g., hitting, kicking, pushing), verbal (e.g., calling names, threats), social (e.g., rumor spreading, group exclusion), and electronic (i.e., cyberbullying) behaviors, that is defined as “any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated or likely to be repeated” (Gladden, Vivolo-Kantor, Hamburger, & Lumpkin, 2014, p. 7). While the central tenents of bullying is intentionality, repetition, and imbalance of power (Hymel & Swearer, BULLYING AND SWPBIS 4 2015; Olweus, 1993), the key distinction between bullying and other forms of peer aggression is the abuse of power (Vaillancourt, Hymel, & McDougall, 2003). Bullying is also grounded in social interactions, where involvement is based on the relationship and associations between an individual and complex social systems (i.e., family, peers, school, community, society) in which the individual is situated (Hong & Espelage, 2012). Navigation within and between these social systems is multifaceted, which may place some subgroups of students at escalated risk for involvement (Musu-Gillette et al., 2018; Rose, Nickerson, & Stormont, 2015). For example, youth with disabilities are victimized at disproportional rates when compared to youth without disabilities (Blake, Lund, Zhou, Kwok, & Benz, 2012; Rose & Gage, 2016; Rose et al., 2015). While the intersection of several predictive factors (e.g., disability status, special education services, severity of disability) are associated with the disproportionate representation of youth with disabilities within the bullying dynamic (Rose et al., 2015), the most notable predictors include externalizing behaviors and social and communication skill deficits (McLaughlin, Byers, & Vaughn, 2010; Rose, Monda-Amaya, & Espelage, 2011). For example, Rose and Espelage (2012) found that students with behavior disorders engaged in significantly higher levels of bullying and fighting behaviors than their peers with and without disabilities. Similarly, Swearer, Wang, Maag, Siebecker, and Frerichs (2012) determined that students with behavior oriented disabilities, including behavior disorders, received more office disciplinary referrals, had lower prosocial behaviors, engaged in higher levels of bully perpetration, and experienced higher rates of victimization than their peers without disabilities. In addition to disability status, prosocial skills, and externalizing behaviors, individual factors such as race, ethnicity, and gender have been evaluated as predictors of bullying BULLYING AND SWPBIS 5 involvement. However, extant literature on gender, race, and ethnicity has been conflicting, warranting further investigation (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine [NASEM], 2016). For example, some studies have determined that African American youth are victimized less frequently than their White and Latino/a peers (Nansel et al., 2001; Spriggs, Iannotti, Nansel, & Haynie, 2007), where others reported that Latino/a youth are victimized less than their White and African American peers (Hanish & Guerra, 2000; Musu et al., 2018). Similarly, a conflicting gender discrepancy seems to exist, where females are more likely to report being bullied than males (NASEM, 2016), while males are more likely to engage in direct forms of bullying behaviors (Card, Stucky, Sawalani, & Little, 2008; Cook et al., 2010). To compound the issue, some have argued that females are more likely to experience and engage in indirect aggression (Sullivan & Stoner, 2012), while Card and colleagues’ (2008) argued that the difference between males and females on indirect bullying was nonsignificant. Given the conflicting data, it has become increasingly more important to examine the role of race and ethnicity in bullying involvement. School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Support SWPBIS is a systematic, multi-tiered framework for identifying students in need of behavior support and delivering universal, secondary, and tertiary social-behavioral interventions to increase the likelihood of pro-social behavior acquisition for all students (Sugai & Horner, 2009). SWPBIS is not a curriculum, strategy, intervention, or program but, instead, a process of building a school’s capacity to (a) implement effective and preventive behavioral practices with integrity, (b) make data-based and team-based decisions, and (c) build a positive school climate and culture leading to school improvement and success (Gage, Whitford, & Katsiyannis, 2018; Horner et al., 2010). Universal prevention supports are designed to create a safe, predictable BULLYING AND SWPBIS 6 environment for all students by establishing a common set of school-wide expectations, teaching those expectations, and reinforcing students for demonstrating those expectations (Lewis, Mitchell, Trussell, & Newcomer, 2014). Universal implementation is conducted (a) school-wide, (b) in non-classroom settings, and (b) in classrooms. Behavioral expectations are taught and reinforced at the school level, often using a school-wide token economy system and paired with active supervision and precorrections in non-classroom settings, such as the cafeteria and playground. At the classroom level, universal classroom management is delivered, including high rates of behavior specific praise, opportunities to respond, behavior prompting, and reinforcing behavioral expectations. Targeted interventions are then implemented for students that do not respond to universal prevention efforts and often include evidence-based mentoring programs, such as Check-In Check-Out (Crone, Hawken, & Horner, 2010), or small group social skills lessons (Mitchell, Stormont, & Gage, 2011). Students that continue to exhibit elevated levels of problem behaviors following targeted intervention are referred for intensive, tertiary supports. Tertiary supports typically involve a functional behavior assessment (FBA) and a subsequent individualized behavior intervention plan (BIP). Research suggests that SWPBIS has positive effects on a number of important schooland student-level outcomes. For example, a series of studies have documented a direct effect of SWPBIS on disciplinary exclusions, including office discipline referrals and inand out-ofschool suspensions (e.g., Childs, Kincaid, George, & Gage, 2016; Gage, Grasley-Boy, George, Childs, & Kincaid, 2018; Gage, Lee, Grasley-Boy, & George, 2018; Simonsen, Eber, Black, Sugai, Lewandowski, Sims, & Meyers, 2012), and student attendance (Freeman, Simonsen, McCoach, Sugai, Lombardi, & Horner, 2016). Research has also found positive effects on adult BULLYING AND SWPBIS 7 perceptions of school climate (Bradshaw, Koth, Thornton, & Leaf, 2009), school organizational health (Bradshaw, Koth, Bevans, Ialongo, & Leaf, 2008) and school safety (Horner, Sugai, Smolkowski, Eber, Nakasato, Todd, & Esperanza, 2009). Recently, a longitudinal state-wide analysis found implementation of universal SWPBIS with fidelity also had a significant and meaningful effect on the percentage of students at or above state benchmarks in reading and mathematics (Gage, Leite, Childs, & Kincaid, 2017). SWPBIS and Bullying Victimization In addition to direct effects on students’ disciplinary and academic outcomes, there is evidence to suggest that SWPBIS may also have an effect on bullying. A series of studies have evaluated the impact of bully prevention in positive behavior support (BP-PBS; Ross & Horner, 2009; 2014). BP-PBS is designed to (a) define and teach the concept of ‘‘being respectful’’ to all students in a school, (b) teach all students a three-step response (stop, walk, talk) that minimizes potential social reinfor |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.embracecivility.org/wp-content/uploadsnew/PBISbullyingGage_Rose_Kramer_Clean-1.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
