Bullying in Italian Schools

An Overview of Intervention Programmes

GIANLUCA GINI
Development and Socialisation Psychology Department,
University of Padova, Italy

ABSTRACT A very large body of international studies supports the

world-wide concern with the issue of school bullying. Literature in
this field is currently divided between analysis of the phenomenon’s
different characteristics and evaluation of various intervention
programmes in schools. At the same time, teachers, parents and media
are acquiring more and more awareness about the problem and this is
leading to a growing request for more effective action.
This article presents an overview of published intervention/preven-
tion programmes carried out in Italian schools in the last decade. For
the sake of clarity, following an ecological approach, works have been
distinguished according to the level at which they are focused on the
school system.
Success in reducing bullying and the limits of each intervention are
critically considered.

Introduction
Bullying has been described as a proactive type of aggression (Coie
et al., 1991) which aims at hurting others in a variety of ways includ-
ing physical assaults (hitting and kicking), verbal harassment (name
calling, teasing and threatening) and indirect means (social exclusion,
spreading nasty names). Moreover, the definition of bullying includes
intentionality, persistence and imbalance of power (Olweus, 1992).
Smith and Brain (2000), indicate that the last two decades has seen
a continuous growth in the number of studies on the topic of school
bullying. Research in this field initially focused on the extent and

Please address correspondence to: Dr Gianluca Gini, DPSS/Dipartimento di

Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Via Venezia 8, 35131, Padova,
Italy. E-mail: gianluca.gini@unipd.it

School Psychology International Copyright © 2004 SAGE Publications (London,

Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), Vol. 25(1): 106–116.
DOI: 10.1177/0143034304028042

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 Gini: Bullying in Italian Schools
characteristics of bullying in children of different age levels (Olweus,
1978; Whitney and Smith, 1993). The most common procedure used to
collect this information has been the use of self-report questionnaires
(Arora and Thompson, 1987; Olweus, 1993), often in slightly modified
versions. These instruments allowed researchers to outline the dif-
ferent extent of the phenomenon in various countries: percentages of
victimization range from six to eight percent in Finland (Lagerspetz
et al., 1982) and Ireland (O’Moore and Hillery, 1989) to 20 percent in
Canada (Bentley and Li, 1995) and 27 percent in the UK (Whitney and
Smith, 1993). This variation can probably be attributed to the socio-
economic and cultural characteristics of each country and to methodo-
logical differences in data collection.
We now know a considerable amount about the nature and the
extent of bullying (especially regarding children aged eight years
and upwards), as well as about personality characteristics of bullies
and victims, their social status in the peer group, attitudes of pupils
towards aggressive behaviours, parental style and more. Moreover,
some studies have drawn attention to the widespread suffering among
children and apprehension among parents and to the short- and long-
term consequences of bullying and of being bullied by peers in bullies’
and victims’ lives. For example, longitudinal data has shown that
bullies, as well as aggressive boys, are more likely to develop anti-social
behaviours, to commit adult crimes and to become abusive spouses and
parents (Coie and Dodge, 1998; Farrington, 1991; Olweus, 1993). On
the other hand, children who are constantly victimized have low levels
of self-esteem, higher rates of absenteeism from school, show psycho-
somatic symptoms and chronic depression and, in extremely serious
circumstances, commit suicide (Carney, 2000; Kochenderfer and Ladd,
1997; O’Moore and Hillery, 1991; Sharp et al., 2000).

Bullying in Italian schools

Recently, some studies have confirmed the existence of the problem
in Italian schools. The first study was conducted in two Italian cities
(Florence, central Italy; Cosenza, southern Italy) on 1,379 pupils from
primary and middle schools (Genta et al., 1996). The authors, using
the Italian version of the Bully/Victim questionnaire (Menesini and
Giannetti, 1997; Olweus, 1993) found that about 42 percent of children
in primary school and 28 percent in secondary school indicated that
they had been bullied by peers at least sometimes in the previous three
month period. Other subsequent studies confirmed that the incidence
of bullying tends to be higher in Italy than in other countries, con-
sidering that about one-half of pupils in elementary (primary; first to
fifth grade) school and one-third in middle (secondary; sixth to eighth

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grade) school claimed to have been bullied (Fonzi, 1997; Baldry and
Farrington, 1999).
Many possible explanations have been put forward to account
for the peculiarity of the Italian situation. It seems unlikely that
methodological or procedural differences can explain these findings,
but some cultural differences could be playing a part. For example,
the semantic value of the Italian term ‘Prepotenze’ may not correspond
completely to the term ‘bullying’. The first, in fact, may reflect a wider
range of behaviours.
Moreover, in the Italian culture laughing at someone else or mak-
ing fun of other persons seems to be more frequent than in Northern
countries and children consider this behaviour less serious than do
others (Menesini and Fonzi, 1997). Finally, conflicts among peers
lead to a break in friendship less frequently in Italian children than
in Canadian children, as demonstrated in a cross-cultural study by
Schneider and Fonzi (1996).

Anti-bullying interventions in Italian institutes

Some studies are now dealing with the real possibility of intervening
in the school system to tackle harassment and trying to reduce peer
victimization. According to Carney and Merrell (2001), for an inter-
vention to be successful it is important to identify the type of victim
(submissive or provocative) and bully (passive or active aggressor) with
whom one is working. This is the case if the intervention programme
deals with social skills and assertiveness problems of individuals.
However, the majority of researchers and practitioners agree about the
importance of considering also pupils who are not directly involved in
bullying episodes but who play a determinant role in the maintenance
of the ‘status quo’ (Salmivalli, 1999).
For this reason, many researchers lay stress on the importance of
a systemic and ecological approach to tackle and prevent bullying
behaviours in schools (Besag, 1989; Rigby, 1996; Sharp and Smith,
1994). The main goal of this kind of approach is to elaborate a school
policy against violence and a rule system based on respect and co-
operation.

Institutional approach
In Italy, some difficulties emerged in the attempt to introduce this kind
of programme in schools because of its complexity and of its demands
in terms of resources (time and persons). Teachers, in fact, usually
prefer to carry out a class-level intervention which is easier to run
within a small group. However, the awareness of the limitations of an
approach that does not involve the whole community is now inducing
some institutes to engage in wider programmes. Moreover, the Italian

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school system is undergoing a process of change which should facilitate
this trend: for example, the ‘Autonomy Law’ (n.59/1997) empowers
individual schools to interact with the local community for the imple-
mentation of prevention programmes by means of a flexible manage-
ment of funds, school time and space.
One of the first attempts to apply the systemic approach to an anti-
bullying intervention was carried out in 1995 in a middle school in
central Italy (Ciucci and Smorti, 1998; Menesini and Smorti, 1997).
This specific programme was developed following some experiences
carried out at a more general level during the previous two years. In
the first year, teachers were trained to deal with psycho-social risk
factors in the school and, specifically, with bully-victim relationships;
in the second year, a counselling service for teachers was provided and
teachers’ and parents’ meetings on bullying were organized.
During the third year, the intervention was implemented at different
levels: the school policy, the class and the individuals. At the school
level, teachers, students and parents worked together to develop a
school policy against bullying and to build up a positive climate. At the
class level, teachers chose between different types of curricular inter-
ventions: role-playing activities and the Quality Circle. Finally, at the
individual level, one bully and one victim were identified in each group
in the class and observed directly by the teacher.
From data collected through an anonymous questionnaire (Olweus,
1993) it emerged that the experimental group showed a significant
decrease in reported bullying, in comparison to the control group, and
a relevant increase in pro-social behaviours, feelings of belonging and
number of friends.
Problems pointed out by the researchers concerned attitudes towards
the bullies, who seemed to receive more understanding among peers
and the adults tendency to pay more attention to the problems of
victims than to the problems of bullies.
Another experience of institutional intervention in a middle school
started after four years of curricular intervention (Menesini, 2000).
The programme specifically aimed to involve different levels in the
school: the principal, teachers, students and parents.
Results of the whole intervention confirmed that a systemic approach
to peer aggression is able to affect bullying behaviours in the long term.
Data, in fact, showed a relative decrease of 59 percent for victimization
and of 66.5 percent for bullying after six years of intervention.

Class-group level approach

One of the first interventions carried out in Italy was a short-term
curricular intervention in a middle school, lasting for two three-month
periods over two academic years: 1994–1995 and 1995–1996 (Menesini

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and Smorti, 1997). During the first year, literary stimuli and role-
playing activities were used in order to raise children’s awareness
about victimization and its possible consequences, to modify their atti-
tudes and to establish a shared rule system against bullying. During
the second year, these activities were substituted by video and movie
stimuli. Teachers who participated in the intervention attended three
initial training meetings.
The literary stimulus (‘The bully’ from The Daydreamer by I. McEwan)
was used to introduce and to foster discussion on the topic.
The role-playing activities, which closely followed those presented
in Sharp and Smith (1994), offered children the chance to assume
different perspectives on the problem and to explore different motiva-
tions, consequences and coping strategies in an hypothetical bullying
situation. This exploration was then followed by discussion and re-
elaboration about personal experiences, feelings of bullies and victims,
moral issues of the bystander and so on.
For the activity in the second year, a video was produced, made of
a collection of film extracts. The video, divided into three sections,
focused on attitudes towards bullying, relations between play-fighting
and real fighting and the role of adults and peer bystanders.
Changes produced by the intervention were assessed through an
anonymous questionnaire (Olweus, 1993), administered both to the
experimental group and the control group, and a peer nomination
questionnaire, only for the experimental group.
Data showed similar patterns of results after the first and the second
year. While being bullied decreased in the experimental group, the self-
evaluation of bullying others tended to remain stable or to increase.
This result may be explained by an increased consciousness of what
bullying is and of taking greater personal responsibility in bullying
episodes. Moreover, the answers to the anonymous questionnaire indi-
cated a growing awareness of the role of adults in tackling the problem,
in terms of their intervention against bullies and of denunciation from
victims.
A similar model of intervention has been adopted in different schools
in recent years. Some of these experiments, however, tried to enrich
the programme with different activities and to adapt it to the specific
school-context in which it was carried out. For example, in three
elementary schools, Pignatti and Menesini (2000) integrated the
traditional curricular model (literary stimuli and role-play) with
activities and games about emotions and socialization. Specifically,
this approach emphasized the link between empathy and pro-social
and help behaviours.
Also Ciucci (2000) chose to consider the emotional intelligence of
bullies and victims, seen as an important mediator of aggressive and

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pro-social behaviours. Specifically, the author focused her interven-
tion programme on the ‘Learning to care curriculum’ (Feshbach et al.,
1983), which aimed to promote empathy in children. From this point
of view, in the empathic process two interrelated dimensions are con-
sidered: a cognitive and an affective dimension.
The programme consisted of a total of 44 exercises, including
problem-solving, stories, role-play, group discussions, and thought to
promote pupils’ ability to discriminate and recognize different emotions.
This curriculum was proposed for a four-month period to the entire
class, so that not only bullies and victims but also bystanders could be
helped in their comprehension of social world in which they lived.
After the intervention, the results of the self-report questionnaire
showed that, as a consequence of an increased awareness and sensibility,
children in the experimental group recognized their bullying behaviour
significantly more than their fellows in the control group.
Another interesting programme at the class-group level was pre-
sented by Costabile and colleagues (2000). The intervention in a
primary school lasted two years and consisted of two courses. The
first one followed the classical curricular approach and proposed vari-
ous activities: literary and movie stimuli, role-play and co-operative
games. The second course, on the other hand, consisted of two activi-
ties: pupils were asked to decide and control social rules for different
places in which they spend time (school, classroom, playground, home)
and to plan the reorganization of the playground. The last proposal
underlines the importance the authors attributed to the playground,
considered as an ‘essential place for the social-cognitive development
of children’ (p. 149).
All programmes presented above involved pupils attending the last
years of elementary school (at least third grade) and middle school. An
experience of intervention with younger children was carried out by
Gini et al. (2003). Two classes of six-year-old children were involved,
together with their older peers (third and fifth grade), in a project in
which the curricular approach (literary stimuli, movies and role-play),
socialization games and activities of ‘emotional familiarization’ were
combined.
Activities, adapted for the different age levels, concerned three impor-
tant educational subjects: knowledge of one’s physical-self (games of
physical expression, reciprocal contact, sensorial perception, imita-
tion), emotional awareness (emotions, recognition and empathy), and
awareness about bullying behaviours.
Data from the younger children were collected through two self-
report questionnaires (one about received and one about performed
behaviours), in which a multiple choice format was used with pictures,
which represented positive and negative actions.

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Results showed a positive effect of the intervention which increased
the level of awareness about the problem both in pupils and in teachers
who participated in the project. Moreover, similar patterns of change
emerged in younger and older children.
The last experience presented in this section differs from others
because data were collected by means of naturalistic observation
sessions instead of traditional self-report questionnaires (Berdondini
and Fonzi, 1999).
During the eight months of the intervention in an elementary school,
teachers chose between different Cooperative Group Work techniques
to use in the class: role-play, literary stimuli, group discussion and
problem-solving (Quality Circle). Moreover, two groups were inter-
viewed through the Interpersonal Process Recall (Kagan and Kagan,
1990). This technique arranges for members of the group to review a
video-recorded sequence of their interaction in order to analyse and
explore relational dynamics, and shared and misinterpreted emotions,
with the aim of raising the awareness of each participant about their
own social strategies.
The authors, who considered that traditional instruments (self-
report and peer nomination questionnaires) were unable to assess
what really changes in bully-victim relationships, carried out some
naturalistic observations on the experimental group during playtime.
Data showed that victims appeared more integrated into the group
after the intervention: specifically, some behavioural patterns like
lonely play and isolation diminished significantly, whereas talking
with peers increased.
The major limits of the actions described in this section deal with the
short period of time over which they were carried out (Arora, 1994) and
the fact that they focused only on one level of the whole system (the
class) through curricular strategies (Smith and Sharp, 1994).
Generally, curricular and short-term interventions seem to be more
effective in raising awareness about the problem of bullying and in
changing children’s attitudes, but less effective in modifying individual
patterns of behaviour or role within the group.

Peer support intervention programmes

A particular type of intervention against bullying is represented by
those programmes which can be categorized by the term ‘peer support’
(Cole, 1987; Rigby, 1996; Nailor and Cowie, 1999). Three different
approaches can be distinguished (Cowie and Sharp, 1996).
‘Befriending’ is the most informal approach, which is based on the
natural ability of children to give and receive help. Some helpers are
trained to give help to peers in different moments of school-life.
The second approach is called ‘Peer Counselling’ and represents a

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more structured form of help, including group-listening activities, the
activation of a peer telephone listening service and the creation of a
place (a counter) where requests can be received. Training for peer
counsellors includes listening abilities, empathy, vocabulary about
feelings and emotions (Cowie and Sharp, 1996).
The third approach is ‘Peer Mediation’ which, after a conflict, aims to
attain a situation of reciprocal agreement, in which both the opposing
parties are satisfied with the negotiated solution (Fernandez, 1998).
The main goal of this approach is to develop awareness about positive
aspects of conflicts and to learn strategies for conflict resolution.
The approach which seems easiest to adapt to the Italian school-
system is befriending (‘operatore amico’ in Italian), because it is not so
structured and complex as the others. Its main goal is to affect values
and models that sustain and legitimate bullying behaviours through
the promotion of respect, co-operation and mutual help.
One of the first experiments in this direction was put into practice
in 1998–1999 in a middle school in Tuscany (Menesini and Benelli,
2000; Menesini et al., 2003). After the selection of three to four peer
helpers in each class, an eight-hour training session was carried out
on communicative strategies and social skills. According to Cowie and
Sharp (1996), the training for befriending aims to build relationships,
increase trust and enhance communication. Then, the helpers inter-
vened in the class while a teacher acted as a supervisor.
To assess the effects of the intervention, that lasted eight months, the
Participant Role questionnaire (Salmivalli et al., 1996) and an Attitudes
toward Bullying questionnaire (Menesini et al., 1997) were used.
From the behavioural perspective, the programme demonstrated
that it was able to contain bullying behaviours and to affect the sense
of indifference and apathy that often characterize outsiders.
As regards attitudes, there was a significant decrease in positive
attitudes towards victims in the control group, but not in the experi-
mental group, emerging at the end of the year. This result may sug-
gest that, if no intervention is carried out, comprehension and help for
victims tend naturally to diminish.
Moreover, girls displayed higher levels of antiviolent attitudes and a
stronger tendency to act in favour of victims than their male peers, con-
firming reports in the literature on pro-sociality, which usually shows
clear gender differences and suggests that peer support models work
better with girls than with boys (Mailor and Cowie, 1999).

Conclusions
In general, studies reported in the research literature support the
idea that comprehensive intervention can significantly reduce bully-
ing behaviour in the short term. The need for schools to appreciate the

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importance of maintaining the intervention once it is implemented
has been often underlined. Moreover, school, parent, child and class
variables need to be progressively included in order for such pro-
grammes to be really effective.
Different experiments carried out in Italy and presented in this article
tried to satisfy this need, even though some difficulties emerged.
In general, intervention programmes in Italian schools showed a
good level of success in modifying pupils’ attitudes towards bullying
behaviours and in reducing the incidence of victimization. However,
as pointed out by authors themselves, future interventions are likely
to face some problems, which are concerned both with the involvement
of the school as a whole system and with the choice of appropriate
assessment methods.
Bullying is damaging not only to the children involved but, more
generally, to the school environment. Intervention/prevention
programmes should aim to tackle victimization but also to improve
school-life quality. Prevention through the promotion of a school ethos
which blames violence and supports respect and co-operation seems to
be the real challenge for all the psychologists, teachers and educators
who work and live with children in the school.

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