Background: Bystanders' role in bullying situations is important, and may exacerbate or minimize the problem. Thus, this article aims to identify the characteristics of anti-bullying programs with an emphasis on bystanders.
Methods: This is a scoping review. We included studies that addressed interventions with an emphasis on bystanders, carried out with school children and adolescents, aimed at reducing bullying/cyberbullying and/or increasing defending behavior. Fifteen portals/databases were searched. The selection and extraction processes were carried out through the blind review strategy. The synthesis took place descriptively.
Results: We found 12 interventions. The most investigated were KiVa (n = 9), STAC (n = 3), and Curriculum-Based Anti-Bullying (n = 2).
Conclusions: There are few anti-bullying programs with an emphasis on bystanders, and the majority are universal programs with strategies applied by teachers, giving little attention to parents. Moreover, most of these programs lack a broader mix of anti-bullying strategies. Therefore, we suggest developing anti-bullying programs with multiple components that contain universal, selective, and indicated strategies.
Keywords: adolescents; bullying; bystanders; child; cyberbullying; psychosocial intervention.
© 2023 American School Health Association.