Bullying at schools, ranging from bantering and bashing, ignoring and shutting out from student groups to beating and kicking has long been a problem in Japan.
In Norway, after an intervention campaign was introduced nationally, an evaluation of forty-two schools suggested that, over a two-year period, bullying was halved.
While bullying is parents' greatest concern over all, nearly half of low-income parents worry their child will get shot, compared with one-fifth of high-income parents.
Another study of high school social networks found less bullying and aggression the higher the density of mixed-sex friendships within a given adolescent network.
The Sheffield investigation, which involved sixteen primary schools and seven secondary schools, found that most schools succeeded in reducing bullying.
Japanese males have shifted increasingly to aggression previously linked with women, such as bullying others by excluding them from conversation, he said.
A survey I conducted with Irene Whitney found that in British primary schools up to a quarter of pupils reported experience of bullying, which in about one in ten cases was persistent.
These days, as studies in the U.S.show bullying on the rise and parental supervision on the decline, researchers who study bullying say that calling moms and dads is more futile than ever.
Peter Smith, Professor of Psychology at the University of Sheffield, directed the Sheffield Anti-Bullying Intervention Project, funded by the Department for Education.