Schools must take action

He has found a school and a faculty that are willing to tackle the issue head-on, questioning themselves, their role, and their understanding of violence.

FFL – Friends for life. The title of the film project that the fifth graders are planning has been decided. And as the title suggests, it's about the best gang of girls ever. Ella (name changed) also wants to be part of this film project. And part of this group of girls. She is delighted when her classmates invite her to meet them in the girls' bathroom during recess. That's where they'll discuss everything. But when Ella enters the bathroom, no one is there. Ella waits. She waits until the bell rings at the end of recess. Then she returns to the classroom. When she enters the room, she sees smiling faces. Ashamed, Ella sits down at her desk. Just a few days later, one of the girls hands out invitations to her birthday party. Ella also receives a note. She didn't expect that. So her joy is all the greater. She unfolds the note and reads: «This is not an invitation!» She feels tears welling up as she hears the others around her giggling. It's not always easy to tell whether a conflict is just a disagreement or bullying in everyday school life. And yet there are clear signs for both. While conflicts can be resolved by working together to find solutions, bullying is not about asserting an interest, but about degrading a person. So it's not about Ella not being allowed to participate in the film project or not being invited to the birthday party – it's about humiliating her and demonstrating one's own power. The fact that Ella is in an inferior position anyway – after all, she is alone against a group – is another characteristic of bullying.

Bullying takes place behind closed doors

Recognizing bullying in everyday school life poses challenges for teachers. On the one hand, because bullying—at least in the beginning—takes place in secret, for example in the school bathroom. On the other hand, because individual incidents, even if they become public, are not placed in a larger temporal context. In addition, teachers are often unaware of the informative and normative influence that affects them and their actions: Who should they believe when the account of individuals contradicts that of a group? Let's imagine how Ella feels in the face of repeated attacks and humiliation. How might this emotional state affect her body language and facial expressions? Defiant? Sad? Angry? Afraid? Unsure? Statements such as «always gets upset so quickly» or «She cries over every little thing» fall on fertile ground – after all, they reflect exactly what the teacher perceives at that moment.

Teachers are not immune to the effects of peer pressure either. Taking a stand against a group and possibly provoking their rejection requires courage and the conviction to stand up for what is right. Given the excessive daily workload, how much easier it is to go along with the majority opinion and identify the individual as a supposed disruptive factor. «School principals and teachers are generally opposed to the situation, so that a solution is often sought at the expense of the victim as the symptom carrier in the form of a change of school as the path of least resistance», says lawyer Beate zur Nieden, an expert in school law, among other things, describing the problem.

Training is necessary

Only if teachers receive adequate and mandatory training in bullying prevention and intervention measures and have comprehensive knowledge of group dynamics can they recognize bullying at an early stage and, in many cases, prevent or at least mitigate the consequences for the victims and the entire group. This is because it is not only the victims of bullying who, in the worst case, are negatively affected for the rest of their lives – all other group members learn that it is legitimate and normal to assert themselves and make their mark through psychological violence and that they will not be prevented from doing so. Every year, hundreds of thousands of young people in Germany leave school having been exposed to bullying in some way. As victims, as perpetrators, as accomplices, as bystanders or those who look away.

Bullying is everywhere

Statistically, there is no school class in Germany without bullying. According to the World Health Organization's 2022 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study, at least one in seven students is directly affected by bullying. The representative study conducted by Bündnisses gegen Cybermobbing (Alliance against Cyberbullying) in 2025 shows a sharp increase in bullying among young adults, precisely the very age group that has just left school. For decades, there has been a failure to teach young people how to deal with bullying during their school years. At the same time, there has been a 37.1 percent increase in violence in schools and against teachers between 2022 and 2024, according to the German School Portal. Schools have a big task ahead of them, one that they are currently unable to fulfill. They cannot fulfill this task as long as they do not receive the necessary funding from politicians.

Real-life experience

A young man stands in front of me. Tears glisten in his eyes. The event I conducted in front of two hundred twelve to fifteen-year-old students has just come to an end. But the young man does not leave the room with his classmates. It is important to him to tell me that he had to experience for himself what I talked about for 90 minutes. That he finally couldn't take it anymore and changed schools. Even though he knew that this meant abandoning his only friend, who would then take on the role of victim after him. «I couldn't take it anymore», he says. And I understand what he means. His vulnerability stands in stark contrast to his height, his powerful appearance, and his strikingly deep voice. He is not 15 years old like his classmates. He is already 17. He lost two years because he no longer had the strength to perform well at school. He needed all the strength he had to survive.

He feels understood, seen, heard, and rehabilitated by me. But more importantly, he has found a school and a faculty that are willing to tackle the issue head-on, questioning themselves, their role, and their understanding of violence.

Teachers' understanding of violence is crucial

Teachers' understanding of violence is particularly decisive in determining whether students take a stand against bullying within their group. If the adults responsible in the school environment tolerate bullying behavior such as insults, ridicule, or exclusion, students can hardly be expected to do otherwise. The importance of teachers' understanding of violence in dealing with bullying was examined, for example, by Ludwig Bilz and others in the Zeitschrift für Pädagogik (Journal of Education): While 95 percent of the teachers surveyed defined actions such as hitting or kicking as violence, only 53 percent considered verbal abuse or ridicule to be violence. However, in classes taught by teachers with a broader understanding of violence, significantly more students were willing to intervene when they observed bullying.

Social psychologists refer to the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance, whereby individuals perceive a situation as threatening but do not intervene because they believe that everyone else assesses the situation differently than they do. They prefer to conform to the group and do not realize that many others share their opinion.

Unusual behavior as a result of bullying?

During a training course for teachers, one participant asks me whether it is still bullying if the child in question is actually behaving in an «annoying» manner. She expresses understanding for the other students' rejection of this child. She says the child is «too loud», «too pushy», and «conspicuous» in their behavior. The teacher refuses to accept my answer that, regardless of the child's behavior, it is bullying if they are repeatedly insulted, excluded, or laughed at. Even when I try to explain to her that, firstly, it is difficult to determine whether the child's behavior is actually the cause of the rejection or possibly a consequence of it. And secondly, that even behavior that is perceived as difficult must never be used to justify violence.

The misunderstanding that I believe exists here is the perception of bullying as normal quarreling, through which the «annoying» child ideally learns to adapt to the supposed group norm. In the case described, however, it was primarily the teacher who adapted to the group norm determined by the perpetrators without being aware of it. Because, as already mentioned, teachers are also subject to peer pressure. The more stable the bullying system is, the more convinced all group members are that the victim is somehow to blame. We are therefore talking about perpetrator-victim reversal.

Bullying is violence

Bullying as a form of severe emotional violence is downplayed, and the underlying psychological factors on the part of the perpetrator, the group, and the victim are not recognized or understood. However, current research—for example, by Professor Dieter Wolke of the University of Warwick—shows that the long-term effects of bullying are comparable to those of abuse by adults. And no one would dispute that this is a form of violence! We know that depression among children and adolescents is steadily increasing. But what we often don't realize is that 29 percent of all cases of depression can be attributed to bullying. We know that the number of school dropouts is steadily rising. But we are not aware that in many cases there is a link between bullying and dropping out of school, as studies from the UK and the US show.

Schools must address the issue

The experiences described here from my work with students and educators are not isolated cases. Schools that organize training courses for teachers and events for students are among the few that address the issue. In my opinion, far too many school employees ignore the phenomenon. Yet bullying can only be resolved on site: at school and in daily work with the entire group. Bullying is not just a matter between perpetrators (who in other contexts may themselves have been victims) and victims. Bullying is a self-perpetuating system that only works through a complex interplay of different roles. Preventive and intervention work in schools therefore offers the greatest opportunity for a society that protects all individuals and at the same time strengthens the collective.