What Extent Should Laws Be Involved into the Management of School Bullying

Abstract

This study investigates how law might more credibly engage with school bullying governance through a mixed-method design: a systematic review of legal and psychological literature, alongside an original survey of minors conducted both online and offline. The findings reveal a worrying proliferation of covert bullying tactics that routinely circumvent existing detection mechanisms. Teachers and administrators appear chronically underprepared to devise proportionate responses, while public awareness initiatives remain superficial and poorly targeted. Meanwhile, the normative case for legal intervention continues to divide educators, parents, and legal professionals, exposing enduring frictions between deterrent and restorative ideals. Against this backdrop, the study advances four complementary proposals. Statutory interpretations and official guidance should be revised to render non-physical and indirect bullying more readily recognisable in both reporting and disciplinary proceedings. Mandatory reporting obligations for school personnel, reinforced by regular, practice-oriented training, would tangibly improve frontline responsiveness. Strengthening community legal literacy through accessible workshops and campaigns could encourage more active bystander participation. Finally, sentencing and disciplinary protocols ought to accommodate both proportionate penalties for serious statutory breaches and rehabilitative alternatives for minor cases—thereby sustaining accountability without foreclosing reintegration, and attending to the interests of harmed individuals and responsible parties alike. Taken together, these recommendations seek to reposition legal intervention not as a blunt or divisive tool, but as a flexible, context-sensitive, and socially grounded response to the evolving dynamics of school bullying.