Using The Problem Analysis Triangle to Prevent Bullying

Format

Individual Presentation

Presenters

Eric Landers, Georgia Southern UniversityFollow

First Presenter's Institution

Georgia Southern University

First Presenter’s Email Address

ericlanders@georgiasouthern.edu

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Eric Landers earned his Ph.D. from the University of Florida with an emphasis on children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD). He has worked as a classroom teacher for students with EBD, a professor at West Virginia University and Georgia Southern University, and as an independent consultant for supporting school improvement initiatives. Dr. Landers focus is in the areas of bullying, responding to challenging behaviors, teacher job satisfaction, and school-wide PBIS. He has served as the Co-Director of the BSED, MAT, and MED Special Education Programs at Georgia Southern University and the founder/director of the Southeast Conference on School Climate.

Location

Session Four

Strand #1

Hands: Safety & Violence Prevention

Strand #2

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Relevance

This presentation addresses how to identify and prevent bullying in schools. It is directly related to the "safety and violence" strand of the conference.

Brief Program Description

This presentation discusses the Problem Analysis Triangle to prevent bullying in schools. Bullying impacts school personnel in terms of time, effort, and even money. Participants will learn how the bully, the victim, and the opportunity work together to create the bullying situation. Participants will also learn how to strengthen different support already present in their schools to predict bullying better, protect the victims, and address the bully when the behavior has occurred.

Summary

Nearly 20% of students report being bullied in schools in the past 12 months. Bullying behavior can negatively impact students in a variety of ways, including attendance (e.g., Berthold & Hoover, 2000), adverse physical health (e.g., Bogart et al., 2014), and increased depression (Cook et al., 2010). In addition to the negative impact of bullying on students, instances of bullying take time to investigate and can even produce a monetary cost to schools (Baams et al., 2017). Addressing this system-wide problem in an effective, efficient manner cannot only protect students from further harm but also save school personnel time and money. This presentation focuses on the Problem Analysis Triangle as an approach to analyzing and addressing school bullying. Derived from the routine activity approach (Cohen & Felson, 1979), the Problem Analysis Triangle recognizes that there are three interconnected factors in a bullying situation: the offender (bully), the target (victim), and the opportunity. The theory considers that all three factors are necessary for a bullying situation to occur. If school

personnel can work to control only one of these factors, the instances of bullying in schools can be reduced. In addition, the Problem Analysis Triangle considers another layer to the problem. There are influencers in each of the parts of the triangle. The handler influences the offender. The victim and the opportunity are protected by the guardian and the manager, respectively. Each of these influencers can either hinder the extent of the problem in a school or fail to control it. This presentation will discuss how each of the sides of the triangle (bully, victim, and opportunity) influence each other in the bullying process and offers practical school-ready solutions for school personnel. Participants will also learn how to strengthen the roles of “handlers” to remediate bullying behavior, “managers” to better predict and prevent bullying in specific locations, and “guardians” to provide support for victims.

Evidence

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Learning Objective 1

Participants will complete this session with system-level strategies to prevent bullying at multiple age levels.

Learning Objective 2

Participants will learn how to target data for problem identification, organize personnel to maximize prevention and disseminate school-ready activities to address bullying throughout their systems.

Learning Objective 3

Participants will learn strategies to address the bully, the victims and the context to prevent bullying.

Keyword Descriptors

Bullying

Presentation Year

2024

Start Date

3-5-2024 8:30 AM

Recommended Citation

Landers, Eric, "Using The Problem Analysis Triangle to Prevent Bullying" (2024). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 33.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2024/2024/33