A crucial feature of school classes, as intact social entities, is that members share certain values (Boehnke & Schiefer, 2016). Saarento, Garandeau and Salmivalli (2015), argue that the influence of classroom- and school-level factors on bullying involves demographic, structural, peer contextual and teacher-related dimensions. Swearer et al. (2014) use a theory of “homophily and bullying” to argue for a homophily hypothesis where within group similarity leads to bullies physically or relationally rejecting those who are different and withdrawing any social support for victims.  However, Saarento, Garandeau and Salmivalli’s conclusion (op.cit.) was that the contributions of demographic, school structural and school-class characteristics remain inconsistent.  On the other hand, recent Swedish research (Thornberg et al., 2015 & Thornberg et al., 2016), after controlling for factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, school-class size and gender composition, found that relational climate and experience of moral disengagement within school-classes was a significant predictor of between-class variation in victimisation.  Victimisation was less likely in classes characterised by supportive relational patterns and lower levels of moral disengagement in the classroom, a result confirmed by Grundherr (et al., 2016). The research reported here builds on a presentation at ECER 2016 (Gill, Larsson, Matton, Simonsson & Levin, 2016) that explored some consequences of systematic reductions of prevalence of bullying at school. It was argued that Swedish anti-bullying programs are being delivered at the later phases of an implementation research continuum (Chalamandaris &  Piette, 2015).   Uncovering new or persistent cases of bullying becomes more difficult as prevalence of bullying reduces (successful implementation). Being bullied at least 2 to 3 times a month between 2009–2015, among 200,000 children in 1500 Finnish schools (grades 1–9) decreased from 17.2% at baseline to 12.6% after six years of implementation of the KiVa program (Herkama & Salmivalli, 2016). Even though creating reliable measures of bullying prevalence is difficult (Vivolo-Kantor et al., 2014), Finnish prevalence is considerably higher than in Sweden, national average is about 7/8%, which in turn, is higher than the average in the municipality where this research has been carried out (4.9%, Spring 2016).  With prevalence rates at this level it is possible to envisage realistic “zero-vision” and “zero-tolerance” strategies. (For a critical review of zero-tolerance, see Borgwald & Theixos, 2013 and James & Freeze, 2006). Any goal of reducing a low prevalence of bullying in Sweden, even lower, is mediated by the discovery, from individual-level, longitudinal data, where successful cases of ceased victims are regularly replaced by new victims (Flygare, Gill & Johansson, 2013: Hellstedt, Johansson & Gill, 2016), revealing a cyclical replacement of victims. While up to 75% of victims at one time will self-report not being victimized at one-year follow-up, rates at cross-sectional measurement may remain the same (typically 7/8% in Swedish schools, op.cit.).  The Norwegian “Zero Program” (Strohmeier and Noam, 2012) is based on a “zero-vision” manifesto. Köhler (2006) in outlining health indicators for Swedish children argues that while some ideal zero-outcomes might not stand up as credible operational targets, using “zero vision” as a reference point may be reasonable in some cases. In the municipality that is the focus here, evidence is emerging that some schools and school classes are coming closer to a zero-vision reference point.  In a school with 200 children, in 8 or 9 classes, a point prevalence rate of 3% would indicate that at least two, possibly three classes in that school had no victims of bullying.  It is argued that this circumstance creates new challenges for prevention strategies.  Therefore, it is important to delve deeper into changes in “the picture of bullying”.  That is the goal of this research.

Boehnke, K., & Schiefer, D. (2016). 2 Horizontal transmission of value orientations in adolescence. Youth in Education: The Necessity of Valuing Ethnocultural Diversity, 27; Borgwald, K. & Theixos, H. (2013) Bullying the bully: Why zero-tolerance policies get a failing grade, Social Influence, 8:2-3, 149-160, DOI: 10.1080/15534510.2012.724030; Chalamandaris, A-G. & Piette, D. (2015) School-based anti-bullying interventions: Systematic review of the methodology to assess their effectiveness. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 24, 131–174; Grundherr, M., Geisler, A., Stoiber, M., & Schäfer, M. (2016). School Bullying and Moral Reasoning Competence. Social Development. Published Online: doi: 10.1111/sode.12199; Herkama, S., & Salmivalli, C. (2016). 10. Making large-scale, sustainable change: experiences with the KiVa anti-bullying programme. Ending the torment: tackling bullying from the schoolyard to cyberspace, 75; James, S., & Freeze, R. (2006). One step forward, two steps back: Immanent critique of the practice of zero tolerance in inclusive schools. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 10(6), 581-594; Köhler, L. (2006). Health indicators for Swedish children. A contribution to a municipal index. Stockholm, Save the Children, Sweden; Saarento, S., Garandeau, C. F., & Salmivalli, C. (2015). Classroom‐and school‐level contributions to bullying and victimization: A review. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 25(3), 204-218; Strohmeier, D., & Noam, G. G. (Eds.). (2012). Evidence-Based Bullying Prevention Programs for Children and Youth: New Directions for Youth Development, Number 133 (Vol. 117). John Wiley & Sons; Swearer, S.M., Buhs, E.S., Amanda B. Siebecker, A.B., Brey-Love, K. & Miller, C.K. (2011). Bullying and Peer Victimization, in Coleman, H. L., & Yeh, C. (Eds.). (2011). Handbook of School Counselling. Routledge; Thornberg, R., Wänström, L., & Pozzoli, T. (2016). Peer victimisation and its relation to class relational climate and class moral disengagement among school children. Educational Psychology, 1-13. DOI: 10.1080/01443410.2016.1150423; Thornberg, R., Wänström, L., Pozzoli, T., & Gini, G. (2015). Between-class variation in the prevalence of bullying victimization: What's the role of class moral disengagement and quality of teacher–student and student–student relationships? In The 17th European Conference on Developmental Psychology, Braga, Portugal, September 8-12, 2015; Vivolo-Kantor, A. M., Martell, B. N., Holland, K. M., & Westby, R. (2014). A systematic review and content analysis of bullying and cyber-bullying measurement strategies. Aggression and violent behavior, 19(4), 423-434.