Bullying is a pressing concern in global education and public health agendas (see United Nations, 2024). Anti-bullying policy began to emerge as a part of curriculum policy worldwide in the late 1990s (Espelage, 2016), and since then, educational systems have been tasked with implementing policies. International organizations have been actively addressing the issue through policy frameworks aimed at reducing school bullying and promoting youth well-being (see UNESCO, 2019; OECD, 2020). In an increasingly globalized world, bullying can no longer be understood as a localized or school-bound phenomenon. Its forms, meanings, and effects extend across borders and social contexts, necessitating coordinated responses at global and regional levels.

Bullying, which is commonly defined as repeated, intentional, and aggressive behavior towards someone with an imbalance of power (Olweus, 1978), is regarded as a public health problem and one of the main challenges to students’ adjustment, well-being, and school functioning (Huang & Cornell, 2015). Early research on bullying emerged primarily within the field of psychology (Thornberg, 2015) and largely continued along this path, framing bullying as a behavioral problem of specific individuals (Walton, 2011). While bullying is mainly defined as an individual problem in research and policy, it is also a socially constructed phenomenon rooted in discursive practices, emerging from a complex network of institutional, historical, social, and political relations (Walton, 2005). However, the dominant individualistic framing largely overlooks the social and political contexts in which anti-bullying policies are developed (see Smith, 2011). 

Building on the scholarly debates that highlight tensions between individual-focused explanations and structural perspectives (Walton, 2015), this study argues that bullying is beyond an individual/behavioral problem and approaches it as a systemic issue. Although bullying occurs between individuals, it reflects broader societal patterns through what Thornberg (2015) calls the co-construction of differentness. Therefore, each bullying incident is rooted in and influenced by larger social dynamics and power structures (Walton, 2005). This study offers a critical re-examination of global policy discourses on bullying to open up new conceptual and political possibilities.

Theoretically, the research is grounded in Foucault’s concepts of discourse (1972), governmentality (1991), and subjectification (1973) and seeks to answer how bullying is problematized within international organizations’ policy documents. Ellwood and Davies (2010) argue that Foucault’s theoretical concepts help question the construction of knowledge about bullying in the policies and how these discursive forms shape and define people’s understanding of objects and subjects (1995, as cited in Ellwood & Davies, 2010). Discourse, from a Foucauldian perspective, is a way of unmasking rules, divisions, and systems of specific field knowledge among more global, political domains (Foucault, 1972).  Governmentality helps with understanding how certain truths appeared around the conduct of conduct, in what way and by whom the truth can be talked and implemented, and what the consequences are (Foucault, 1991; Rose, 1999). Subjectification refers both to the way individuals are constituted as subjects and to political subjection as a mode of having power exercised over oneself (Lawlore, 2014). 

This qualitative study adopted a critical approach to examine the discourse around bullying within a total of 33 policy documents from UNESCO, the OECD, and the EU over the past ten years. These include policy in broader term including anti-bullying policies, reports, and guidelines. The data was analyzed using the Foucauldian-inspired methodology, What is the Problem Represented to be (WPR) (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016), which provides a clear, straightforward framework for policy analysis. Using the seven guiding questions in this framework, a codebook was created, based on which different codes and subcodes were developed. The analysis also used a comparative method by putting each organization in a different table in order to later compare and find commonalities and differences. This framework required identifying the problem, assumptions underlying the problem, the condition of emergence of this kind of problem representation, the silences and alternatives, consequences of the problem representation, the how and where of this creation, dissimilation, and support of this problem, and the possible alternatives, and researchers’ positionality (Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016).

The primary result shows how global policy discourses on bullying shape what can be known, said, and done about youth wellbeing and harm at schools. Policy texts do more than propose solutions; they actively construct bullying as a particular kind of problem. In doing so, they position subjects (students, families, teachers, schools, and states) in specific and uneven ways. The preliminary patterns that have begun to emerge across the international organization’s documents suggest that discourses around bullying tend to individualize and depoliticize the problem, emphasizing psychological, behavioral, and familial factors over structural conditions. The discourse of personal responsibility, and self-management does not operate in isolation but is deeply embedded within broader power relations (McHoul & Grace, 1993). While schools are expected to carry the burden of ‘teaching’ students not to bully, there is little focus on broader educational reforms or systemic engagement. Scheurich (1994) argues that when a problem is treated as already known, and the focus shifts to showcasing solutions, policy work becomes more about appearances than real change. In addition, while the criticality of the bullying situation is acknowledged, the solution that has been mentioned in these policies is what we assumed already existed in schools. While the analysis remains provisional, these insights indicate how power/knowledge relations and governing rationalities are taking shape within the data, providing a foundation for deeper examination in the next phase. It is critical to rethink bullying beyond individualized frameworks and open space for alternative epistemologies that center students’ lived experiences, institutional responsibility, and structural reform.

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