A comprehensive overview of current bullying prevention research conducted by government and higher education agencies.

Rates of Incidence

• One out of every five (19.2%) students report being bullied. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022)
• In a multi-national study across 83 countries, 30.5% of adolescents reported being bullied. (EClinicalMedicine, 2020)
• A higher portion of female than of male students report being bullied at school (21.8% vs. 16.7%). (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022)
• A higher percentage of male than of female students report being physically bullied (6% vs. 3.7%), whereas a higher percentage of female than of male students reported being the subjects of rumors (16.6% vs. 9.7%) and being excluded from activities on purpose (4.9% vs. 2.6%). (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022)
• 41.3% of students who reported being bullied at school indicated that they think the bullying would happen again. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022)
• Among all students who experienced various types of bullying, the most common forms of bullying were spreading rumors (13.0%) and being made fun of or called names (11.9%). (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022)
• A meta-analysis of responses from 14,083 students found that: “when youth are excluded from social activities by their peers at school, the outcomes for that student, both short-term and long-term will be just as detrimental as if they got kicked, punched, or slapped every day.” (Survey of Secondary Youth on Relational Aggression: Impact of Bullying, Social Status, and Attitudes, 2022)
• In a national survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, 100% of student participants reported experiencing, witnessing, or being aware of acts of bullying during the 2021-2022 school year. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022)
• The most common places on a school campus where a student experiences bullying are a classroom (39%), a hallway or stairwell (37.5%), the cafeteria (25.1%), and outside on school grounds (24.4%). (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022)
• Across the United States, 44.2% of students reported notifying a trusted adult about bullying. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022)
• If bullied for personal characteristics, students report being bullied most frequently for their appearance (32.7%), followed by race (13%), disability (9.7%), ethnic origin (9.4%), gender (9.2%), sexual orientation (8.9%), and religion (5.8%). (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022)
• Students with disabilities experienced greater rates of bullying and engaged in higher levels of perpetration than their peers without disabilities over time. (Rose, C. A., & Gage, N. A., 2016)
• Recent data indicate that this trend persists: Teenagers with a developmental disability (44.4%) were more likely to be bullied than teenagers without a developmental disability (31.3%). (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024)
• With bias-based bullying, also known as stigma- or identity-based bullying, LGBQ identities (90%) and transgender, gender diverse, and questioning identities (54%) were frequently found among the groups with the highest levels of emotional distress. In similar groups without bias-based bullying, emotional distress rates were 20% to 60% lower, with an average reduction of 38.8%. (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2024)
• More than 3 in 5 LGBTQ+ students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the past year, and more than half had poor mental health during the past month. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024)
• During the past year among high school students, LGBTQ+ students were more likely than cisgender and heterosexual students to be bullied at school (29% vs 16%). Similarly, LTBTQ+ students were also more likely than cisgender and heterosexual students to be electronically bullied (25% vs 13%). (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024)
• The U.S. government began collecting data on school bullying in 2005, when the prevalence of bullying was around 28 percent. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014)
• In 2013, about 22 percent of students reported being bullied at school during the school year. This percentage was lower than the percentage reported in every prior survey year in which these data were collected (28 percent each in 2005, 2009, and 2011 and 32 percent in 2007). (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014)

Effects of Bullying

• As a result of bullying, students reported the most significant negative effects on their feelings about themselves (27.8%), their schoolwork (19.7%), relationships with family and friends (18.5%), and physical health (13.4%). (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022)
• Bullying can result in physical injury, social and emotional distress, self-harm, and even death. It also increases the risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic achievement, and dropping out of school. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2025)
• Students who are both targets of bullying and engage in bullying behavior are at greater risk for both mental health and behavior problems than students who only bully or are only bullied. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2025)
• Repeated acts of peer aggression have been found to significantly hamper student academic achievement, particularly in the area of mathematics. (British Journal of Educational Psychology, 2022)
• Relational bullying (e.g., ostracization, verbal attacks, and spreading of rumors), as opposed to physical bullying, has the greatest effect on student academic motivation. (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021)
• School bullying negatively affects the ability of students to engage in effective peer cooperation, which in turn leads to a lack of engagement in group-oriented classroom activities and lower academic achievement. (Children, 2024)
• Repeated acts of peer aggression can negatively affect school attendance due to feelings of lack of safety and school connection, negatively impacting student academic performance. (Psychology in the Schools, 2024)

Cyberbullying

• Among students ages 12 – 18 who reported being bullied during school, 21.6% were bullied online or by text. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024)
• The percentages of students ages 13 – 17 who have experienced cyberbullying at some point in their lifetimes have more than doubled (18.8% to 54.6%) from 2007-2023. (Patchin & Hinduja, 2024)
• In this latest study, 26.5% of students experienced cyberbullying in the previous 30 days; this compares to 23.2% in 2021, 17.2% in 2019, and 16.7% in 2016. (Patchin & Hinduja, 2024)
• When students were asked about the specific types of cyberbullying they had experienced in the previous 30 days, mean or hurtful comments posted online (30.4%), exclusion from group chats (28.9%), rumors spread online (28.4%), and someone embarrassing or humiliating them online (26.9%) were the most commonly reported. (Patchin & Hinduja, 2024)
• Cyberbullying rates differ significantly by gender. Adolescent girls are more likely to have experienced cyberbullying in their lifetimes (59.2% female vs 49.5% male) and over the previous 30 days (28.6% female vs 24.2% male). (Patchin & Hinduja, 2024)
• The type of cyberbullying tends to differ by gender. Girls were more likely to say someone spread rumors about them online while boys were more likely to say that someone threatened to hurt them online. (Patchin & Hinduja, 2020)
• The percentages of schools that reported cyberbullying occurrences at least once a week were highest among middle schools (37%), followed by high schools (25%), and then elementary schools (6%). (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024)
 

References:

American Academy of Pediatrics (2024). Eisenberg, M. E., Mehus, C. J., Saewyc, E. M., Corliss, H. L., Gower, A. L., & Beckman, K. J. (2024). Emotional distress disparities across multiple intersecting social positions: The role of bias-based bullying. *Pediatrics, 153*(2), e2023061647. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2023-061647

British Journal of Educational Psychology (2022). Murphy, D., Leonard, S. J., Taylor, L. K., & Santos, F. H. (2022). Educational achievement and bullying: The mediating role of psychological difficulties. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(4), 1487-1501. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12511

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2025). Farrington D, Baldry A. Individual risk factors for school bullying. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research 2010; 2(1):4-16. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.5042/jacpr.2010.0001

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2024). Haile G, Arockiaraj B, Zablotsky B, Ng AE. Bullying victimization among teenagers: United States, July 2021–December 2023. NCHS Data Brief, no 514. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2024. Retrieved from: https://dx.doi.org/10.15620/cdc/168510

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2023). Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2013–2023. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/yrbs/dstr/index.html

Children (2024). Wang, Y., & Chen, I. (2024). Effect of School Bullying on Students’ Peer Cooperation: A Moderated Mediation Model. Children, 11(1), 11. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.3390/children11010011

EClinicalMedicine (2020). Biswas, T., Scott, J. G., Munir, K., Thomas, H. J., Huda, M. M., Hasan, M. M., ... & Mamun, A. A. (2020). Global variation in the prevalence of bullying victimization amongst adolescents: Role of peer and parental supports. EClinicalMedicine, 2020. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100276

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2021). Samara, M., Hammuda, S., & Khattab, N. (2021). How Can Bullying Victimisation Lead to Lower Academic Achievement? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Mediating Role of Cognitive-Motivational Factors. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(5), 2209. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18052209

National Center for Education Statistics (2024). Burr, R., Kemp, J., and Wang, K. (2024). Crime, Violence, Discipline, and Safety in U.S. Public Schools: Findings From the School Survey on Crime and Safety: 2021–22 (NCES 2024-043). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from: https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2024043

National Center for Education Statistics (2022). Thomsen, E., Henderson, M., Moore, A., Price, N., and McGarrah, M.W. (2024). Student Reports of Bullying: Results From the 2022 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCES 2024-109rev). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2024/2024109rev.pdf

National Center for Education Statistics (2014). U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey, selected years, 2005 through 2013. (This table was prepared August 2014.) Retrieved from: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_230.45.asp

Patchin, J. W. & Hinduja, S. (2024). 2023 Cyberbullying Data. Cyberbullying Research Center. Retrieved from: https://cyberbullying.org/2023-cyberbullying-data

Patchin, J. W. & Hinduja, S. (2020). 2019 Cyberbullying Data. Cyberbullying Research Center. Retrieved from: https://cyberbullying.org/2019-cyberbullying-data

Psychology in the Schools (2024). Ozyildirim, G., & Karadağ, E. (2024). The effect of peer bullying on academic achievement: A meta-analysis study related to results of TIMSS and PIRLS. Psychology in the Schools, 61(5), 2185-2203. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.23159

Rose, C. A., & Gage, N. A. (2016). Exploring the involvement of bullying among students with disabilities over time. Exceptional Children, 83, 298-314. Retrieved from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0014402916667587

Survey of secondary youth on relational aggression: impact of bullying, social status, and attitudes. (2022). Kim, A. Y., Rose, C. A., Hopkins, S., Mc Cree, N., & Romero, M. (2022). Survey of secondary youth on relational aggression: impact of bullying, social status, and attitudes. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 66(3), 285–295. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1080/1045988X.2022.2070589

Updated February 28, 2025