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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Pediatric Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1550736
This article is part of the Research TopicNew Ideas and International Perspectives on School Bullying: A Multidisciplinary ApproachView all 5 articles
The Impact of Anti-Bullying Laws on Children's Social-Behavioral Skills
Provisionally accepted- Allegheny College, Meadville, United States
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Bullying and violence, both on and off campuses, significantly impact children's well-being. To address school bullying, every U.S. state gradually developed and implemented school anti-bullying laws (ABLs) and regulations between 2000 and 2015. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of ABLs using a difference-in-differences model and nationally representative samples of U.S. elementary school children.While state ABLs show limited overall effects on children's social-behavioral skills, significant improvements are observed in self-control and interpersonal skills among low-income children, along with reduced externalizing behaviors among Hispanic children. States with strong or moderate ABLs show greater improvements in children's interpersonal skills compared to states with weaker policies.These findings indicate social disparities in school bullying outcomes and highlight the importance of stronger policy enforcement.
Keywords: school bullying, Anti-bullying laws, social-behavioral skills, educational disparities, Policy effectiveness
Received: 02 Jan 2025; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sun and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiaohan Sun, Allegheny College, Meadville, United States
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