The impact of anti-bullying laws on children's social-behavioral skills
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Sun, Xiaohan
Zhao, Hang
Date Issued
April 27, 2025
Abstract
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.
Journal
Frontiers in Psychology
Department
Business and Economics
Computer and Information Science
Citation
Sun, Xiaohan and Hang Zhao. "The Impact of Anti-Bullying Laws on Children’s Social-Behavioral Skills." Frontiers in Psychology 16, (2025): 1550736. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1550736. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1550736.
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Version of Article
Published version
DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1550736
ISSN
1664-1078
Rights
© 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) and the copyright owner(s) 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.
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