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 International Journal of Behavioral Development
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Counteracting bullying in Finland: The KiVa program and its effects on different forms of being bullied
Christina Salmivalli, Antti Kärnä and Elisa Poskiparta
International Journal of Behavioral Development 2011 35: 405 originally published online 25 July 2011
DOI: 10.1177/0165025411407457

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Special section

International Journal of
Behavioral Development
Counteracting bullying in Finland: The 35(5) 405–411
ª The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0165025411407457
forms of being bullied ijbd.sagepub.com

Christina Salmivalli,1,2,3 Antti Kärnä,1 and Elisa Poskiparta1

Abstract
In 2006, the Finnish Ministry of Education mandated our research group to develop an antibullying program for comprehensive schools.
The new program, KiVa, includes both universal and indicated actions to reduce bullying. The present study reports the effects of KiVa on
nine different forms of being bullied in a sample of 5,651 fourth to sixth graders from 78 schools (39 intervention, 39 control). The findings
showed positive effects on each form of being bullied assessed. After 9 months of intervention, control school students were 1.32–
1.94 times as likely to be bullied as students in intervention schools. A well-designed, research-based program can thus reduce multiple
forms of being bullied, and there might be no need to develop specific programs for different forms of bullying.

Keywords
being bullied, effectiveness, forms of victimization, intervention, KiVa

Although the first Finnish studies on school bullying were
published in the 1980s (Björkqvist, Ekman, & Lagerspetz, 1982;
Lagerspetz, Björkqvist, Berts, & King, 1982), public attention
devoted to the topic really started to increase in the beginning of the
next decade. Since then, there have been changes in legislation
concerning school safety and the development of antibullying
policies. For instance, the Finnish Basic Education Act states, since
1999, that every student has the right to a safe school environment.
Education providers have the responsibility of making sure that
students do not experience acts of violence or bullying while
at school. In 2003, the law was further amended to include the
following: ‘‘The education provider shall draw up a plan, in connec-
tion with curriculum design, for safeguarding pupils against violence,
bullying and harassment, execute the plan, and supervise adherence
to it and its implementation.’’ It was thus implied that the school anti-
bullying plans, or programs, would be developed at the municipal
level, and this was believed to ascertain high commitment to, and
consequently, proper implementation of them at schools.
Before the initiative described in the present study, there was
nationally representative prevalence and trend data regarding
bullying only from the secondary school level and beyond (higher
secondary, vocational). The School Health Promotion Study has
been conducted each year in Finnish secondary schools (and voca-
tional and high schools) by the National Institute for Health and
Welfare since 1998. There are more than 75,000 respondents
yearly, about 50,000 of them from secondary schools. Disappoint-
ingly, the results of the survey show that at least in the secondary
school level no decreases have taken place either in the frequencies
of victimized students or in the prevalence of their tormentors
during the past 10 years. The prevalence of both victims (students
reporting being bullied once a week or more often) and bullies
(students reporting bullying others once a week or more often) has
been constantly around 7%; actually, the prevalence of victims has
slightly increased, rather than decreased during the past couple of
years (being 8–9% in 2007–2009). It seems that the rather general,
legislative actions have not been enough to combat bullying in our
schools. Thus, efficient tools to fulfil the responsibilities defined by
legislation have been requested for some time.
In 2006, the Minister of Education of that time expressed
his concern about Finnish students’ well-being at school. While
Finnish students had been doing well in OECD’s Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) studies (http://pisacountry.
acer.edu.au) focusing on academic achievement, their reports
on school well-being in WHO’s Health Behavior of School-
Aged Children (HBSC) surveys were nothing to be proud of.
The Ministry of Education identified school bullying as a topic
requiring attention, and made a contract with the University of
Turku concerning the development and evaluation of an antibul-
lying program that could be implemented widely in Finnish
comprehensive schools. The program, KiVa,1 was developed and
initially evaluated in the University of Turku, in collaboration
between the Department of Psychology and the Centre for
Learning Research. The project was co-led by the first and the
third author, and the initial evaluation of KiVa is the topic of
the PhD studies of the second author.
Research background of KiVa
The KiVa program is based on our group’s long research tradition
on bullying as a group phenomenon. In the early 1990s, we started
to examine how children who are neither victims nor bullies behave
when witnessing bullying, and how their actions (or lack of them)
1
University of Turku, Finland
2
University of Stavanger, Norway
3
Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia
Corresponding author:
Christina Salmivalli, Department of Psychology, University of Turku, FI-20014
Finland.
Email: tiina.salmivalli@utu.fi

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406
might influence the maintenance of bullying or the feelings and
adjustment of the victim. In the early studies, we identified six
different participant roles children may have in bullying situations.
To put it briefly, a child might take on the role (or be put into a role)
of a victim, a bully, an assistant of the bully, a reinforcer of the bully,
an outsider, or a defender of the victim (Salmivalli, Lagerspetz,
Björkqvist, Österman, & Kaukiainen, 1996; Salmivalli & Voeten,
2004). Assistants are children who join the ringleader bullies, rein-
forcers provide positive feedback to bullies (e.g., by laughing or
cheering), outsiders withdraw from bullying situations, and defen-
ders take sides with the victims, comforting and supporting them.
After the first Finnish studies, numerous other researchers from
various countries (Andreou & Metallidou, 2004; Camodeca &
Goossens, 2005; Goossens, Olthof, & Dekker, 2006; Menesini,
Codecasa, Benelli, & Cowie, 2003; Schäfer & Korn, 2004; Sutton
& Smith, 1999) have utilized the same methodology, or a similar
conceptualization of bullying. Olweus (2001, pp. 14–15), for
instance, has described the ‘‘bullying circle’’ in which eight different
bystander modes of reaction represent the combinations of chil-
dren’s attitudes to bullying (positive, neutral, indifferent, negative)
and behaviors (acting vs. not acting).
The behavior of onlookers does matter. The victims who have
classmates supporting and defending them are better off than victims
without defenders. The defended victims are less depressed and anx-
ious, they have a higher self-esteem, and they are less rejected by
peers than victims without defenders, even when the frequency of
their victimization experiences is controlled for (Sainio, Veenstra,
Huitsing, & Salmivalli, 2011). Furthermore, it has been shown that
in classrooms where reinforcing the bully is normative behavior
(i.e., typical of many children), the likelihood of bullying others is
higher (Salmivalli, Voeten, & Poskiparta, in press). In addition,
Kärnä, Voeten, Poskiparta, and Salmivalli (2010) have shown that
individual-level risk factors, such as anxiety and peer rejection, are
more likely to lead to victimization in classrooms where reinforcing
is common, whereas high levels of defending in a classroom mini-
mize the effects of such individual risk factors.
An important message from these studies is that to reduce victimi-
zation, we do not necessarily need to change the victims and make
them ‘‘less vulnerable.’’ The behavior of the aggressive bullies, on
the other hand, might be difficult to change directly, if the peer con-
text is ignored. Influencing the behaviors of classmates can reduce
the rewards gained by the bullies and consequently, their motivation
to bully in the first place. Studies have also provided evidence that
empathy, as well as self-efficacy for defending, contribute to actual
support given to victimized peers (e.g., Caravita, Di Blasio, & Salmi-
valli, 2009; Pöyhönen, Juvonen, & Salmivalli, 2010); thus, attempt-
ing to influence these characteristics might be an avenue for
mobilizing the bystanders to act on behalf of the victims. This does
not mean, however, that individual bullies and victims do not need
attention. The acute cases need to be handled with firm discussion
with the children involved (e.g., Olweus, 2004; Salmivalli, Kärnä,
& Poskiparta, 2010a). In summary, both universal actions, targeted
at all students, and indicated actions that are implemented when a
case of bullying comes to attention, are needed.
KiVa program
The first contract between the ministry and the University of Turku
(2006–2009) concerned the development of the KiVa program,
teacher training and guidance during the piloting period, and initial
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International Journal of Behavioral Development 35(5)
evaluation of program effectiveness. In the process of developing
KiVa, we had a strong backing from both the Ministry of Education
and the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE). The latter
organization, working under the auspices of the ministry, is the
agency responsible for the development of education in Finland.
It draws up the National Core Curricula, which determines the
core objectives, contents, and guidelines for teaching in Finland.
Education providers prepare their own local curricula based on
these national documents. We collaborated with the FNBE during
the development of KiVa, and there was one representative from
the FNBE in the steering group of the project. It was ascertained,
for instance, that the topics covered by our student lessons are in
accordance with the national core curricula. This allows us to pres-
ent the KiVa program to teachers and school principals as an effec-
tive tool for something they should be doing already, rather than as
an extra burden on top of the actual curricula.
When starting to develop the program, we considered it neces-
sary to create concrete, practical tools for school personnel, instead
of mere ‘‘ideology’’ or ‘‘guiding principles.’’ In Finland, the idea
that each school (or municipality) should develop their own action
plan in order to be genuinely committed to them was widespread.
However, we thought it is an unrealistic expectation that each
school can, or will, allocate the time needed for planning a proper
program that would be effective in reducing bullying. The difficulty
of reducing bullying had already been shown by numerous meta-
analyses on bullying intervention studies (e.g., Ferguson, San
Miguel, Kilburn, & Sanchez, 2007; Smith, Schneider, Smith, &
Ananiadou, 2004; Ttofi, Farrington, & Baldry, 2008; Vreeman &
Carroll, 2007).
The KiVa program includes both universal and indicated
actions. The universal actions consist of student lessons (primary
school) and themes (secondary school) and a virtual learning envi-
ronment (an antibullying computer game for primary school stu-
dents, an Internet forum ‘‘KiVa Street’’ for secondary school
students). The student lessons include discussion, video films, and
exercises done in dyads and small groups. The topics cover a vari-
ety of issues related to group interaction and group pressure, the
mechanisms and consequences of bullying, different forms of bul-
lying, and especially, what the students can do together in order to
counteract bullying and support the victimized peers. The virtual
learning environments are closely connected to the topics of the les-
sons and themes, motivating students and enhancing their learning
process. In addition, the universal actions include a parents’ guide
as well as symbols (posters, highly visible vests for teachers super-
vising recess time), reminding both students and school personnel
of KiVa. The indicated interventions involve discussions with vic-
tims and bullies, as well as with selected prosocial classmates who
are challenged to support the victimized classmate. The discussions
with the bullies and victims are effectuated by so-called KiVa
teams within the schools, whereas the classroom teacher organizes
a separate meeting with the potential supporters of the victim (for a
more detailed description of program contents, see Salmivalli et al.,
2010a; Salmivalli, Kärnä, & Poskiparta, 2010b).
Evaluation strategy
The initial evaluation of the effectiveness of KiVa was conducted in
two phases. As we started the program development from materials
for Grades 4–6, these were ready to be implemented first. Thus,
KiVa was first piloted in these grade levels, with 78 schools being
Salmivalli et al.
randomly assigned to treatment (N ¼ 39 schools, > 4,000 students)
and control (N ¼ 39 schools, > 4,000 students) conditions. The first
findings including Grades 4–6 showed positive and relatively large
effects on both self- and peer-reported bullying and victimization
(Kärnä et al., 2011). Importantly, the program effects were also
seen in several other key variables (e.g., increases in self-efficacy
for defending, increases in school well-being). In the second phase,
the program was tested in Grades 1–3 and 7–9, with another 78
(intervention) þ 78 (control) schools: data analyses are in progress.
Altogether, 234 Finnish schools with about 35,000 students were
involved in the evaluation study. Furthermore, in the context of
developing the KiVa program we created a web-based tool to
collect representative data on the prevalence of bully–victim prob-
lems in schools implementing KiVa after the evaluation period.
Thus, the schools receive data on their own initial situation and the
changes occurring once KiVa is being implemented, and our group
will get data on changes taking place during the national rollout of
KiVa.
Most evaluations of bullying intervention programs have used
as their main outcome variables global questions concerning victi-
mization and/or bullying others (e.g., ‘‘Have you bullied others?’’
‘‘Have you been victimized?’’). Although some programs have
successfully reduced the prevalence of these problems, it has rarely
been examined whether different forms of bullying can be equally
affected. It has even been suggested that intervention programs
might only reduce visible, direct forms of bullying, and even
increase indirect, or cyberbullying (e.g., Woods & Wolke, 2003).
The reasoning is that when adults start intervening in overt
bullying, the bullies find other ways of tormenting their victims.
In line with this idea, there has been some call for developing spe-
cific programs to counteract specific forms of bullying, such as
cyberbullying. In our view, this might be unrealistic as well as
unnecessary. A general program that focuses on the mechanisms
behind bullying should be successful in reducing multiple forms
of bullying others.
The present study
The present study is an extension to the study by Kärnä et al.
(2011), where the first findings regarding the effectiveness of the
KiVa program were reported. Whereas that study already showed
significant positive effects of KiVa in Grades 4–6 on self- and
peer-reported victimization and bullying (as well as other important
outcomes), it did not test the effectiveness of KiVa on different
forms, or subtypes, of victimization. In the present study, we inves-
tigated the success of the program in reducing nine different forms
of being bullied.
Method
Sample
The sampling procedure for the evaluation of KiVa has been
described in detail elsewhere (Kärnä et al., 2011). The first phase
of evaluation (2007–2008) concerned Grades 4 to 6, with 78 parti-
cipating schools that were randomly assigned to intervention and
control conditions (39 and 39 schools, respectively). For the pur-
poses of the correlational analyses regarding the relations between
different forms of bullying we used the whole sample of 7,303
students responding at pretest. For the pretest–posttest comparisons
we utilized data from students who answered at both times, which
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407
means 5,651 students (3,347 and 2,304 from the intervention and
control schools, respectively). At pretest, the students were on
average 11 years old.
Measures
Student questionnaires. Student data was collected by
Internet-based questionnaires. All student participants received
their personal user IDs, which they used as a password to log in and
respond to the questionnaires three times during a 1-year period.
The pretest took place in May 2006 and the posttest in May
2007. The second assessment (not utilized in the present study) took
place in December 2006–January 2007.
Being bullied. In the KiVa data, only self-reports covered the
nine different forms of victimization, and thus they were utilized
in the present study. In the web-based questionnaire, the term
bullying was first defined to the students in the way formulated
in the Revised Olweus’ Bully/Victim Questionnaire (OBV)
(Olweus, 1996), which emphasizes the repetitive nature of bullying
and the power imbalance between the bully and the victim (see the
Appendix). Teachers read the definition out loud while the students
could read the same definition from their computer screens. Addi-
tionally, to remind the students of the meaning of the term bullying,
a shortened version of the definition appeared on the upper part of
the computer screen while the students responded to any bullying-
related question.
Students were first presented with the global victimization ques-
tion from the Revised Olweus’ Bully/Victim questionnaire
(Olweus, 1996: ‘‘How often have you been bullied at school in the
past couple of months?’’), followed by nine items describing
specific forms of being bullied. All answers were given on a
5-point scale (0 ¼ Not at all, 1 ¼ Once or twice, 2 ¼ Two or three
times a month, 3 ¼ Every week, 4 ¼ Several times a week). The nine
items describing the specific forms of being bullied are presented in
the Appendix.
Identifying the victims was based on the recommendation of
Solberg and Olweus (2003) to use the cut-point of ‘‘two or three
times a month.’’ In other words, the victims pre/posttest were stu-
dents who reported, at the respective assessment points, that they
had been bullied two to three times a month, every week, or several
times a week, during the past couple of months. To test the effects
for students who were bullied even more frequently, that is, every
week or several times a week, we reran the pretest–posttest analyses
while categorizing only those students as victims.
Results
The intercorrelations between the outcome variables, that is, chil-
dren’s responses to the global question about being bullied and to
the nine items representing the nine different forms of being bullied
are presented in Table 1. All forms of being bullied correlated posi-
tively with each other and with the global question, indicating that
when bullied, a child is often targeted by several forms of negative
behaviors.
The program effects on different forms of bullying were first
analyzed by computing the percentage changes in being bullied
by the nine different forms presented in the student questionnaires
during the 1-year period (pretest and posttest). The implementation
of KiVa started in mid-August, at the beginning of school year, and
408 International Journal of Behavioral Development 35(5)

Table 1. Spearman’s rank order correlations between the 10 victimization one was actually observed for physical victimization. On the other
variables (nine specific forms and the global victimization item) hand, there was also a large effect on cyberbullying (OR ¼ 1.80).
Interestingly, the average OR (across the nine specific forms of
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
being bullied) was 1.58, whereas the OR of global victimization
1. Verbal 1 was 1.56. This suggests that the global question probably is a rather
2. Exclusion .36 1 accurate reflection of ‘‘being bullied overall.’’
3. Physical .38 .26 1 We still reanalyzed the data while taking a stricter criterion for a
4. Manipulative .43 .38 .31 1 child ‘‘being bullied,’’ that is, that of being treated negatively every
5. Material .24 .23 .26 .27 1 week or several times a week (response alternatives ‘‘3’’ and ‘‘4’’ in
6. Threat .30 .28 .30 .33 .30 1 the OBV questionnaire). By doing this, the prevalence of victims
7. Racist .39 .29 .28 .32 .23 .27 1
naturally became lower for each form of being bullied. For
8. Sexual .39 .26 .34 .37 .23 .29 .30 1
9. Cyber .25 .23 .19 .31 .26 .24 .21 .24 1
instance, the prevalence of victims according to the global question
10. Global .64 .41 .44 .43 .25 .32 .37 .38 .24 dropped from 15.1 (intervention schools) and 16.1 (control schools)
to 8.3 and 9.7, respectively. Most ORs remained similar to the pre-
Note. All correlations are significant at the p < .001 level. Ns vary between 7,292 vious analyses, ranging from 1.25 to 1.54, but four of them became
and 7,303. clearly larger (2.89 for physical, 2.82 for material, 1.99 for threaten-
ing, and 2.57 for cyberbullying).
the pretest took place at the end of the previous school year, in May.
The posttest took place the following May, when the implementa-
tion of KiVa had taken place for 9 months, and the students were
exactly 1 year older than they were at pretest.
Discussion
The (positive or negative) percentage changes refer to changes KiVa is a new antibullying program developed in the University of
in the prevalence of children categorized as victims of bullying at Turku and funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education. It is well
posttest, relative to their baseline (pretest) frequency. If the baseline grounded in research (see Salmivalli et al., 2010a, 2010b), and
prevalence were 10%, for instance, and the posttest prevalence 8%, involves both universal and indicated actions to prevent the emer-
this would mean a reduction of 20% (108/10), or a percentage gence of new cases of bullying and to stop ongoing bullying. The
change of 20%. The percentage changes in self-reports of being universal actions aim at influencing all children’s reactions when
bullied are reported in Table 2. They are first shown separately for witnessing bullying (such as providing safe strategies to support the
intervention and control schools, followed by the difference in per- victimized peers), whereas the indicated interventions target bullies
centage changes between intervention and control conditions (in and victims specifically. KiVa contains a large set of concrete tools
other words, how much larger the reduction was in intervention for educators, including a series of student lessons, a virtual learn-
schools than in control schools). ing environment, and clear guidelines for school personnel in order
All forms of being bullied decreased in intervention schools to tackle bullying effectively.
(percentage changes negative), whereas in control schools, most The present study examined the effectiveness of the KiVa
of them increased. Even in the few cases where victimization program on nine different forms of being bullied. It extends the
decreased in control schools as well, the reductions in KiVa schools prior evaluation study which already provided clear evidence of the
clearly outweighed those taking place in control schools. Most effectiveness of KiVa (Kärnä et al., 2011) by showing that the pro-
differences were remarkable, and all of them were in favor of the gram was successful in reducing multiple forms of victimization,
intervention schools (Table 2, fourth column from the left: all including indirect and ‘‘hidden’’ forms (social exclusion, social
differences negative). manipulation, and cybervictimization) that might not be easily
We also calculated odds ratios (ORs) for being bullied by each observed by school personnel.
of the forms assessed, while correcting the standard errors for There are some limitations in the data utilized in the present
clustering at the school level with the average cluster size (for the study, as well as in the way it was analyzed. For instance, we
formulas, see Ttofi et al., 2008). While the percentage changes only utilized self-reports to identify students who were bullied.
can be more easily compared with some previous evaluations of Furthermore, we did not use multilevel modeling which is often
bullying interventions, the odds ratios (together with the confi- recommended for hierarchical data. We did, however, correct the
dence intervals) are more comparable with each other, as they take standard errors for clustering at the school level. However, in the
into account the differences in the prevalence of different forms. previous report from the KiVa project (Kärnä et al., 2011) it was
It should be noted that for the forms that are very rare, the confi- found that KiVa had an effect on peer-reported victimization as
dence intervals are larger. For instance, being victimized by well—that effect was even larger than the one based on self-
‘‘material bullying,’’ that is, peers taking one’s money or taking reports. Furthermore, comparing the effects based on the global
or damaging one’s property has a low incidence to begin with questions on being bullied and bullying others in the present
(only slightly above 1%). The large confidence intervals suggest study and in the study by Kärnä et al. (2011), which utilized mul-
that although the ORs for these forms are large, the effects cannot tiple imputation of missing data and four-level modeling with
be as reliably estimated as for some other forms taking place more several control variables (age, gender) in the models, we could
often. see that the effects were comparable. For instance, Kärnä et al.
The odds ratios ranged from 1.32 (social exclusion) to 1.94 reported about 30% reduction in self-reported victimization in
(physical victimization). The latter value, for instance, means that KiVa schools as compared with control schools, whereas the
control-school students were about twice as likely to be bullied physi- present study gave a percentage change difference of 29%.
cally at time of the posttest, as compared to students in intervention It should be noted that although the ultimate aim of antibullying
schools. Although all effects were in favor of KiVa schools, the largest programs is to reduce the plight of the victims, such programs might

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Salmivalli et al. 409

Table 2. Pre- and posttest percentages, and percentage changes, of different forms of victimization in KiVa schools and in control schools, along with the
magnitude of the difference in percentage changes and in ORs

Pretest Posttest Percentage change Difference in favor of KiVa schools OR (80% CI)

Verbal
KiVa 9.4 7.3 22% 31% 1.45 (1.14–1.83)
Ctrl 9.8 10.7 þ9%
Exclusion
KiVa 5.3 4.4 17% 25% 1.32 (0.98–1.77)
Ctrl 6.4 6.9 þ8%
Physical
KiVa 4.3 2.6 40% 53% 1.94 (1.37–2.74)
Ctrl 4.5 5.1 þ13%
Manipulative
KiVa 4.8 3.6 25% 30% 1.43 (1.05–1.97)
Ctrl 5.6 5.9 þ5%
Material
KiVa 1.3 1.0 30% 63% 1.76 (0.96–3.22)
Ctrl 1.2 1.6 þ33%
Threat
KiVa 2.0 1.0 50% 21% 1.52 (0.89–2.61)
Ctrl 2.4 1.7 29%
Racist
KiVa 3.8 2.1 45% 27% 1.54 (1.02–2.32)
Ctrl 3.4 2.8 18%
Sexual
KiVa 6.0 5.0 17% 32% 1.42 (1.07–1.88)
Ctrl 6.5 7.5 þ15%
Cyber
KiVa 2.2 1.4 36% 50% 1.80 (1.11–2.93)
Ctrl 2.2 2.5 þ14%
Global
KiVa 15.1 9.0 40% 29% 1.56 (1.28–1.91)
Ctrl 16.1 14.3 11%

also have wider effects on the school adjustment of children and
youth. In a recent study (Salmivalli, Garandeau, & Veenstra, in
press) we found positive effects of KiVa on school well-being, aca-
demic motivation, and achievement. Thus, not only did students
like school more and perceive the classroom and school climate
more positively after the intervention, but they also reported a
higher motivation to learn and even felt that they were performing
better. Importantly, these effects were not only observed among
students whose individual victimization levels went down, but
among other children as well: in other words, the positive effects
of KiVa are not limited to, and not necessarily even mediated by,
reductions of being bullied.
The diffusion of KiVa for national use in Finnish schools has
already started. Since August 2009, already 2,260 schools are
implementing the program. This is remarkable, as these schools
represent about 75% of all schools giving comprehensive education
in Finland. KiVa is not meant to be a project that starts and ends in
these schools, but a permanent part of their antibullying work.
Overall, the KiVa initiative is an example of how commitment
on the part of politicians as well as participating schools can lead to
excellent results influencing the lives of numerous children and
adolescents. The forthcoming years will show how the diffusion
and maintenance of KiVa will continue after the initial stages. In
addition, our web-based survey done yearly in the new
KiVa schools will enable us to examine how the program effects
will be reflected in the national prevalence rates of bullying and
victimization in Finland.
Note
1. KiVa is an acronym for Kiusaamista Vastaan (against bullying).
In the Finnish language, ‘kiva’ also means something that is
nice, good, or friendly.
Funding
The present study was supported by Academy of Finland grants
135577 and 134843 to the first author.
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Appendix: The definition and questions
concerning victimization and bullying
It is bullying, when another student makes a child feel bad on
purpose and repeatedly. The child being bullied finds it difficult
to defend himself/herself.
A student is being bullied when one or more other students:
 say mean or hurtful things, make fun of him/her, or call him/her
mean and hurtful names;
 completely ignore him/her, exclude him/her from their group of
friends, or leave him/her out of things on purpose;
 hit, kick, shove, or order him/her about or lock him/her inside a
room;
 try to make other students dislike him/her by spreading lies
about him/her or by sending mean notes;
 do other hurtful things like those above.
Also, it is bullying when a student is teased repeatedly in a mean
and hurtful way. Friendly and playful teasing is not bullying. Nei-
ther is it bullying when two more or less equally strong students
argue or fight. Please keep this explanation of bullying in mind
when you answer the following questions.
When you answer the following questions about bullying, do not
concentrate on how things are right now. Instead, think about the
time after winter break [as the questionnaires were filled out in
May, this meant a 2- to 3-month period before answering].
[SHORT DEFINION]
It is bullying when another student makes a child feel bad on
purpose and repeatedly.
[GLOBAL QUESTION]
Salmivalli et al. 411

How many times have you been bullied at school during the past I was hit, kicked, or shoved.
couple of months? (manipulative)
Other students tried to make others dislike me by spreading lies
a) I have not been bullied. about me.
b) Once or twice.
(material)
c) 2 or 3 times a month.
Somebody took money or other things from me or damaged my
d) About once a week.
things.
e) Several times a week.
(threat)
[SPECIFIC QUESTIONS—DIFFERENT FORMS BEING I was threatened or forced to do things I would not have wanted
BULLIED] to do.
Have you been bullied at school during the past couple of (racist)
months in this way? [The short definition and this question were I was bullied by calling me names, making remarks or gestures
presented before each item. Each question was presented on a sep- about my ethnicity or skin color. Such a name can be, for
arate page, so that they were seen one by one on the computer example, nigger.
screen.] (sexual)
I was bullied by sexual name calling (such a name can be, for
(verbal) instance, slut or gay), sexual gestures or actions.
I was called mean names, was made fun of or teased in a hurtful
way. (cyber)
I was bullied by cell phone or through the Internet: I received
(exclusion) mean or hurtful messages, calls, or pictures. (Please also
Other students ignored me completely or excluded me from report any other ways of bullying by means of a cell phone
things or from their group of friends. or a computer.)
(physical)

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