Classroom Bullying: Understanding Bystander Reactions Across Different Bullying Types

School-based bullying is a widespread issue, but it occurs less often when bystanders defend the victims. This study examined whether type of bullying and students’ trust in their teacher’s ability to manage the class would be associated with reaction of the bystander (i.e. defending, passive, and pro-bullying). The participants were 202 ninth-grade students in Sweden, aged 15 years, who completed a questionnaire in their classroom. They were randomized to one of five vignettes depicting different types of bullying (direct/ostracism, indirect/ostracism, direct/devaluing, indirect/devaluation, and control condition) and imagined that the situation they read in the vignette happened to them. Students with higher trust in their teacher were more inclined to defend victims. Students reported more passive bystanding in indirect devaluing compared to direct ostracizing. Finally, type of bullying interacted with trust in the teacher on passive bystanding.