Roy WillemsDec 22

New preprint alert! đź“š

With Sarah Stutterheim (Maastricht University), Hanneke Felten (Movisie), and John B. Pryor (Illinois State University), we wrote "Addressing bias-based bullying in schools: Behavior change methods for stigma reduction".

When children are bullied because of their group membership—think ethnicity, sexual orientation, weight, or disability—we call this bias-based bullying. It's driven by stigma and requires a different approach.

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/tp7h5_v1

OSF

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What we offer: A theoretical framework based on stigma theory + practical behavior change methods for anyone developing or implementing interventions.
We show how public stigma, structural stigma, self-stigma, and stigma-by-association affect different actors in the school context, and present evidence-based methods to address this form of bullying.
The key message: Effective approaches require school-wide interventions—not just targeting individual children, but the entire system.
Dec 22 at 10:34amWeb
Show threadRoy WillemsDec 22
The chapter will be published in September 2026 in the Cambridge Handbook of Bias-based Bullying (edited with Maria Sapouna and Peter K. Smith).
#AntiBullying #Stigma #SchoolSafety #Interventions #BehaviorChange #InclusiveEducation