Research into bullying in school started in the 1970s and is now a very extensive field of research.
The incidence of bullying is determined by the interplay of several different factors. Therefore it can be studied from different perspectives and with different points of focus. Examples of such factors are personality traits, feelings and ways of thinking, groups of friends, interaction patterns and group processes, power and social hierarchies among pupils, teachers' working methods and the school as culture and organisation, social norms, cultural conceptions and social structures in society.
Children and young people subjected to bullying run a higher risk of developing a psychosocial disorder, both during childhood and as an adult. Bullying in the school is also in conflict with both the Education Act and the values that curricula intend for the school to create, mediate and firmly establish in the pupils.
At Linköping University the primary research on bullying focuses on social processes, peer culture and interaction patterns, as well as on children and young persons' stories and perspectives. Studies are also conducted into municipal strategies to counteract bullying.