Teachers’ responses to bullying: Unravelling their consequences and antecedents. Introduction to the special issue

Bullying among students is a prevalent problem in schools and is difficult to eradicate. Teachers can play a key role in preventing and reducing peer bullying by adequately intervening in bullying incidents. However, and surprisingly, theory and research regarding teachers’ responses to bullying are scarce to date. This special issue contributes to filling this gap by presenting ten original studies involving nine European countries and the US. This introduction gives an overview of literature about the conceptualization and measurement, the consequences, antecedents, and malleability of teacher responses to bullying, identifies limitations in the current research, and introduces the studies in this issue addressing these limitations.