This study extracted literature from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database using the search string: ((school bullying OR campus bullying) AND (countermeasure analysis OR mental health OR legal education) AND (primary/secondary schools OR minors)). The search covered publications from 2010 to 2024 (data retrieved October 17, 2024), yielding 543 initial results. After excluding 8 conference papers—which typically lack full peer-review and thus may not meet the requisite level of academic rigor—as well as film-related articles, 449 relevant peer-reviewed journal articles were retained as the final dataset in RefWorks-text format.

The search strategy employed three key term categories: “school bullying” and “campus bullying” as core concepts, “countermeasure analysis” for practical solutions, and “primary/secondary schools” or “minors” to target the most affected age groups. The inclusion of “mental health” addressed psychological impacts like anxiety and depression, while “legal education” terms helped identify preventive approaches through enhanced legal awareness. This comprehensive approach ensured both conceptual precision and practical relevance to school bullying interventions. As the most authoritative database for Chinese academic publications, CNKI was selected as the sole source. This single-source approach may introduce selection bias by omitting studies from other Chinese (e.g., Wanfang, VIP) or international databases.

This study employs CiteSpace visualization software to conduct bibliometric and content analyses of domestic school bullying research, focusing on annual publication trends and keyword patterns. The bibliometric approach quantitatively examines publication volumes and citation networks to identify developmental trajectories and research hotspots, providing empirical evidence for understanding the field’s evolution. Complementarily, content analysis systematically evaluates textual data to extract thematic patterns, sentiment orientations, and underlying trends, enabling deeper interpretation of the scholarly discourse. The content-analysis coding scheme was developed inductively from the literature, focusing on three dimensions: research theme (e.g., definition, intervention, mental health), study population (e.g., primary students, adolescents), and research methodology (e.g., empirical, review). To ensure reliability, two researchers independently coded a random sample of 50 articles. The inter-rater reliability, calculated using Cohen’s kappa, was 0.86, indicating a high level of agreement. These dual methodologies offer both macroscopic developmental insights and microscopic content-specific findings, collectively establishing a comprehensive analytical framework for school bullying research.

Campus bullying (school bullying), an English translation of the Western term “bullying”, was first systematically studied by Norwegian scholar Olweus in the 1970s. He defined it as repeated and long-term negative actions by one or more students against a specific student or group. Olweus identified three core elements: intentional harm, repetitiveness, and unequal power dynamics [2].

Bullying is categorized into direct and indirect types. Direct bullying includes physical aggression (e.g., hitting, kicking, extortion) and verbal aggression (e.g., insults, mocking). Indirect bullying involves third parties, such as spreading rumors or social exclusion. Ren noted that school violence has a broader scope than bullying: it may involve external actors and non-repetitive acts, while psychological abuse (e.g., name-calling, exclusion) falls under bullying [3]. Confusions between “campus bullying” and “campus violence” exist in academia, as observed in this study’s cross-age surveys. Campus bullying is characterized by fixed targets, repetitive behavior, diverse methods, and physical/psychological harm, including physical, verbal, sexual, relational, and cyberbullying.

As a multidimensional issue requiring multi-level solutions, campus bullying has inspired various intervention measures in domestic and international research. Based on comprehensive studies, these can be broadly categorized as follows:

Peer Guidance

Peer influence plays a critical role in campus bullying intervention, as peer relationships are central to adolescents’ psychosocial development. Poor peer relationships can trigger negative emotions in adolescents, leading to problematic behaviors such as bullying [4]. Guided by social learning theory and peer influence theory in psychology, interventions can be implemented at different levels by encouraging students to mimic positive peer behaviors, enhancing bystanders’ proactive engagement, and leveraging peer social status and influence.

Policy Development

As a severe challenge to students’ physical-mental health and learning environments, campus bullying requires research and discussion from a legal regulatory perspective. Legislative and policy measures can effectively address bullying, providing students with safer and healthier educational settings [5][6].

Psychological Intervention

Psychological interventions aim to improve individuals’ mental states and behavioral patterns, enhancing students’ ability to cope with and recover from bullying. Positive psychology not only focuses on mental health issues but also emphasizes cultivating individuals’ internal strengths and positive qualities. By fostering optimism, hope, self-esteem, and other positive mindsets, individuals are more likely to mitigate the negative impacts of campus bullying [7].

The annual publication volume, represented by node size in the visualization, illustrates the evolving research interest in a specific field over time. All Chinese keywords in the figures have been translated and explained correspondingly in the text to facilitate understanding. As illustrated in Figure 1Figure 1, the number of publications exhibited an upward fluctuation from 2010 to 2017, reaching a zenith of 68 articles in 2017. Despite a subsequent minor decline, the overarching trend remained ascendant. Based on the characteristics of the chart, the developmental trajectory can be categorized into three distinct phases:

Phase 1 (2010-2017): Characterized by 131 publications (constituting 29.2% of the total), this period marked the nascent stage of domestic research on campus bullying, predominantly concentrating on causal factors and sociological examinations. Limited policy guidance and a superficial comprehension of bullying phenomena were hallmarks of this era.

Phase 2 (2018-2022): During this phase, 239 publications (53.2% of the total) were documented, with growth patterns exhibiting fluctuations and notable peaks of 68 articles in 2017 and 2019. A significant inflection point occurred in 2016 with the issuance of the Guidelines on Preventing Bullying and Violence among Primary and Secondary Students by China’s Ministry of Education and eight affiliated departments. This national policy milestone substantially escalated the prioritization of campus bullying issues. Concurrently, the expedited dissemination of bullying incidents through social media platforms triggered extensive public deliberations, thereby fueling academic engagement and incentivizing scholars to pursue targeted resolutions.

Phase 3 (2020-2024): With 79 publications (accounting for 17.6% of the total), the research domain entered a period of gradual growth. The heightened focus on campus bullying studies has propelled the field towards more profound and meticulous investigations, signifying a transition from the initial rapid expansion phase.

Figure 1. Distribution of the number of published literature and years.

Keywords encapsulate the essence of literature, and their frequency reflects research trends in a field. Using CiteSpace, this study extracted hot keywords from 449 publications to generate a co-occurrence network map of domestic research hotspots on campus bullying, visually depicting the field’s knowledge landscape [8].

As shown in Figure 2Figure 2, nodes (N = 266) represent keywords, with circle size indicating frequency: larger circles signify higher occurrence. Edges (E = 509) denote co-occurrence, shaded by time. “Campus bullying”, “campus violence”, “mental health”, “bullying”, and “countermeasures” emerged as high-impact terms. “Campus bullying”, “campus violence”, and “bullying” show dense connections with each other and other nodes.

Setting k = 25 generated the cluster map in Figure 3Figure 3 (Modularity Q = 0.5889, Silhouette S = 0.9404), indicating significant and reliable clustering. Nine clusters emerged, with smaller numbers containing more keywords. Core themes include “campus bullying”, “legal supervision”, “countermeasures”, “bullying”, “middle school students”, “adolescents”, “current status”, “harm”, and “parenting styles”. Dense nodes and edges within clusters form interconnected knowledge networks.

Analyzing the high-frequency keywords and cluster details in Table 1 reveals the core content of domestic campus bullying research over the past two decades. Despite conceptual overlaps, the themes can be synthesized into three main categories:

Note: Key Chinese keywords and their English equivalents are as follows: 校园欺凌(School Bullying); 校园暴力(School Violence); 心理健康(Mental Health); 对策(Countermeasures); 中学生(Middle School Students); 青少年(Adolescents); 未成年人(Minors); 道德教育(Moral Education); 家庭教育(Parenting Style); 校园安全(Campus Safety).

Figure 2. Keyword co-occurrence network map.

Note: The cluster labels in Chinese are translated as: #0校园欺凌(School Bullying); #1法律监管(Legal Supervision); #2对策(Countermeasures); #3欺凌(Bullying); #4中学生(Middle School Students); #5青少年(Adolescents); #6现状(Current Situation); #7危害(Harm); #8家庭教育(Parenting Style).

Figure 3. Keyword co-occurrence clustering map.

Table 1.High-frequency keywords.

1) Phenomenon Definition and Subject Population

Sun and Liu highlighted that the repetitive nature, diverse methods, and fixed targets of campus bullying cause severe physical and psychological harm to adolescents, potentially leading to suicidal behavior [9]. Such bullying distorts the essence of school education, threatens campus safety, and both bullies and victims may exhibit violent tendencies harmful to societal security. Ren distinguished “campus bullying” from “campus violence” in his conceptual definition, emphasizing that conflating the two hinders effective governance [3]. Narrowly defined, campus bullying excludes external intrusions and teacher victimization, focusing primarily on adolescent populations. Studies indicate that bullies often display deviant traits: lack of self-control, irresponsibility, impulsivity, low frustration tolerance, egocentrism, and strained peer relationships [10]. Li and Wei proposed targeted prevention measures across four dimensions: perpetrator intervention, potential victim protection, situational control, and legal regulation [11].

2) Impacts and Current Status Analysis

The effects of campus bullying extend beyond psychological harm to bullies, victims, and bystanders. Sun and Liu warned that psychologically distorted individuals in these roles may escalate into societal threats, undermining campus safety [9]. Frequent media exposure of bullying cases and online dissemination have intensified research salience in China, with academia increasingly prioritizing the issue. However, the rising frequency of severe bullying incidents—characterized by younger perpetrators, group aggression, and covert behaviors—presents unprecedented challenges for prevention [1].

3) Intervention Strategies

Domestic prevention efforts primarily focus on government policy formulation, educational research enhancement, and school-family collaboration to build anti-bullying networks, often from a legal-regulatory perspective. A notable case is Taiwan region’s context-specific framework, featuring distinct approaches in prevention, intervention, and healing. Key measures include cultivating anti-bullying cultures, enhancing teachers’ professional competence, developing targeted curricula, and narrative-based victim rehabilitation. This has formed a three-tier prevention system: foundational prevention, intervention mechanisms, and post-crisis healing [12].