A mixed-methods pilot evaluation of the Sohanjana Antibullying Intervention for educators in Pakistan: knowledge gains, cultural barriers, and module effectiveness

Abstract

Introduction Teachers play a vital role in the academic and social development of students. Thus, teachers are being trained to prevent bullying in educational institutions. Despite their success internationally, these training programs are limited in low-income countries such as Pakistan. The Sohanjana Antibullying Intervention is a teacher and peer training program designed specifically for Pakistan. It is the first contextualised antibullying intervention of its kind. This study aimed to evaluate the outcomes of the Sohanjana Antibullying Intervention pilot in improving educators' knowledge and to identify cultural and contextual barriers to learning. Methods In this study, 172 educators participated in eight different online sessions, each lasting 4 hours. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, with quantitative data analysed using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests with Bonferroni correction, and qualitative feedback examined through thematic analysis. Results Findings from the pre- and post-training evaluations revealed significant improvements in participants' knowledge and understanding of bullying concepts and prevention across seven of the eight training sessions. The lack of significant improvement observed in the eighth training module on counselling strategies and effective communication may be due to participants already possessing a relatively high baseline of knowledge or to the fact that some participants have disabilities, which may have influenced their ability to engage fully with the training materials. 81% of participants indicated that their expectations were met and 74% rated these trainings as excellent. Discussion The present study provides the first empirically evaluated, culturally contextualised antibullying intervention for Pakistan, offering practical recommendations for its large-scale implementation in multilingual, low-resource educational settings.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Frontiers in Education, 2026 · DOI ↗