I don't think it can be completely stopped. It can be corrected and handled, but I think in school age kids, it is part of human nature, and part of growing up.
I don't think it will ever be completely stopped, as Gator said, it's part of human nature. I think that it will always be a big problem as long as parents tell kids to just 'suck it up' and kids are too scared to tell anyone.
My daughter gets bullied at school everyday. As a parent I wanna take the little brats and beat their a$$ myself! Excuse my language but I am sick of it. Last year some little brat spit on her mouth and she got sick then the rest of us got it! That is BODILY FLUIDS! I was furious! When she let the "yard duty" (rolls eyes) know, she was told well no one saw it so there is nothing anyone can do. This year I WITNESSED some little brat hit my daughter in the back of her head with 5 adults present and I made SURE the school knew that I, an adult saw it this time! Wanna know what the school did? Protected the bully and shunned the victim! If it wasn't for her Teacher this year I would have yanked her out of the school. Wanna know how the bullying for MY kid will be stopped? I am homeschooling her next year. NO kid deserves to be touched! Just because it's a minor shouldn't make it okay and swept under the rug as "kids will be kids!" I absolutely HATE public schools anymore!
Nope! Bullying is embedded within the nature of human beings. The ones who aren't jerks have managed to sublimate their more primitive selves, but it's still in there!
I don't think it'll ever be completely stopped. I can only speak from my own experience though. I had a bully that wouldn't leave me alone in high school. For the first year and a half it was words and jokes and humiliation. You know, typical bully stuff. Then it got worse. Her good-for-nothing friends were there to be sure and help her out. I tried to take it to a teacher but all they did was basically shake a finger at her and say no. That didn't stop her. After awhile, she started slapping me and I had had enough. I decked her. I got suspended but she never did bully me again. :)