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MPs have called on ministers to give a clearer lead on tackling the problems caused by bullying in Britain's schools.
A report from the Commons education and skills committee said policies and awareness have improved over the past decade.
But they warned that there are "still areas of concern", with examples of schools which do not tackle bullying in a robust way.
Tuesday's report said that bullying can have a negative effect on the educational and social achievements of children and young people.
Schools should deal with all types of bullying consistently, including prejudice-driven bullying, and should have effective anti-bullying programmes in place, said the committee.
And teachers, staff, pupils, governors and others in the community were told they all have an important role to play in tackling bullying.
Committee chairman Barry Sheerman said: "The idea that bullying is in some way character building and simply part of childhood is wrong and should be challenged.
"However, without excusing bullying, we believe that bullying behaviour is influenced by attitudes and behaviour in society in general.
"From pupils to ministers, all those involved in the lives of young people need to give the clear message that bullying, for whatever reason, is wrong."
And Liberal Democrat education spokesman Stephen Williams said that anti-bullying programmes "have taken a back seat to political rhetoric about stamping down on discipline and raising standards".
"But if we cracked bullying, we would see benefits in a lot of other areas too," he added.
"The government has thrown good money after bad on bullying because proper measures for monitoring incidents and the effectiveness of prevention schemes simply haven't existed.
"This report highlights the fact that we need to go back to square one.
"Levels of bullying need to be monitored and recorded in a uniform manner so that we can find out the true scale of the problem.
"Programmes then need to be properly evaluated so money isn't wasted on well-meaning schemes that don't produce results."
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd