Over the past few years, demands for evidence-based teaching have increased, resulting notably in a decrease in the use of theories in teaching elsewhere in Sweden, while research on violence has shown the need for teachers to interact in their school practice with the support of a theoretical framework. This article analyses different approaches to the use of theories in teacher training in relation to their potential to address bullying. For this purpose, some beliefs against which critical research on violence has been struggling are revealed and are directly related to evidence-based positivist research. A theoretical analysis of educational practice is necessary to avoid the existence of pedagogical strategies against violence where the use of dichotomies and essentialist claims dominate, highlighting the controversies that teachers face on a day-to-day in their daily practice. © 2019 Grupo de Investigacion FORCE. All rights reserved.