Friendship and loneliness among bullies and victims: Data from seven countries

Abstract

Research suggests that the relationship between school bullying and its various risk factors should be clearer among girls than boys, and should become stronger with age, as roles within the peer group stabilise. This paper tests this theory by comparing sex, school type, and bully/victim status differences in friendships and playground social interactions, using data from nine surveys in seven countries: China, England, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, and Spain. A total of approximately 48,000 children completed various translations of the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire. Small but generally consistent main effects were found for sex and school type (boys and primary pupils enjoyed playtimes more and had more friends, but were also more likely to spend playtimes alone). Larger effects were consistently found for bully/victim status (victims were significantly worse off on all the measures in all the samples where a difference was found, while bullies and neutrals did not differ consistently), but the interactions between these factors varied widely between samples and there were few consistent patterns. It is concluded that bullying is a universal phenomenon with many negative correlates for victims and few (if any) for bullies, but that there are cultural variations in the way that bullying is related to sex, age, and social support. Aggr. Behav. 30:71-83, 2004. r

The Significance of Reciprocal and Unilateral Friendships for Peer Victimization in Adolescence

“…Adolescents who scored +1 SD on bullying and lower than +1 SD on victimization were dropped from further analyses since they represented the bullies (n = 263, 11% of the original sample), while our study focused on victims and used the non-involved adolescents as the control group. The prevalence rates of victims, bully-victims, and non-involved adolescents in our study are comparable to prevalence rates reported in other studies (e.g., Eslea et al 2003;Nansel et al 2001;Salmivalli and Nieminen 2002).…”

“…Bullying in school is a major problem that affects many children, with prevalence rates ranging from 5 to 26% in Western and Non-Western countries (Eslea et al 2003;Smith et al 1999). During the last decade, bullying is increasingly viewed as a social group phenomenon, and the role of friends has become an important focus of attention.…”

Victimising of school bullying: a grounded theory

“…Borntrager et al 2009;Eslea et al 2004). Smith and Sharp (1994) define bullying as 'a systematic abuse of power' (2).…”

Schoolchildren's social representations on bullying causes

“…Bullying is a pervasive problem in Swedish schools as well as in schools in other countries in Europe, America, Asia, and Australia (e.g., Borntrager, Davis, Bernstein, & Gorman, 2009;Eslea et al, 2003;Smith et al, 1999). It is a phenomenon that affects a lot of students.…”