School Bullying Among Adolescents in the United States: Physical, Verbal, Relational, and Cyber

Abstract

Purpose Four forms of school bullying behaviors among US adolescents and their association with socio-demographic characteristics, parental support and friends were examined. Methods Data were obtained from the Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC) 2005 Survey, a nationally-representative sample of grades 6 to 10 (N = 7182). The Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire was used to measure physical, verbal and relational forms of bullying. Two items were added using the same format to measure cyber bullying. For each form, four categories were created: bully, victim, bully-victim, and not involved. Multinomial logistic regressions were applied, with socio-demographic variables, parental support and number of friends as predictors. Results Prevalence rates of having bullied others or having been bullied at school for at least once in the last 2 months were 20.8% physically, 53.6% verbally, 51.4% socially or 13.6% electronically. Boys were more involved in physical or verbal bullying, while girls were more involved in relational bullying. Boys were more likely to be cyber bullies, while girls were more likely to be cyber victims. African-American adolescents were involved in more bullying (physical, verbal or cyber) but less victimization (verbal or relational). Higher parental support was associated with less involvement across all forms and classifications of bullying. Having more friends was associated with more bullying and less victimization for physical, verbal and relational forms, but was not associated with cyber bullying. Conclusions Parental support may protect adolescents from all four forms of bullying. Friends associate differentially with traditional and cyber bullying. Results indicate that cyber bullying has a distinct nature from traditional bullying.

Mapping Developmental Precursors of Cyber-Aggression: Trajectories of Risk Predict Perpetration and Victimization

“…Likewise, steep declines in emotional well-being arguably may lead to subsequent cyber-victimization. Youth take aim at those individuals who show signs of poor adjustment (Storch et al, 2007;Wang, Iannotti, & Nansel, 2009), and adolescents who are on a downward trajectory of lowered self-esteem or increased depressed mood may be the most vulnerable. Alternatively, early manifestation of any of these risks may be linked to later cyber-aggression, regardless of developmental change.…”

Parents’ Responses to Coping with Bullying: Variations by Adolescents’ Self-Reported Victimization and Parents’ Awareness of Bullying Involvement

“…In particular, previous research suggests that parents being available and open to communicate with children are in a better position to help avoid bullying and protect children from its negative consequences. In the United States of America (USA), the research conducted by Wang et al (2009) reported that parental behaviors involving positive communication to understand adolescents' concerns and problems, or skills to make upset adolescents feel better, actually protect them from bullying. Elgar et al (2014), also in the USA, reported that family communication and contact can help adolescents to be protected from the harmful effects of bullying.…”

Aggression, Victimization and Sexual Harassment among Young Adolescents in Turkey

“…In a study by Kapçı (2004), 40% of the responding adolescents reported being victim or bullyvictim of some forms of aggression. Wang et al (2009) found that 12.8% of young adolescents had been victimized from physical aggression and 13.3% had themselves perpetrated physical aggression. In a Turkish study, the prevalence of victimization from the following forms of physical aggression among young adolescents were: pushing 63.7%, damaging clothes or materials 45.2%, pinching 38.5%, kicking 27.2%, biting 22.8% and punching 16.4% (Yurtal & Cenkseven, 2016).…”

“…Similarly, Kapçı (2004) found that 54% of the young adolescents reported being pushed, while 23% were slapped or kicked at least sometimes. Wang et al (2009) found that 36.5% of their respondents were victimized from verbal aggression, and 37.4% reported perpetration of verbal aggression; the most common form of verbal aggression being name-calling. Swearing, making fun of, name-calling and insulting are common forms of verbal aggression also in Turkey (Yurtal & Cenkseven, 2016).…”

“…In regard to indirect aggression, young adolescents from the US reported that 41% of them were victimized from indirect aggression (social isolation or spreading rumors), and 27.2% of them had perpetrated indirect aggression (Wang et al, 2009). In Turkey, Yurtal and Cenkseven (2016) found that the most common indirect aggression forms were spreading rumors about someone and social exclusion.…”