Abstract
Purpose
Four forms of school bullying behaviors among US adolescents and their association
with sociodemographic 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 6–10 (N = 7,182). The revised 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
sociodemographic 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, whereas
girls were more involved in relational bullying. Boys were more likely to be cyber
bullies, whereas 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 is a distinct nature from that of traditional bullying.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: June 11, 2009
Accepted:
March 31,
2009
Received:
January 15,
2009
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Society for Adolescent Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
ScienceDirect
Access this article on ScienceDirectLinked Article
- Bullying: We Need to Increase Our Efforts and Broaden Our FocusJournal of Adolescent HealthVol. 45Issue 4
- PreviewForty years or so ago, Olweus initiated the world's first systematic research on bullying. He defines bullying as a situation in which “a person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself” [1]. According to MEDLINE, between 1991 and 1993, only eight articles were devoted to bullying, whereas in 2008 alone, around 80 such articles were published. For many years, research and interventions on bullying were mainly restricted to Europe, especially Scandinavia.
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