Bullying in the Russian Secondary School: Predictive Analysis of Victimization

Background: Bullying has been recognized as an important risk factor for personal development in adolescence. Although numerous studies report high prevalence of bullying in Russian schools, limited research was based on the large-scale, nationally representative analysis, which highlights the lack of findings applicable to the national context.Objective: This study aims to address the following research questions: (1) What is the bullying victimization prevalence in Russian secondary schools? (2) What is the socio-demographic profile of the bullying victims? (3) To what extent do learning outcomes in core subject domains predict bullying? (4) How does psychological climate at school affect the occurrence of bullying? (5) Which emotional states do bullying victims typically display? (6) Which psychosocial traits are the most common for bullying victims?Data and Methods: The study adopts the statistical analysis of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data in Russia. The final sample consists of 6,249 children aged 15 years who answered the bullying questions. K-means clustering approach was adopted to identify schoolchildren who should be classified as bullying victims amongst those who have reported bullying. Logistic regression was used to estimate the probability change of bullying under different psychosocial factors and examine the effect of bullying on the emotional states of the victims.Results: The results of the study reveal that 16% of children are victims of bullying in the Russian secondary school. Bullying is strongly associated with learning outcomes in reading, thus outlining that low performers are at risk of severe victimization. Bullying is also contingent on the psychological climate and tends to develop more frequently in a competitive environment. The findings outline that bullying increases negative feelings such as misery, sadness, and life dissatisfaction amongst its victims, making a substantial footprint on their lives. Logically, bullying victims are less likely to feel happy and joyful. Finally, it was revealed that bullying victims do not tend to share negative attitudes to the per se, which identifies directions for future research in this domain.Implications: Instead of dealing with the consequences of bullying, prevention strategies should aim at facilitating a positive environment at school, thus addressing the problem.

Evaluating Risk and Protective Factors for Suicidality and Self-Harm in Australian Adolescents With Traditional Bullying and Cyberbullying Victimizations

Purpose: To identify and compare important risk and protective factors associated with suicidality and self-harm among traditional bullying and cyberbullying victims aged 14-17-years in Australia. Design: Cross-sectional population-based study. Setting: Young Minds Matter, a nationwide survey in Australia. Subjects: Adolescents aged 14-17-years (n = 2125). Measures: Suicidality and self-harm were outcome variables, and explanatory variables included sociodemographic factors (age, gender, country of birth, household income, location, family type), risk factors (parental distress, family functioning, family history of substance use, child substance use, mental disorder, psychosis, eating disorders, sexual activity) and protective factors (high self-esteem, positive mental health or resilience, school connectedness, sleep) among 2 types of bullying victims—traditional and cyber. Traditional bullying includes physical (hit, kick, push) or verbal (tease, rumors, threat, ignorance), and cyberbullying includes teasing messages/pictures via email, social medial using the internet and/or mobile phones. Analysis: Bivariate analysis and binary logistic regression models. Statistical metrics include Hosmer-Lemeshow Goodness-of-Fit-test, VIF test, Linktest and ROC curve for model performance and fitness. Results: Overall, 25.6% of adolescents were traditional bullying victims and 12% were cyberbullying victims. The percentages of suicidality (34.4% vs 21.6%) and self-harm (32.8% vs 22.3%) were higher in cyberbullying victims than in traditional bullying victims. Girls were more often bullied and likely to experience suicidal and self-harming behavior than boys. Parental distress, mental disorder and psychosis were found to be significantly associated with the increase risk for self-harm and suicidality among both bullying victims (p < 0.05). While, eating disorder and sexual activity increased the risk of suicidality in traditional bullying victims and self-harm in cyberbullying victims, respectively. Positive mental health/resilience and adequate sleep were found be significantly associated with decreased suicidality and self-harm in both bullying victims. Conclusion: Suicidality and self-harm were common in bullying victims. The findings highlight that the risk and protective factors associated with suicidality and self-harm among adolescent who experienced traditional and cyberbullying victimization should be considered for the promotion of effective self-harm and suicide prevention and intervention programs.

Long-Term Profiles of Bullying Victims and Aggressors: A Retrospective Study

Bullying is a widespread and worrying phenomenon, related to many different personal, behavioral, and social variables which can modulate it and its outcomes, also in the long term. These relationships are usually studied in children and adolescents, but less often in adults who have suffered or perpetrated bullying in the past. The present work explored the long-term characteristics of bullying victims and aggressors using a retrospective design. A sample of 138 adults of different ages completed an on-line protocol that included measures of bullying and victimization, substance use, sensitivity to reward and punishment, social skills, antisocial behavior, emotional regulation strategies, depression, anxiety, stress, self-esteem, and risk of suicide. The sample was divided into three groups (victims, aggressors, and controls) based on their responses to bullying-related questions. A set of Multiple Analyses of Variance with group as a fixed factor was carried out for each dependent variable. Victims and aggressors did not significantly differ in their self-reported substance consumption. Victims showed higher global depression, anxiety and stress in the past than aggressors (M = 34.66, SD = 11.74; aggressors: M = 19.70, SD = 16.53), higher emotional lack of control (M = 23.97, SD = 10.62; controls: M = 17.11, SD = 7.95) and rejection (M = 21.72, SD = 7.24; controls: M = 16.33, SD = 5.67), lower self-esteem (M = 27.72, SD = 6.70; controls: M = 31.60, SD = 6.60), and a larger frequency of suicidal thoughts (in the past) than controls. Aggressors showed higher sensitivity to reward (M = 12.03, SD = 3.66; controls: M = 8.42, SD = 3.92), larger communicational and relational skills (M = 22.10, SD = 7.20; controls: M = 17.96, SD = 7.16), and lower emotional sensitivity (M = 14.80, SD = 4.10; controls: M = 16.76, SD = 2.21). Accordingly, the logistic regression analysis identified sensitivity to reward and low psychological adjustment as the main predictors of the aggressor and victim profiles, respectively. The present results are discussed considering the extant literature on bullying and may help to improve prevention programs for this relevant social scourge.

Prevalence of Cyber Bullying Victims and its Associated Factors among Form 2 and Form 4 Secondary School Students in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia

The number of cases of cyber bullying reported in schools had been alarming in these recent years. Increased accessibility of mobile phone and internet among secondary school students have made them more susceptible of becoming cyber bullying victims. These victims consequently will encounter mental health problems such as depression and anger that may lead to psychosomatic disorder and suicidal attempt in severe cases. This study focussed on determining the prevalence of cyber bullying and its associated factors among secondary school students. A cross sectional study was conducted among 482 of Form 2 and Form 4 school students in Kuala Terengganu. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires. Data were analysed by using SPSS version 22. The descriptive statistics was applied to obtain frequency and percentage for categorical data. Simple logistic regression and Pearson Chi-square were used to determine the association between the independent variables and cyber bullying victimisation. The prevalence of cyber bullying victims in this study was 2.1% and total of 8.1% reported had been cyber bullied for lifetime. Four factors were found to be significantly associated with being a victim of cyber bullying; age (p = 0.010), type of school (p = 0.036), gender (p = 0.011) and perception towards family relationship (p = 0.006). In conclusion, the prevalence of cyber bullying victimisation in Kuala Terengganu is low in comparison to worldwide data. Although the prevalence is low, cyber-victimisation is progressing in numbers by year and there is a need to plan for proper intervention programs to enhance awareness among secondary school students to curb this issue.

Constructing Victimhood: Storied Opposition to Legislation Protecting LGBTQ Students

Contemporary initiatives against anti-LGBTQ bullying in the United States include enumeration policies, which name sexual orientation as an unacceptable basis for bullying. Conservative opposition to these and other initiatives has been swift, taking discursive and specifically narrative form. This article examines how opponents of prevention and intervention use narrative to resist efforts to curb anti-LGBTQ bullying, based on analysis of 22 public statements challenging anti-bullying legislation. They deny anti-LGBTQ bullying’s impact and reassign victimizer and victim positions. Achieving justice for anti-LGBTQ bullying victims requires recognition of the stories that uphold heteronormative power.

Troubling Secondary Victimization of Bullying Victims: The Role of Gender and Ethnicity

Bullying is a severe public health problem, and bystanders’ reactions are a key variable in its perpetration and maintenance. This study aimed to assess the level of secondary victimization of bullying victims as a function of the student’s sex and the victim’s category (nonnormative vs. normative) in three experimental conditions (feminine, masculine, and ethnicity) from a socioecological perspective. Specifically, two dimensions of secondary victimization were evaluated: avoidance and devaluation/blaming of the victim. A sequence of mixed-design ANOVAs was performed with a sample of 553 Spanish (53.3%) and Portuguese (46.7%) students, aged between 14 and 19 years. Results show that nonnormative victims, those who transgress feminine and masculine gender stereotypes, and those who belong to a minority ethnic group (gypsies) are avoided more than normative victims; and that boys perpetrate more secondary victimization than girls. These results reveal the situation of vulnerability suffered by adolescents who transgress the gender norm as well as those who belong to minority ethnic groups, and highlight that the motivations concealed by the secondary victimization of bullying victims originate in the group processes of identity construction and categorization that configure the boundaries of “legitimacy” and are strongly influenced by social beliefs about normative and nonnormative identities. This socioecological approach could guide prevention strategies, so generic antibullying policies that do not explicitly address biases about gender, sexual, and cultural identity can be overcome to reduce the high levels of stigma occurring in the schools through critical and culturally responsive pedagogy.

Cyberbullying and Traditional Bullying in Greece: An Empirical Study

The use of Internet technology has changed the way people interact rendering face-to face and verbal communication a trend of the past. Thus, a new world has been created for young people, who send emails, visit websites, use webcams, chat rooms and instant messaging through social media for communication. As a result, a new type of bullying, cyber bullying has emerged. The present study aims to investigate the extent of cyber bullying in Greece in terms of: a) gender and cyber bullying, b) hours spent on line and cyber bullying, c) cyber bullying and traditional bullying victims and d) cyber bullying victims and family relations. The sample consisted of 466 participants, 27% of which (N=128) were less than 18 years old. A standardized questionnaire was formulated for data collection and Chisquare, statistical test was used to test the research hypotheses formulated. The results revealed significant theoretical and practical implications, as the majority of the research questions confirmed the relationship between cyber bullying and traditional bullying victims, as well as cyber bullying victims and family relations.

THE VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF TF-CBTGC MODULE FOR VICTIMS OF BULLYING IN SCHOOLS

Incidents of bullying among teenagers nowadays are becoming more prevalent, mostly involving school students. This behaviour needs to be curbed to prevent annoyance to the victim, leading to depression, anxiety, and stress. Immediate action should be taken to approach and deepen the bullying victims through appropriate counselling modules to be rehabilitated from a further hit by various internal problems. Therefore, this study aims to verify the Trauma-Focused - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Group Counselling Module (TF-CBTGC). This module touches on three main aspects: depression, anxiety, and stress among bullying victims. There are six experts have been appointed to review and verify the modules developed. Besides, 34 students who were victims of bullying were identified to assist in the module reliability measurement process. The study results showed that the developed module has high validity and reliability, with a Cronbach's Alpha value of 0.952. This module's development can benefit victims of bullying among students to improve the quality of self-management and reduce their depression, anxiety, and stress. This module can allow the victim of bullying to choose the appropriate techniques, especially when facing real situations with bullies.