Abstract
BackgroundSchool bullying is an emerging problem in China. The present study aimed to measure the prevalence of bullying behaviors among Chinese adolescents and to examine the association of bullying and being bullied with family factors, school factors and indicators of psychosocial adjustment.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted. A total of 8,342 middle school students were surveyed in four cities in the Guangdong Province. Self-reports on bullying involvement and information regarding family factors, school factors and psychosocial adjustment were collected. Descriptive statistics and multi-level logistic regression analysis were used to evaluate the prevalence of school bullying and explore potentially influential factors.ResultsOf the total sample, 20.83% (1,738) reported being involved in bullying behaviors. Of the respondents, 18.99% were victims of bullying, 8.60% were bullies and 6.74% both bullied themselves and bullied others. Factors that were determined to be correlated with bullying behaviors included grade, parental caring, consideration of suicide, running away from home, time spent online per day and being in a physical fight.ConclusionBullying was determined to be prevalent among Chinese adolescents. Given the concurrent psychosocial adjustment, family and school factors associated with bullying, as well as the potential long-term negative outcomes for these youth, this issue merits serious attention, both for future research and preventive intervention.
Highlights
Since Olweus published the book ‘‘Aggression in the Schools’’ in 1993, there has been a growing interest in the area of school bullying
From a review of the literature, we found that the following variables had been identified to be associated with school bullying: 1) Demographic characteristics: Previous studies have indicated that male students report involvement in significantly larger numbers of violent incidents than female students [8,9]
20.83% of the total participants reported being involved in school bullying during the past 12 months, with 18.99% of the students reporting being bullied and 8.6% admitting to bullying others
Summary
Since Olweus published the book ‘‘Aggression in the Schools’’ in 1993, there has been a growing interest in the area of school bullying. Data from the recent largescale Health Behavior in School-aged Children survey (HSBC) conducted among 40 countries suggested that the prevalence of bullying (bullying others, being bullied, and being both a bully and a victim) may range from 8.6% to 45.2% among boys, with a median of 23.4%, and 4.8% to 35.8% among girls, with a median of 15.8% [2] Another cross-national study, the Global Schoolbased Student Health Survey (GSHS) carried out among middle school students in 19 low- or middle-income countries showed that the prevalence of bullying in countries ranged from 7.8% in Tajikistan to 60.9% in Zambia [3]. The present study aimed to measure the prevalence of bullying behaviors among Chinese adolescents and to examine the association of bullying and being bullied with family factors, school factors and indicators of psychosocial adjustment
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