Attitudes and beliefs about bullying among Australian school children

Abstract

Attitudes and beliefs of Australian schoolchildren about bullying in schools were assessed and related to age, gender and reported involvement in bullying others at school. Questionnaires were answered anonymously by 2940 boys and 2508 girls attending 20 South Australian coeducational schools; student ages ranged from 9 to 18 years. The questionnaires contained the following reliable multi-item measures: attitudes toward bullying; normative pressure experienced by students to bully others at school; attitudes to victims of bullying; perceived capacity to bully others; and proneness to bully others at school. Generally, the mean scores on the attitudelbelief measures showed similar age trends to those indicating engagement in bullying behaviour. With increasing age, up to about 16 years, both boys and girls reported more engagement in persistent bullying and displayed attitudes and beliefs more supportive of bullying. Beyond 16 years, however, both attitudes and behaviours moderated, as reflected in results showing significant curvilinear (quadratic) relationships. Generally, pro bullying attitudes and behaviours were more common among boys. Multiple regression analyses conducted separately for boys and girls showed that for both sexes each of the attitudelbelief variables was independently and significantly related to proneness to bully others; collectively they accounted for more than 30% of variance on this scale. Results on the attitude/belief measures were compared for two schools for which high and low levels of bullying were reported. As predicted, the measures individually and collectively discriminated between the schools. The implications of these results are discussed for strategies and practices to reduce bullying in schools.