Abstract
Bullying is an increasingly common problem in schools, associated with negative educational outcomes for both bullies and victims. This study explored the socio-educational family and school variables related to bullying, victimization and positive behavior, such as age, gender, separation from parents, school results, and truancy. In this study 311 students (50.8% boys) have participated, they were aged between 6 and 16 years (M = 11.01, SD = 1.71), enrolled in primary school (47.3%) and in secondary school (52.7%), all were from urban areas. 43.8% of respondents were separated from one or both parents due to divorce (17.4%), parental death (6.1%), migration (20%) or abandonment (0.3%). Bullying, victimization and positive behavior were measured with one standardized scale; the data about school results and attendance of the students was collected from the school registers; family information was self-reported by participants. Because Cronbach’s Alpha for the positive behavior scale was 0.57, lower that 0.7, this scale was not considered for further data analysis. Empirical data for the study was collected before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 The Mann-Whitney U test showed significant age differences: secondary school students scored higher in aggression than primary school students. We also found significant gender differences in bullying behavior: boys’ reported higher level of aggression. The Independent Sample Student’s t-test indicated gender differences in school results: the boys obtained lower school results in Language and Mathematics than the girls. Separation from one or both parents did not lead to significant differences in bullying behavior, but pupils separated from their parents had fewer school absences than their colleagues not separated from their parents. Pearson’s correlation indicated that students with higher bullying scores, also scored higher on victimization and had higher number of school absences, but had scored lower grades in Language and Mathematics. One-way ANOVA indicated that victimization was influenced by age and bullying was influenced by gender. Also, one-way ANOVA indicated an effect of bullying on school results. Two-way ANOVA showed an interaction effect between gender and separation from parents on bullying. When living with both parents, boys had higher bullying scores, but under separation condition, the boys scored slightly lower than girls. The implications of the results for education and counseling are discussed.
Highlights
Since the 1980s, with the early research of Norwegian professor Dan Olweus which used the terms of bully and victim in the school context, a large number of books and articles have been written on this subject, as this phenomenon is widespread throughout the world and has long-term negative effects on the personal and social development of young people (Crick, 1996, Olweus, 1993, Smith et al, 2011, Lodder et al, 2016, Blakely-McClure & Ostrov, 2016 etc.)
This study explored the influence of socio-educational family and school variables such as age, gender, separation from parents, school results, and truancy on bullying, victimization and positive behavior of the students
Unlike Bozan et al (2021); Zhao et al (2021); Zhang et al, (2021) who supported the idea that separation from parents predisposes to experience bullying, in our sample, there were no significant differences in bullying and victimization between children who are separated from one or both parents and children who are living with both parents
Summary
Since the 1980s, with the early research of Norwegian professor Dan Olweus which used the terms of bully and victim in the school context, a large number of books and articles have been written on this subject, as this phenomenon is widespread throughout the world and has long-term negative effects on the personal and social development of young people (Crick, 1996, Olweus, 1993, Smith et al, 2011, Lodder et al, 2016, Blakely-McClure & Ostrov, 2016 etc.). Bullying has been recognized as a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to a safe learning environment at school (Olweus, 1993). Olweus affirmed that a student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more students. These actions can include physical, verbal or relational aggression such as being hit, beaten, threatened or locked up etc. A condition of bullying is the asymmetric power relationship between bully and victim which is somewhat helpless against the student or students who harass It is not bullying when two strong students quarrel, fight or tease each other (Solberg & Olweus, 2003)
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