School Bullying Among Adolescents in the United States: Physical, Verbal, Relational, and Cyber

doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.03.021

Journal of Adolescent Health

Volume 45, Issue 4, October 2009, Pages 368-375

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.03.021 Get rights and content

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.

Section snippets

Sample and procedure

Self-report data on bullying were collected from 7,508 adolescents in the 2005/2006 Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in the United States. HBSC is a World Health Organization collaborative cross-national study examining health behaviors among children and their social determinants [17]. To obtain a nationally representative sample with controllable estimation errors, the US sampling design was a three-stage stratified design with an oversample of African-American and

Sample characteristics

Among the 7,508 adolescents who completed the survey with the bully/victim items, 326 were excluded because of missing information on variables included in the current study (4.3%: 1.0% missing on demographic variables, 2.1% missing on parental or peer variables, and additional 1.2% missing on bully-victim items), resulting in an analytic sample of 7,182 (95.7%). The sample consisted of 47.8% males, 42.6% Caucasian Americans, 18.2% African-Americans, and 26.4% Hispanic Americans. The mean age

Discussion

Findings indicate high prevalence rates of having bullied others or having been bullied at school for at least once in the last 2 months: 20.8% physically, 53.6% verbally, 51.4% socially, or 13.6% electronically. After categorizing respondents into four categories (bullies, victims, bully-victims, and noninvolved), we found that adolescents with higher parental support reported less involvement in all four forms of bullying while having more friends was associated with more bullying (bullies)

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Health Resources and Services Administration.

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Original articleSchool Bullying Among Adolescents in the United States: Physical, Verbal, Relational, and Cyber

Abstract

Purpose

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Section snippets

Sample and procedure

Sample characteristics

Discussion

Acknowledgments

J Adolesc Health

J Adolesc Health

J Adolesc

Comput Human Behav

Associations between peer victimization, fear of future victimization and disrupted concentration on class work among junior school pupils

Br J Educ Psychol

Twenty years' research on peer victimization and psychosocial maladjustment: A meta-analytic review of cross-sectional studies

J Child Psychol Psychiatry

Aggression, depression, and bullying others

Aggressive Behav

Bullying at school what we know and what we can do

Developmental trajectories of victimization: Identifying risk and protective factors

Bullying behaviors among US youth: Prevalence and association with psychosocial adjustment

J Am Med Assoc

Relational aggression, gender, and social-psychological adjustment

Child Dev

Sex differences in physical, verbal, and indirect aggression: A review of recent research

Sex Roles

Original article
School Bullying Among Adolescents in the United States: Physical, Verbal, Relational, and Cyber