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Child-and school-level predictors of children’s bullying behavior
Child-and school-level predictors of children’s bullying behavior: a multilevel analysis in 648 primary schools by E. Fink, P., Patalay, H. Sharpe, & M. Wolpert in Journal of Educational Psychology
17 April 2017
Bullying is a significant problem in schools and affects children’s psychosocial adjustment, educational attainment and physical health. However, much of the existing research has focused on the individual characteristics of children rather than school-level factors.
This study, comprising 23,215 children (51% boys) from years 4 or 5 (with an average age of 9.06 years) from 648 primary schools in England, looked at the influence of child- and school-level factors on bullying behaviour in primary school.
Children provided information on bullying behaviour and school climate. The results showed that child gender, ethnicity, deprivation and special educational needs status all predicted bullying behaviour. However, of the school-level factors, only the overall level of deprivation for a given school and school climate predicted bullying behaviour once the child-level factors were taken into account. With regard to school-level deprivation the statistical combination of child and school characteristics were shown to predict bullying, such that children not experiencing poverty attending schools with high poverty levels were at particular risk of engaging in bullying behaviour. Untangling why this occurs requires further work, but it is possible that being a child from a non-deprived background in an otherwise deprived school sets up a peer group disparity or power imbalance that precipitates bullying behaviours.
This study may be helpful for informing school interventions tackling bullying behaviour, which could be used to identify and target high-risk children and high-risk schools.