Classroom Size and the Prevalence of Bullying and Victimization: Testing Three Explanations for the Negative Association

Is it my fault? The role of the feeling of guilt in adolescent peer victimization

Introduction

The aim of this study was to analyze the relationships between feelings of guilt, peer victimization in school, and loneliness based on adolescents' gender.

Methods

A total of 671 Spanish students (50.7% boys), aged 10-16 years old (M = 13.04, SD = 1.80) from six public primary and secondary schools participated in the study. A Multivariate Analysis of Variance (3 × 2) was calculated.

Results

Adolescents with high levels of guilt presented greater physical, verbal, and relational victimization, as well as higher levels of loneliness. In addition, boys high in guilt had the highest scores in overt physical victimization, while girls high in guilt had the highest levels of loneliness.

Discussion

Results obtained suggest that adolescents with greater feelings of guilt feel responsible for being victims of peer aggression and for feeling lonely. These findings suggest the need to address the feeling of guilt, taking into account the gender perception.

Method of Nursing Interventions to Reduce the Incidence of Bullying and Its Impact on Students in School: A Scoping Review

The bullying of students in schools can have a negative impact on students. The impact of bullying can take the form of anxiety, low psychological well-being, low social adjustment, psychological distress, and risk of suicide. Incidents of bullying are still considered normal, and there has not been a focus on reducing their incidence and impact. The purpose of this study is to describe nursing interventions to reduce the incidence of bullying and its impact on students at school. This study used the scoping review method and literature reviews via CINAHL, PubMed, and ProQuest databases. The keywords used in English were “bullying OR cyberbullying OR aggression” AND “students OR school students” AND “school OR schools” AND “nursing intervention”. The criteria for articles in this study were: full texts, student populations and samples, randomized control trials or quasi-experiment research designs, use of the English language, and the publication period of the last 10 years (2013–2022). We found 11 articles discussing nursing interventions to reduce the incidence of bullying and its impact on students in schools. There are four types of interventions that can be provided to students, namely, prevention programs, activities programs, peer group programs, and resilience programs. Most of the articles used randomized control trials and quasi-experiment designs. The samples in the articles analyzed were in the range of 50–7121 students. These four types of interventions can reduce the incidence of bullying and its impact on students at school, and in addition, they can improve the social skills and mental health of students, for example, by increasing their self-efficacy, resilience, and adaptive coping. There are four nursing interventions to reduce the incidence of bullying and its impact on students in schools, namely, the prevention program, activities program, peer group program, and resilience program.

Adolescent Victim Types Across the Popularity Status Hierarchy: Differences in Internalizing Symptoms

Previous studies have called attention to the fact that popular youth are not immune to peer victimization, suggesting there is heterogeneity in the popularity of victims. Yet, no study to date has determined whether victims with different levels of popularity status can be identified using person-oriented analysis. Such analysis is critically needed to confirm the existence of popular victims. Further, there remains a paucity of research on internalizing indices of such popular victims, especially compared to other victim and non-victim groups. To address this gap in the research literature, the current study used latent profile analysis to identify subgroups of victims based on victimization (self- and peer-report) and popularity (peer-report). This study sought to verify the existence of popular victims and to compare victim subgroups on loneliness and self-esteem. Participants were 804 Dutch adolescents (50.2% boys, M_age = 13.65 years, ranging from 11.29 to 16.75 years). The results revealed six subgroups, including a group of popular self-identified victims. Popular self-identified victims were generally less lonely than other victims, but had higher loneliness and lower self-esteem than non-victims. Implications are discussed for understanding the victimization experiences of high-status youth.

A multilevel analysis of the influence of bullying participant roles upon the trajectories of adolescents’ social and emotional competencies

This study analyzed how social and emotional competencies evolved according to adolescents’ involvement in bullying, and whether gender influenced social and emotional competencies’ development. Five-hundred-fourteen students ( Mage = 12.71; SD = 1.09) were assessed through self-reports at three different time points for one year. Results showed that students involved in the three analyzed bullying roles displayed a more negative trajectory in all but one social emotional competence analyzed compared to students not involved in bullying. The exception was students who bullied others for responsible decision making. Additionally, gender differences were only found in self-esteem trajectories; boys displayed a more pronounced decrease. In larger classes, students displayed higher levels of self-control, social awareness and responsible decision-making. These results showed that reduced social and emotional competencies were a consequence of bullying involvement for every bullying role analyzed.

Classroom Status Hierarchy Moderates the Association between Social Dominance Goals and Bullying Behavior in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence

Social dominance goals represent desires to be powerful and prominent among peers. Previous studies have documented that endorsing social dominance goals is positively associated with bullying behavior. However, little is known about how classroom context moderates the social dominance goals-bullying association. The present study examined the role of classroom status hierarchy in the longitudinal association between social dominance goals and bullying in a sample of 1,603 children attending 17 grade 3 classrooms (n = 558, 46.2% girls, M_age = 9.33 years, SD = 0.44), 15 grade 4 classrooms (n = 491, 45.0% girls, M_age = 10.31 years, SD = 0.38) and 16 grade 7 classrooms (n = 554, 49.3% girls, M_age = 13.2 years, SD = 0.46) in China, followed for 1 year. Classroom peer status hierarchy was assessed by the within-classroom standard deviation in perceived popularity. Social dominance goals were obtained through self-reports. Bullying was measured via peer nomination. The multilevel models revealed that social dominance goals at Wave 1 predicted increases in bullying at Wave 2 only in classrooms with higher status hierarchies, after controlling for gender, grade, classroom size, and classroom gender distribution. These findings indicate that children who strive for social dominance goals are more likely to bully others when power is less equally distributed in the classroom.