Youth Bullying and Suicide: Risk and Protective Factor Profiles for Bullies, Victims, Bully-Victims and the Uninvolved

The SHIELD Framework: Advancing Strength-Based Resilience Strategies to Combat Bullying and Cyberbullying in Youth

Bullying and cyberbullying are critical global issues that significantly affect the mental health and behavioral well-being of youth. This article explores the complex challenges posed by these forms of aggression and introduces a strength-based model for health and mental health professionals to address these issues with impacted youth holistically. Grounded within findings from a scoping review of the literature, the SHIELD framework emphasizes Strengths, Healing, Interventions, Empowerment, Learning, and Development, offering a comprehensive approach for identifying and supporting youth impacted by bullying and cyberbullying. SHIELD emphasizes collaboration among health professionals, schools, families, and communities. By integrating empirical evidence and best practices from school-based approaches to bullying prevention, such as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS) and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), this framework provides a roadmap for creating safer, more inclusive environments for youth while prioritizing their mental health and overall well-being in the face of bullying and cyberbullying. A case study illustrates the framework's practical application and future directions are proposed to guide further empirical investigation and stimulate innovative approaches to addressing the complexities of bullying and cyberbullying.

The Impact of Lockdown in Cyberbullying in Primary Education: Transitions of Cyberbullying and Bullying

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a worldwide socio-sanitary crisis, continuing to impact societies worldwide. With many school systems shifted to online education, the current study presents a unique opportunity to investigate relevant phenomena related to serious health issues during the schooling and later in life, cyberbullying and bullying. This study began just before the COVID-19 lockdown was declared and resumed 5 months later allowing to explore 2 main objectives: first, to explore whether cyberbullying increased during the lockdown, and second, to analyze transitions from to time of bullying and cyberbullying.

METHODS

The participants included 792 students from sixth and seventh years of Primary Education (Meanage = 10.81, SD = 0.85) in Ecuador. This is a quantitative longitudinal study. Cyberbullying and bullying scales were used for data collection before the lockdown in January and February 2020 (T1), and after 5 months of lockdown, at the end of the same academic year in July 2020 (T2). Descriptive, comparative and predictive analyses, a latent transition analysis was used to identify latent status of cyberbullying and bullying behavior at T1 and T2.

RESULTS

The results revealed a significant increase of cyberbullying after 5 months of the lockdown. Interestingly, only a small percentage of students who were uninvolved in cyberbullying and bullying in T1 remained uninvolved in T2.

CONCLUSIONS

The discussion explores the dynamics of cyberbullying involvement and examines changes in the roles and groups of bullying and cyberbullying after 5 months of lockdown. The political- and school-related implications of these findings are thoroughly discussed.

Severity of inattention symptoms, experiences of being bullied, and school anxiety as mediators in the association between excessive short-form video viewing and school refusal behaviors in adolescents

Background

Recent years have seen an increase in school refusal behavior among adolescents, potentially due to factors like excessive short-form video viewing, bullying, and school anxiety. Limited research has investigated how these factors contribute to school refusal behavior. This study used random forest regression, path analysis, and network analysis to identify key variables and pathways leading to school refusal behavior.

Methods

In this cross-sectional questionnaire-based study, 2,056 (996 male, 1,060 female, mean age: 14.79 ± 1.24 years) middle and senior high school students were asked to complete the School Refusal Behavior Assessment questionnaire to assess school refusal behavior features, the Excessive Short-Form Video Viewing Scale as well as self-reported viewing times during leisure days to assess excessive short-form video viewing, the SNAP-IV Rating Scale to assess the severity of inattention symptoms, and the self-administered questionnaires to assess experiences of being bullied and school anxiety.

Results

The prevalence of school refusal behavior in the surveyed adolescents was found to be 31.9% [95% confidence interval (CI): 29.8-33.9%]. In terms of significance, the severity of inattention symptoms exhibited the greatest predictive power, while excessive short-form video viewing accounted for the most variance. Path analysis revealed that excessive short-form video viewing not only directly affects school refusal behavior features but also does so indirectly through severity of inattention symptoms and school anxiety. Key bridge factors in this pathway include intense fear and anxiety associated with school attendance, manifesting as somatic symptoms and avoidance behaviors.

Conclusion

The findings indicate that not only does excessive short-form video viewing directly influence school refusal behavior features in adolescents, but it also indirectly impacts these features through mechanisms involving severity of inattention symptoms and school anxiety. The bridge factors highlight potential targets for interventions among the SRB features and predictors.

The association of sexual minority status and bullying victimization is modified by sex and grade: findings from a nationally representative sample

BACKGROUND

Sexual minority status is associated with face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying victimization. However, limited studies have investigated whether such a relationship differs by sex or grade in a nationally representative sample.

METHODS

We concatenated the national high school data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) chronologically from 2015 to 2019, resulting in a sample of 32,542 high school students. We constructed models with the interaction term between sexual minority status and biological sex assigned at birth to test the effect modification by sex on both the multiplicative and additive scales. A similar method was used to test the effect modification by grade.

RESULTS

Among heterosexual students, females had a higher odds of being bullied than males, while among sexual minority students, males had a higher odds of being bullied. The effect modification by sex was significant on both the multiplicative and additive scales. We also found a decreasing trend of bullying victimization as the grade increased among both heterosexual and sexual minority students. The effect modification by the grade was significant on both the multiplicative and the additive scale.

CONCLUSIONS

Teachers and public health workers should consider the difference in sex and grade when designing prevention programs to help sexual minority students.

Differential Associations Among Cyberbullying Victimization, Parental Monitoring, and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors in Male and Female College Students

PURPOSE

This study aimed to examine the role of parental monitoring and help seeking in the relationship between cyberbullying victimization and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in male and female college students.

METHOD

Data were collected for 336 college students (71.72% female and 28.28% male) aged 18 to 24 or older years from two universities in the Midwest and the South Central regions.

RESULTS

Logistic regression indicated the interaction term of cyberbullying victimization and parental monitoring was negatively related to suicidal thoughts and behaviors in a male group (B = -.155, p < .05, Exp(B) = .86).

DISCUSSION

Male students whose parents monitored about being safe on the computer had dramatically fewer suicidal thoughts/behaviors. In both male and female groups, seeking professional help was not a significant moderator that weakened the relationship.

CONCLUSION

There is a need for additional research on the importance of prevention and intervention efforts to foster open dialogue between students and their parents.

Non-Disclosure and Suicidal Ideation in Adolescent Victims of Bullying: An Analysis from the Family and School Context

In recent years, suicide rates among bullying victims have raised much concern among educators and health professionals. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of preventable death among adolescents, data that warn about the need to monitor the signs before victims' suicidal behavior to prevent this fatal outcome. In the present study, the role of victims' silence about their victimization situation was analysed, as well as the particular impact of family and school environments. More specifically, we examined the mediating role of the victim's non-disclosure between the parental styles (observing the father's and mother's roles separately) and the school climate, concerning suicidal ideation in victims. The sample consisted of 2,977 adolescents (48.5% boys), aged 11-17 years (M = 14.1, SD = 1.42), of whom 635 (21.3%) reported having been victims of bullying in the past year. The results showed that parental styles of rejection and indifference were positively related to victims' non-disclosure of bullying and suicidal ideation. Conversely, a positive school climate showed a negative relationship with victims' disclosure of the bullying situation and suicidal ideation. The findings also indicated that non-disclosure mediates the relationship between the mother's parental style and suicidal ideation. These findings expand knowledge about the role of bullying victims' social context and the variable disclosure with regards to suicidal ideation in adolescents victimized by peers at school.

The Role of Coping Styles in Mediating the Dark Triad and Bullying: An Analysis of Gender Difference

Recently, the phenomenon of school bullying has gradually become a primary focus of social attention. To reduce the occurrence of bullying, it is important that we explore the psychological mechanisms of students with bullying tendencies. We conducted mediation models through a multi-group analysis to verify the mediating effect of coping styles on the relationship between dark personality traits and bullying, and further explored the differences in this mechanism between male and female groups. The participants were 772 high school students recruited from a middle school in Tianjin, China. They completed a set of self-reported measurements including the Dirty Dozen (DD), Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ), Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ), and Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ). All the measurement instruments have acceptable reliability and validity. The results of the multi-group multiple models indicated that (1) there are significant gender differences in bullying behavior, with males scoring significantly higher than females. Moreover, the gender difference was only reflected in proactive aggression, in which males had higher scores than females; there was no significant gender difference in reactive aggression. (2) In the group of females, both negative and positive coping styles partially moderated the relationship between the Dark Triad and bullying. However, in the group of males, only negative coping styles partially mediated the relationship between the Dark Triad and bullying. (3) The above results also held for proactive aggression. In conclusion, our study highlights the gender differences in the mediating effect of coping styles on the relationship between the Dark Triad and bullying and proactive aggression. These findings contribute to better shared understanding of gender-related aspects in school bullying.

School assets and bullying in Chinese youth: A multiple mediation model of intentional self-regulation and internet gaming disorder

Bullying is a severe social problem affecting young people all over the world. Previous studies suggested that engagement in bullying had massive effects on teenagers' physical and psychological development. It is critical and necessary to investigate the antecedents and underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon among young generations. The present study, based on the positive youth development perspective and the developmental assets theory, attempts to explore the positive factors in the school subsystem that could effectively prevent adolescents from bullying, as well as the multiple mediation effects of intentional self-regulation (ISR) and internet gaming disorder (IGD). In this study, we adopted a two-wave design and recruited a sample of 768 Chinese adolescents using a randomized cluster sampling method in the post-pandemic era. The results revealed that T1 school assets significantly and negatively predicted T2 adolescent bullying. Furthermore, T2 ISR and T2 IGD mediated the association between T1 school assets and T2 bullying separately and sequentially. Overall, school resources play a protective role in adolescent development and could effectively prevent them from negative outcomes. These current findings contribute to the literature by providing a further understanding of the direct and indirect protective effects of school assets on adolescent bullying. Moreover, practitioners could also benefit from these findings in preventing and intervening in bullying in the school subsystem.