The role of family and school-level factors in bullying and cyberbullying: A cross-sectional study

Leonardo Bevilacqua; Nichola Shackleton; Daniel Hale; Elizabeth Allen; Lyndal Bond; Deborah Christie; Diana Elbourne; Natasha Fitzgerald-Yau; Adam Fletcher; Rebecca Jones; Alec Miners; Stephen Scott; Meg Wiggins; Chris Bonell; Russell M. Viner

doi:10.1186/s12887-017-0907-8

The role of family and school-level factors in bullying and cyberbullying: A cross-sectional study

Leonardo Bevilacqua^*, Nichola Shackleton, Daniel Hale, Elizabeth Allen, Lyndal Bond, Deborah Christie, Diana Elbourne, Natasha Fitzgerald-Yau, Adam Fletcher, Rebecca Jones, Alec Miners, Stephen Scott, Meg Wiggins, Chris Bonell, Russell M. Viner

^*Corresponding author for this work

Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

61 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Background: Bullying and cyberbullying are common phenomena in schools. These negative behaviours can have a significant impact on the health and particularly mental health of those involved in such behaviours, both as victims and as bullies. This UK study aims to investigate student-level and school-level characteristics of those who become involved in bullying and cyberbullying behaviours as victims or perpetrators. Methods: We used data from 6667 Year 7 students from the baseline survey of a cluster randomized trial in 40 English schools to investigate the associations between individual-level and school-level variables with bullying victimization, cyberbullying perpetration, and cyberbullying victimization. We ran multilevel models to examine associations of bullying outcomes with individual-level variables and school-level variables. Results: In multilevel models, at the school level, school type and school quality measures were associated with bullying risk: students in voluntary-aided schools were less likely to report bullying victimization (0.6 (0.4, 0.9) p = 0.008), and those in community (3.9 (1.5, 10.5) p = 0.007) and foundation (4.0 (1.6, 9.9) p = 0.003) schools were more likely to report being perpetrators of cyberbullying than students in mainstream academies. A school quality rating of "Good" was associated with greater reported bullying victimization (1.3 (1.02, 1.5) p = 0.03) compared to ratings of "Outstanding." Conclusions: Bullying victimization and cyberbullying prevalence vary across school type and school quality, supporting the hypothesis that organisational/management factors within the school may have an impact on students' behaviour. These findings will inform future longitudinal research investigating which school factors and processes promote or prevent bullying and cyberbullying behaviours. Trial registration: Trial ID: ISRCTN10751359Registered: 11/03/2014 (retrospectively registered).

Original language	English
Article number	160
Journal	BMC Pediatrics
Volume	17
Issue number	1
Early online date	11 Jul 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-017-0907-8
Publication status	Published - 11 Jul 2017

Keywords

Cyberbullying
Gatehouse bullying scale
Multi-level models
School-level variables
Student-level variables

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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The role of family and_BEVILACQUA_Publishedonline11July2017_GOLD VoR (CC BY)Final published version, 426 KBLicence: CC BY

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Bevilacqua, L., Shackleton, N., Hale, D., Allen, E., Bond, L., Christie, D., Elbourne, D., Fitzgerald-Yau, N., Fletcher, A., Jones, R., Miners, A., Scott, S., Wiggins, M., Bonell, C., & Viner, R. M. (2017). The role of family and school-level factors in bullying and cyberbullying: A cross-sectional study. BMC Pediatrics , 17(1), Article 160. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-017-0907-8

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AU - Allen, Elizabeth

AU - Bond, Lyndal

AU - Christie, Deborah

AU - Elbourne, Diana

AU - Fitzgerald-Yau, Natasha

AU - Fletcher, Adam

AU - Jones, Rebecca

AU - Miners, Alec

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AB - Background: Bullying and cyberbullying are common phenomena in schools. These negative behaviours can have a significant impact on the health and particularly mental health of those involved in such behaviours, both as victims and as bullies. This UK study aims to investigate student-level and school-level characteristics of those who become involved in bullying and cyberbullying behaviours as victims or perpetrators. Methods: We used data from 6667 Year 7 students from the baseline survey of a cluster randomized trial in 40 English schools to investigate the associations between individual-level and school-level variables with bullying victimization, cyberbullying perpetration, and cyberbullying victimization. We ran multilevel models to examine associations of bullying outcomes with individual-level variables and school-level variables. Results: In multilevel models, at the school level, school type and school quality measures were associated with bullying risk: students in voluntary-aided schools were less likely to report bullying victimization (0.6 (0.4, 0.9) p = 0.008), and those in community (3.9 (1.5, 10.5) p = 0.007) and foundation (4.0 (1.6, 9.9) p = 0.003) schools were more likely to report being perpetrators of cyberbullying than students in mainstream academies. A school quality rating of "Good" was associated with greater reported bullying victimization (1.3 (1.02, 1.5) p = 0.03) compared to ratings of "Outstanding." Conclusions: Bullying victimization and cyberbullying prevalence vary across school type and school quality, supporting the hypothesis that organisational/management factors within the school may have an impact on students' behaviour. These findings will inform future longitudinal research investigating which school factors and processes promote or prevent bullying and cyberbullying behaviours. Trial registration: Trial ID: ISRCTN10751359Registered: 11/03/2014 (retrospectively registered).

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The role of family and school-level factors in bullying and cyberbullying: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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