The development of bullying victimization among children and adolescents in Icelandic primary schools: A cross-sectional national study
Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Bullying can have substantial effect on children’s and adolescents‘ mental and physical health. Number of studies have shown the diverse effects it can have on victims as they can experience difficulties in school, decreased self-esteem, and affective and other mental problems. The purpose of this study is to investigate the development of bullying among children and adolescents in Icelandic primary schools. More specifically, to investigate if there has been a shift in the trend in bullying victimization from traditional victimization to cybervictimization over time. Additional aim is to investigate if there are group differences in trends in bullying victimization by gender, school grade, and national origin. The study is based on data from the cross-national study Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC), administered every four years. Data collection was conducted from the years 2006 to 2022. Participants were all children and adolescents in 6th, 8th and 10th grade in Iceland. The HBSC survey 2006 had 11.813 participants (response rate 88%), 11.561 the year 2010 (response rate 87%), 10.651 the year 2014 (response rate 84%), 7159 the year 2018 (response rate 80%) and 10.225 participants the year 2022 (response rate 70.5%). Repeated survey analysis with logistic regression was used to examine the relationships of bullying victimization with gender, school grade, national origin, and time (year). The results reveal an upward trend for overall bullying victimization, including traditional and cyberbullying. Boys are more likely to be victims of overall bullying, traditional bullying and cyberbullying compared to girls, and youth with parents of foreign origin are also more likely to be victims of all forms of bullying compared to their native peers. Additionally, the likelihood of being subjected to bullying decreases with higher grade, in both overall bullying and traditional bullying. All group differences observed remained constant over the years in all forms of bullying victimization except for gender differences, which diminished over time in overall bullying victimization. All in all, bullying victimization among school-aged children is on the rise, which highlights the need to revise and implement effective measures to revert the unfortunate trends in bullying victimization.
Source: Skemman
Author: Katrín Klara Emilsdóttir
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7065235201