The role of family and school-level factors in bullying and cyberbullying: a cross-sectional study
2017
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.
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