Examining the Prevalence and Risk Factors of School Bullying Perpetration Among Chinese Children and Adolescents

Jia Xue; Ran Hu; Lei Chai; Ziqiang Han; Ivan Y Sun

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.720149

Examining the Prevalence and Risk Factors of School Bullying Perpetration Among Chinese Children and Adolescents

Front Psychol. 2022 Mar 14:13:720149. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.720149. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Jia Xue^{1

2}, Ran Hu¹, Lei Chai³, Ziqiang Han⁴, Ivan Y Sun⁵

Affiliations

¹ Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
² Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
³ Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁴ School of Political Science and Public Administration, Shandong University, Jinan, China.
⁵ Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States.

Abstract

Background and objectives: School bullying threatens the health of children and adolescents, such as mental health disorders, social deviant behaviors, suicidal behaviors, and coping difficulties. The present study aims to address (1) prevalence rates of both traditional and cyber school bullying perpetration, and (2) the associations between self-control, parental involvement, experiencing conflicts with parents, experiencing interparental conflict, and risk behaviors, and school bullying perpetration among Chinese children and adolescents.

Method: This study used data from a national representative school bullying survey (n = 3,675) among children and adolescents from all grades (primary school 4th grade to high school 12th grade) in seven cities in China. Negative binomial regression was used to estimate the effects of these predictive factors on traditional and cyber school bullying perpetration, respectively. Seven control variables were included, such as gender, boarding school, family socioeconomic status, and parents' education levels.

Results: The sample comprised 52% female, 18% at boarding school, 70% of the participants' academic performance was average or above. Approximately 17.3% of the participants reported participating in traditional school bullying against their peers, and 7.8% perpetrated cyberbullying behaviors. Also, after controlling sociodemographic characteristics and high self-control, parental involvement reduced the likelihood of traditional and cyberbullying perpetrating. Experiencing interparental conflict and risk behavior was significantly associated with increased perpetration of traditional and cyber school bullying. We found that having a conflict with parents was significantly associated with cyberbullying perpetration.

Implications: Findings have implications for practice. Anti-bullying intervention programs targeting this population should consider these factors. For example, school administrators may develop school programs involving parents in the efforts and interventions workshops improving children and adolescents' levels of self-control. Limitations are also discussed.

Keywords: children; cyberbullying; family environment; parenting; school bullying behavior.