Abstract
Objective
Bullying is a well-established risk factor for common adolescent mental disorders.
Yet there has been little published on how patterns of bullying change across late
childhood and early adolescence. We estimated the prevalence and patterns of being
a victim of bullying across this period including changes with the transition from
primary to secondary school.
Methods
A stratified random sample of 1239 Grade 3 students was recruited from 43 primary
schools in Melbourne, Australia. Bullying frequency and form were assessed annually
between Grades 3 and 8, and categorized into 5 groups: physical, verbal, spreading
rumors, social exclusion, and cyber, together with multiform bullying.
Results
Rates of bullying were high across these Grades with 86% of students reporting bullying
at least once in the past 4 weeks at any wave, 66% reporting frequent bullying and
37% reporting frequent multiform bullying. The commonest form of bullying was teasing,
with cyberbullying the least common. For boys, there were marked falls in bullying
with increasing age whereas for girls, bullying persisted at high levels into secondary
school, with relational bullying the dominant pattern and cyberbullying increasing
sharply in the early teens. Generally, the transition to secondary education brought
lower risks for all forms of bullying.
Conclusions
We found high rates of bullying across late childhood and early adolescence in both
sexes, but more persistent bullying in girls. Declines across primary school and with
the transition to secondary school suggest the potential for intervention across these
grades to further reduce the prevalence of bullying.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 20, 2020
Accepted:
October 17,
2020
Received:
April 14,
2020
Footnotes
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Academic Pediatric Association
