Prevalence of bullying and victimization among children in early elementary school: Do family and school neighbourhood socioeconomic status matter?

BMC Public Health

Henning Tiemeier²  Wilma Jansen⁴  Frank C Verhulst⁶  René Veenstra³  Jan van der Ende⁶  Cathelijne Mieloo⁴  Anke Dommisse-van Berkel¹  Marina Verlinden⁵  Pauline W Jansen⁶ 

[1]Municipal Public Health Service Rotterdam Rijnmond, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

[2]Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC-University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

[3]Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

[4]Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC-University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

[5]The Generation R Study Group, Erasmus MC-University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

[6]Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology, Erasmus MC-University Medical Center, PO-BOX 2060, 3000, CB, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

关键词: Children;    Socioeconomic status;    Victimization;    Bullying;   

Others  :  1163481
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-12-494

 received in 2011-09-23, accepted in 2012-06-15,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Bullying and victimization are widespread phenomena in childhood and can have a serious impact on well-being. Children from families with a low socioeconomic background have an increased risk of this behaviour, but it is unknown whether socioeconomic status (SES) of school neighbourhoods is also related to bullying behaviour. Furthermore, as previous bullying research mainly focused on older children and adolescents, it remains unclear to what extent bullying and victimization affects the lives of younger children. The aim of this study is to examine the prevalence and socioeconomic disparities in bullying behaviour among young elementary school children.

Methods

The study was part of a population-based survey in the Netherlands. Teacher reports of bullying behaviour and indicators of SES of families and schools were available for 6379 children aged 5–6 years.

Results

One-third of the children were involved in bullying, most of them as bullies (17%) or bully-victims (13%), and less as pure victims (4%). All indicators of low family SES and poor school neighbourhood SES were associated with an increased risk of being a bully or bully-victim. Parental educational level was the only indicator of SES related with victimization. The influence of school neighbourhood SES on bullying attenuated to statistical non-significance once adjusted for family SES.

Conclusions

Bullying and victimization are already common problems in early elementary school. Children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families, rather than children visiting schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, have a particularly high risk of involvement in bullying. These findings suggest the need of timely bullying preventions and interventions that should have a special focus on children of families with a low socioeconomic background. Future studies are necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of such programs.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Jansen et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

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