Bullying and Cyberbullying in Minorities: Are They More Vulnerable than the Majority Group?

Abstract

Inclusion in education of all the children is necessary for the success, equality and peace among individuals and societies. In this context, special attention needs to be paid to the minorities. These groups might encounter additional difficulties which make them more vulnerable to be involved in bullying and cyberbullying. The current study was conducted with the objective of describing the involvement in bullying and cyberbullying of students from the majority group and also from sexual and ethnic-cultural minorities. The second objective was to explore if the implication is predicted by the interaction with gender, grade and the size of the population where the schools are located. It is an ex post facto transversal descriptive study with a survey on a representative sample of adolescents enrolled in the Compulsory Secondary Education in the south of Spain (Andalusia). The survey was answered by 2139 adolescents (50.9% girls) in 22 schools. These participants were selected through the random multistage cluster sampling with the confidence level of 95% and a sampling error of 2.1%. The results show that the minority groups, especially sexual minorities, are more involved in bullying and cyberbullying. Regression analyses show that being in the majority or a minority group predicts a small but significant percentage of variance of being involved in bullying and cyberbullying. Results are discussed taking into account the social vulnerability of being a part of a minority group and the need of designing educational programs which would prevent this vulnerability thorough the inclusion in education. There is a need for an educational policy that focuses on convivencia and ciberconvivencia which would promote the social and educational development of all the students.

Toward an Understanding of the Characteristics of Secondary School Cyberhate Perpetrators

“…In Europe, with the rise of populism and extremism, hate crimes and hate speeches have increased over the last decade (FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency), 2014; Penzien, 2017). While some findings may be controversial (Vitoroulis and Vaillancourt, 2015), research suggests that, indeed, ethnic minorities are subjected to hateful bullying and are more vulnerable than majority groups, both in the US and in Europe (Tynes, 2005;Hawdon, 2014;Llorent et al, 2016).…”

Cyberbullying: A narrative review

“…Most typically, boys have been the bullies and girls have been the victims. Being in a minority group, especially a sexual minority group, has also explained a small but signi icant percentage of the variance in a sample of 2139 Spanish adolescents [58].…”

Educational Environments with Cultural and Religious Diversity: Psychometric Analysis of the Cyberbullying Scale

“…The first dimension is called intercultural cyberbullying and relates to what Bueno and Domingo (2016) have established as coercion of the dominant culture over minorities. According to Llorent et al (2016), social networks reflect increasingly dominant attitudes, encouraged by the homogenization of society, which devalue immigrants and people from other minority cultures and religions.…”