Bullying Behaviors among Macanese Adolescents—Association with Psychosocial Variables

Abstract

Bullying is a widespread public health problem among school students. Using a large sample of Macanese school adolescents, the present study examines psychosocial conditions and demographic characteristics in discriminating the following four subgroups of students: victims; bullies; bully-victims; and a comparison group of adolescents. Participants included 2288 adolescents from 13 primary and secondary schools in Macau whose ages ranged from 10 to 20 years. Statistical results revealed significant differences among the groups and indicated that adolescents who are involved in school bullying experience worse psychosocial adjustment. Specifically, among the four subgroups of students, bully-victims reported the strongest feelings of anxiety, depression, and negative affectivity, and expressed the lowest satisfaction with life. Compared with students who were not involved in bullying and victimization, bullies experienced more anxiety and depression and victims had lower levels of satisfaction with life. In addition, boys were more likely to engage in bullying behaviors and younger students had a greater probability of being victimized by their peers at school. Implications for future research and practice on bullying perpetration and the prevention of peer victimization are discussed.

School Bullying in Urban China: Prevalence and Correlation with School Climate

“…Furthermore, boys are more likely to be involved in bullying behaviors as most prior studies demonstrated [ 24 , 32 , 54 ]. Unlike other studies using samples from a small region [ 32 ], or other countries [ 55 ], our analysis indicates that being involved in bullying behaviors does not vary according to most of the family characteristics, such as the family structure, parents’ education and the socioeconomic status.…”

“…These differences of prevalence indicate the ambiguousness and uniqueness of the school bullying phenomena in Mainland China. Besides the studies from Hong Kong [ 20 ], Taiwan [ 21 , 22 ] and Macau [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ], which are relatively different from Mainland China, most of the school bullying studies from Mainland China only used data from a small area, such as Beijing [ 27 ], Fujian [ 28 ], Guangdong [ 29 , 30 , 31 ], Xi’an [ 32 ], or unidentified central [ 33 ] or southwest China [ 34 ]. Two studies using national data were identified.…”

“…Since most of the previous studies on school bullying in China mainly examined middle school or high school students from one region, and primarily focused on the prevalence and consequences of being bullied, our analysis covers adolescents from all types of pre-college schools, with multi-perspectives from bullying victims, perpetrators and bystanders (witnesses). What’s more, we grouped the students into non-victim and non-perpetrator, victim-only, perpetrator-only and victim-perpetrator categories [ 24 , 42 , 43 ], and analyzed the correlations between several school attributes and the probability of being victims or perpetrators with the control of basic family and demographic variables. We hypothesize that: Primary school students would have higher school bullying prevalence than middle school and high school students; Vocational school students would have higher school bullying prevalence than students from other schools; Students from elite schools (leading schools) would have lower prevalence of school bullying than the students in non-leading schools; With better relation with teachers, a student would have a lower likelihood of being a bullying victim or perpetrator; With better relation with peers, a student would have a lower likelihood of being a bullying victim or perpetrator; With better academic performance (perceived GPA), a student would have a lower likelihood of being a bullying victim or perpetrator.…”

Bullies Get Away With It, But Not Everywhere: Mental Health Sequelae of Bullying in Chinese and German Students

“…Despite lower prevalence, those who are pure victims or bully/victims in various regions in China suffer similar concurrent adverse mental health problems as have been reported in western countries, such as anxiety, depression, longlines, suicidality, and low life satisfaction (Cheng et al, 2010;Ji et al, 2003;Tang et al, 2018;Weng et al, 2017;Wu et al, 2015;Zhu & Chan, 2015). One longitudinal study in China further showed that victimization in primary school positively related to more internalizing symptoms six months later (Wang & Zhou, 2019).…”

“…Based on the cross-cultural studies on bullying prevalence (Eslea et al, 2004;Xie et al, 2016;and Weight et al, 2015), we hypothesized that: (1) The prevalence of bullying would be lower in China than in Germany. Regarding the mental health consequence of bullying involvement, given that victims in China also reported mental health problems (e.g., Tang et al, 2018;Wang & Zhou, 2019;Weng et al, 2017;Wolke & Lereya, 2015), we expected that…”