Examining the Relationship Among Bullying, School Climate and Adolescent Well-Being in Chile and South Africa: a Cross Cultural Comparison

Abstract

Bullying at school represents a major challenge in different school cultural contexts. As a result, victims of bullying experience negative consequences that influence their daily life and personal well-being. School climate in particular is important to consider in the prevention of bullying and its consequences. However, few studies have examined the effects of bullying victimization on children's subjective well-being (SWB), using hierarchical analysis, in different cultural contexts. Therefore, the current study examined the role of bullying victimization and school climate on children's SWB in two different contexts, Chile and South Africa. The study forms part of and uses data from the Children's Worlds Study in these contexts. With a combined sample of 1829 children aged 12-years old, the data were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling and structural equation modeling. The key findings indicate that bullying victimization was a significant predictor of children's SWB at the individual and school level (school climate) in Chile and South Africa. Further, a crosslevel interaction effect of school climate on the relationship between bullying victimization and SWB was found in Chile only. Mediational analysis demonstrated a good fit of the data for both countries, and indicated that bullying victimization had a direct effect on SWB, and an indirect effect through school climate. These results contribute to a better understanding of the role of school climate for bullying behavior, especially for victims. Schools represent an important institution, beyond the cultural context, that can help foster children's social development by promoting a positive school climate.

Sibling Bullying, School Bullying, and Children’s Subjective Well-Being Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia

“…A study using the second wave of the Children’s Worlds project showed that children who had been bullied had significantly lower SWB than those who had not (Bradshaw et al, 2017 ). A study in Chile and South Africa also showed a negative relationship between bullying victimisation and SWB (Varela et al, 2020 ), as well as a study in Algeria (Tiliouine, 2015 ).…”

Characterization of Wellbeing and its Relationship with Exposure to Violence in Mexican and Chilean Early and Late Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…For example, bullying and cyberbullying victims show lower levels of subjective wellbeing than non-victims, and victimization is negatively related to wellbeing at these ages (Chai et al, 2020 ; Miranda et al, 2019 ). When observing the effects of victimization on adolescent subjective wellbeing in different cultural contexts (Chile and South Africa), bullying is observed to be a significant predictor of subjective wellbeing at the individual and school levels in both cultural contexts (Varela et al, 2020 ). It should be noted that the negative relationship between bullying and subjective wellbeing is seen across age groups and geographical populations (Savahl et al, 2019 ).…”

Resilience and self-concept as mediating factors in the relationship between bullying victimization and sense of well-being among adolescents

“…The study indicated the combined influence of physical and psychological bullying contributes significantly and negatively to SWB across age groups and geographical, cultural populations. Moreover, bullying has negative emotional, physical, and behavioural effects on victims' well-being (Saiz et al, 2019;Skrzypiec et al, 2019;Varela et al, 2020). More specifically, studies have shown being bullied by peers is strongly and consistently associated with several mental health problems, such as personal distress and depressive mood, anxiety, increased fear, diminished sense of belonging, social isolation, low self-esteem, school avoidance, social anxiety, and psychoactive substance abuse (Fitzpatrick & Bussey, 2011;V.…”