Experiences Versus Perceptions: Do Students Agree That They Have Been Bullied?

Abstract

Each year, an estimated 30% of school children experience bullying by their classmates. While research has explored the prevalence of bullying, the causes of bullying, and the consequences of bullying, less attention has been focused on understanding how students define bullying experiences. Utilizing a school-based sample of students ranging from fifth to eighth grade, we examine the concordance between the experience of situations defined as “bullying” to the opinions of students as to whether they felt “bullied.” On average, one third of students report a mismatch between their victimization experiences and their perceptions of being bullied. Logistic regression analyses suggest that the characteristics of students who do not label victimization experiences as bullying differ based on the bullying behavior specified. We examine the students most likely to label bullying and victimization differently and suggest how these findings can be incorporated by school administrators and researchers to better understand how students experience bullying.

The retrospective bullying experiences questionnaire (RBEQ): Its psychometric properties in Iranian University students

“…On the whole, this study was the first to validate RBEQ and examine retrospective bullying experiences in Iranian students. The results showed that, meanwhile RBEQ has a single‐factor structure, and only same‐sex bullying occurs in Iranian schools, however, due to the consistency of the findings of the present study with the findings of studies in other cultures regarding normalization of bullying by students (Connell et al, 2019; Parada & Craven, 2002; Runions et al, 2019), high prevalence of reporting bystander role compared to victim or perpetrator roles (Tłuściak‐Deliowska, 2015, 2016), low percentage of reporting bullying perpetration by students (Rivers et al, 2009), high prevalence of bullying incidents in middle school (Rambaran et al, 2020; Salmivalli & Peets, 2018), the stability of different bullying roles over time (Farmer et al, 2011; Tłuściak‐Deliowska, 2015), positive correlation between different bullying roles (Dragone et al, 2020; Walters, 2020), and reliability of RBEQ (Tłuściak‐Deliowska, 2015, 2016), It can be confirmed that RBEQ is a valid and satisfactory questionnaire that can be utilized to determine levels of retrospective bullying experiences of individuals over 18 years of age, in different cultures.…”

“…They recalled their previous bullying‐related experiences and considered bullying incidents a joke. In this regard, evidence has shown that bullies (Parada & Craven, 2002; Runions et al, 2019), bystanders (Parada & Craven, 2002), and victims (Connell et al, 2019; Parada & Craven, 2002) mistakenly believe that school bullying is common phenomena. Indeed, some bullies do not regard their acts as bullying (de Castro et al, 2002).…”

“…They might consider their behavior as a reaction to threat (de Castro et al, 2002), justify it (Wong et al, 2013), or blaming the victim (Runions et al, 2019). Further, victims may fallaciously regard repetitive victimization as part of their normal life experiences (Connell et al, 2019). Further, results showed that in all three educational levels, Iranian female students were bullied by a number of girls, and Iranian male students were bullied by a number of boys.…”

“…Likewise, students involved in the bullying process, namely victim (Connell et al, 2019; Parada & Craven, 2002), bully (Parada & Craven, 2002; Runions et al, 2019), and bystander (Parada & Craven, 2002) are mistakenly believe that bullying behaviors are accepted phenomena in the peer groups. Some bullies are unaware of their bullying act (de Castro et al, 2002).…”

Delinquency as a Response to Peer Victimization: The Implications of School and Cyberbullying Operationalizations

“…Following a similar method used by Connell et al (2019), School Bullying Mismatch captures respondents who report peer victimization using the behavior-specific measure but do not report being the victim of bullying using the generic measure. A categorical variable is created that reflects the type of victimization experienced by the respondent, where 0 = no victimization, 1 = mismatched victimization, and 2 = matched victimization.…”