Understanding and defining bullying – adolescents’ own views

Abstract

BackgroundThe negative consequences of peer-victimization on children and adolescents are major public health concerns which have been subjected to extensive research. Given all efforts made to analyze and estimate the social and health consequences of peer-victimization, the adolescents’ own experiences and understandings have had surprisingly little impact on the definition of bullying. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to explore adolescents’ definitions of bullying.MethodsA questionnaire study (n = 128) and four focus group interviews (n = 21) were conducted among students aged 13 and 15. First, gender and age differences were analyzed with respect to what behaviors are considered bullying (questionnaire data). Second, analysis of what bullying is (focus group interviews) was conducted using qualitative content analysis.ResultsThe adolescents own understanding and definition of bullying didn’t just include the traditional criteria of repetition and power imbalance, but also a criterion based on the health consequences of bullying. The results showed that a single but hurtful or harmful incident also could be considered bullying irrespective of whether the traditional criteria were fulfilled or not. Further, girls and older students had a more inclusive view of bullying and reported more types of behaviors as bullying compared to boys and younger students.ConclusionsThe results of the current study adds to the existing literature by showing that adolescents consider the victim’s experience of hurt and harm as a criterion for defining bullying and not only as consequences of bullying. This may be of special relevance for the identification and classification of bullying incidents on the internet where devastating consequences have been reported from single incidents and the use of the traditional criteria of intent, repetition and power imbalance may not be as relevant as for traditional bullying. It implies that the traditional criteria included in most definitions of bullying may not fully reflect adolescents’ understanding and definition of bullying. Assessments of bullying behaviors that ask adolescents to strictly adhere to the traditional definition of bullying might not identify all adolescents experiencing peer victimization and therefore not provide estimates of prevalence rates reflecting adolescents’ own understanding of bullying.

The Effects of Asthma and Bullying on Suicidal Behaviors Among US Adolescents

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The Trouble with Bullying in High School: Issues and Considerations in Its Conceptualization

“…We also know that high school students themselves refer to electronic bullying as particularly harmful (Hellstrom et al 2015). However, it is unclear what the motivations of electronic bullies are during adolescence as high school students reported that the most common targets of their electronic bullying behaviors were friends (52 % of all targets), followed by another student at school (21 %), a stranger (11 %), a student in another school (9 %) and unknown (Mishna et al 2010).…”

“…There is also new evidence that bullying interventions are less effective with high school versus middle school students (Yeager et al 2015). Additionally, high schoolers do not use the term bullying in accordance with researcher and adult expectations of repetition, intentionality, and power differential (Allen 2015;Hellstrom et al 2015). These facts together suggest that scholars should use extra caution when interpreting, labeling, and understanding bullying-type behaviors in the high school years.…”

The contextual definition of harm: 11- to 15-year-olds’ perspectives on social incidents and bullying

“…Young people's definitions of bullying vary, sometimes including those used by researchers, such as repetition, intention and power-imbalance, and sometimes not (Byrne et al 2016;Cheng et al 2011;Compton, Campbell, and Mergler 2014;Frisén, Holmqvist, and Oscarsson 2008;Hellström, Persson, and Hagquist 2015). One aspect that young people add to their definition of bullying compared to researchers' definitions is the victims' experiences (Byrne et al 2016;Frisén, Holmqvist, and Oscarsson 2008;Hellström, Persson, and Hagquist 2015).…”