Kristin Carbone-Lopez, PhD
Criminology and Criminal Justice
University of Missouri, St. Louis
Bullying victimization:
 What is bullying? How do we define it?
 How common is bullying? How many children are victims
of some sort of bullying?
 What are some of the risk factors for being bullied?
 What are some of the consequences of bullying
victimization?
 How can we respond to bullying? As practitioners? As
school officials? As parents?
 bullying long considered a minor issue, but taken more
seriously today
MYTH – bullying always involves physical aggression or
violence.
REALITY – bullying can include many different types of
behavior, including physical violence, verbal abuse, and
even “cyber” bullying.
 3 criteria, as outlined by Olweus (1993)
 intentional harm done to a person either physically, emotionally
or relationally
 victimization that occurs repeatedly over time
 a power imbalance between victim and offender
 forms include:
 physical – hitting, kicking, shoving, theft, threats, etc.
 verbal – teasing, derogatory comments, bad names
 relational – “social aggression”, exclusion of peers, withdrawal of
affection, threatening to tell lies or rumors
 cyber – bullying through electronic means
 unique characteristics: anonymity, accessibility, punitive fears,
bystanders, lack of inhibition
 six common forms:
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harassment – repeated rude/offensive messages
denigration – distributing false/negative information about a person
flaming – online “fighting”
impersonation – using someone else’s account to post material
outing/trickery – sharing someone’s secret information
cyber-stalking – repeated threatening messages
MYTH – cyber-bullying is often a “gateway” to other forms of bullying
REALITY – actually, typically the reverse; begins with face-to-face
encounters and may progress to cyber forms
 widely varying estimates, in part because of differing definitions
 yet, consensus that it is a serious issue
 2005–06 school year there were an estimated 54.8 million students
 about 1.5 million victims of nonfatal crimes at school, including 868,100
thefts and 628,200 violent crimes
 this translates into some 4% of students age 12–18 reported being
victimized—either physically or through theft of their belongings—at
school during the previous 6 months
MYTH – bullying is a small problem in our schools compared to other forms of
violence
REALITY – children are far more likely to experience bullying than physical
violence or theft of property at school
 in fact, school-based violence has decreased over the past 10 years
 as many as 27% of school-age children are bullied by peers
 17% of students in grades 6-10 were bullied “sometimes” with
8% experiencing bullying once a week
 approximately 1 in 10 school-age children are repeatedly
victimized by peers; many more are victimized less regularly
 cyber-bullying is also prevalent
 a national survey of 770 youth found that 20% of youth ages 11-
19 had been bullied through electronic means
 an online survey of 1,378 youth found that 32% of boys and 36%
of girls had been victims of cyber-bullying, generally in a chat
room or by computer text message (Hinduja & Patchin, 2008)
MYTH – there is a “victim personality”
REALITY – not only personality characteristics, but situational and social
risk factors are related to risk of bullying
 individual characteristics – passivity/shyness, ADHD, size
(especially weight)
MYTH – boys are more likely than girls to be bullied
REALITY – boys & girls are nearly equally likely to be bullied, yet
experience different forms
 bullying is not distributed evenly across the youth population – it
varies by sex, race, and age
 sex – boys at greater risk of physical forms of bullying,
while girls equally or more likely to experience verbal,
relational, and sexual forms of bullying
 age – bullying tends to decrease with age; the use of
physical aggression often changes to more passive, verbal
forms
 victimization may decrease more quickly for girls, except in
case of relational aggression
 race – inconsistent patterns
 may interact with gender – girls of color may be at greater
risk of all forms of bullying (Sawyer et al., 2008)
 in-group bias effect – members of the minority group within
diverse schools may be at greater risk
 school factors
 size of school, presence of graffiti, punitive teacher attitudes,
inadequate adult supervision, school disadvantage/poverty
MYTH – bullying is a normal part of childhood and the
experience builds character
REALITY – evidence for consequences on emotions and
behaviors
MYTH – many childhood victims of bullying become violent
later on
REALITY – most victims of bullying are more likely to suffer in
silence than retaliate
 school-related:
 reduce willingness to attend school, lower academic
achievement
 psychosocial:
 low self-esteem, depression and anxiety, avoidance behavior
 behavioral:
 poor social adjustment, behavior problems, delinquency,
drug use
 differences in outcome by gender, type of bullying
 girls may suffer a broader range of and more negative
consequences than boys
 Do different forms of bullying victimization have different
effects? Do these effects differ by gender? (Carbone-Lopez et
al., 2010)
 used data collected from 15 schools in 9 cities, in 4 states; a
total of1,450 students
 53% were female; average age was 12 years; 50% Hispanic, 37%
white, and 13% Black
 differentiate between:
 physical versus indirect forms of bullying
 no bullying, intermittent, and repeated victimization experiences
 physical forms of bullying
 67% no victimization
 28% intermittent victimization
 5% repeat victimization
 indirect forms of bullying
 29% no victimization
 38% intermittent victimization
 32% repeat victimization
 externalizing outcomes (delinquency, gang membership)
 intermittent physical victimization increased boys’
delinquency and their gang membership
 both forms of bullying increased girls’ delinquency but only
indirect bullying increased gang membership
 internalizing outcomes (self-esteem, drug use)
 intermittent physical victimization increased boys’ drug use,
but bullying had no impact on boys’ self esteem
 repeated indirect bullying increased girls’ drug use, but
reduced their self esteem
MYTH – bullying only impacts the bullies and their victims
REALITY – bullying has a much broader impact
 bystanders and witnesses may have similar consequences;
bullying may contribute to an overall feeling of non-safety,
powerlessness
 entire school community may be affected – a climate of
fear & disrespect
 prevention and intervention efforts are clearly important, yet
existing efforts largely focus only on physical forms of bullying
recommendations for
 schools
 adopt evidence-based programs
 reduce existing bullying problems, prevent new problems from
occurring, and foster better peer relations
 foster an environment conducive to reporting
 teachers
 learn to spot bullying, to intervene immediately, and report all
incidents to administrators
 parents
 bully-proof our children – talk with them about bullying
and its effects, teach them to react appropriate
 community
 increase awareness in the community, bring together all
stakeholders to campaign against bullying
thank you