Cross-national patterns of traditional and cyberbullying: The role of individual and social support indicators

Abstract

This study examines victimization at multiple levels. At the individual level, we investigate the consistency of the relationship between individual-level factors and both traditional and cyberbullying victimization. At the country level, we explore ranking patterns in the link between risk or protective factors and victimization outcomes and compare the prevalence of bullying and cyberbullying victimization and offending across countries. We also analyzed the associations between social support indicators gender inequality index (GII), inequality-adjusted human development indices (IHDIs), and victimization rates. We analyzed the 2017–2018 Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey data from the World Health Organization (WHO) across 38 countries. The survey inquired about traditional and cyberbullying, nutrition, physical activity, and family and friend relationships. We employed multiple imputation by chained equations (MICE) to impute missing data and used conditional marginal effects to assess the patterns of relationships. The model fit indices were used to compare the associations between social support indicators and country-level outcomes. Our research indicates that bullying/cyberbullying victimization is associated with offending, poor health, and relational quality, and these associations vary at the country level. Country-level data confirm the overlap between online and offline bullying behaviors, and the gender inequality index (GII) is a stronger correlate of country-level victimization than IHDI. Our findings suggest that student-level bullying prevention programs should incorporate strategies that focus on both risk and protective factors. In addition, programs or policies from countries with more favorable outcomes can serve as models for other countries to follow. In addition, findings imply that reducing gender inequality may be more effective in lowering bullying and cyberbullying rates than focusing on the IHDI. It is important that we continue exploring individual, community, and national indicators of risk to mitigate both traditional and cyber forms of victimization and offending worldwide.