A Longitudinal Study of Precursors of Bullying Involvement in Primary School Children in a British Cohort

• Main Author: Samara, Muthanna Madhat
• Published: University of Warwick 2008
• Subjects: 370.15
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.491520

Bullying and victimisation problems and concurrent associations with individual and family characteristics, school and social factors are well documented. There is also an increasing number of follow-up studies documenting the stability of victimisation over time. In contrast, there is a paucity of sufficiently large longitudinal studies that have investigated the precursors of bullying or victimisation on both direct and .relational bullying forms. This study evaluated the factors assessed from pregnancy until 8.5 years of age which predict bullies, victims and bully/victims versus neutral for both direct and relational bullying. The inclusion of these variables depended on previous research. The model which was used to build up the precursors set and analysis was the ecological model with modifications to suit the nature of the data set and measures. The data set used was obtained from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents And Children (ALSPAC) study. ALSPAC investigates the development of more than 10,000 children and their families from pregnancy in the UK. All families have been contacted several times per year via questionnaires since pregnancy and the children had individual standard interviews of their bullying involvement at 8.5 years of age. In total, data for 6781 children (3561; 50.3% girls) had complete data for direct bullying and 6637 children (3495; 50.4% girls) for relational bullying. Findings are presented regarding the relative influence of child characteristics, family (proximal), and environmental (distal) factors related to bullying involvement in primary school. The results indicate that bullying status group membership was most strongly predicted and related to child characteristics before school entry with few proximal and distal factors adding to the prediction model. This was especially obvious with relational bullying status groups with only relational bullies being predicted mainly by proximal factors. In addition, relational bullying status groups, except relational victims, were not predicted or related to cognitive deficit or negative verbal abilities compared to direct bullying status groups. A particularly high-risk group are those pupils who are . bully/victims that shared the characteristics of bullies and victims, distinguished by more behavioural, cognitive preschool problems and adverse family background. The limitations and the strengths of the study, future research directions and the implications for developmental models of bullying and for intervention strategies are discussed. Supplied by The British Library - 'The world's knowledge' Supplied by The British Library - 'The world's knowledge'