B u l l yi n g : w h o d o e s w h a t , w h en an d w h e r e ?

Involvement of
children, teachers and parentsin bullying behavior
M. Fekkes
1,4
, F. I . M . P ij per s
2
and S. P. Verloove-Vanhorick
1,3
Abstract
Bullying victimization is associated with severalhealth
issues. Prevention of bullying is
thereforea n i m p o r t a n t g o a l f o r h e a l t h a n d e d u c
a t i o n p r o f e s s i o n a l s . I n th e p r e s e n t s t u d y, 2 7 6 6 c h i l d r
e n from 32 Dutch elementary schools participatedby
completing a questionnaire on bullying be-havior, and
the involvement of teachers, parentsand classmates in
bullying incidents. The resultsof this study show that
bullying is still prevalentin Dutch schools. More than 16%
of the childrena g e d 9
1 1 y e a r s r e p o r t e d b e i n g b u l l i e d o n aregularbasi
s a n d 5 . 5 % r e p o r t e d r e g u l a r a c t i v e bullying during the
current school term. Almosth a l f o f th e b u l l i e d
children did not
t e l l t h e i r t e a c h e r t h a t th e y w e r e b e i n g b u l l i e d . W h
e n t e a c h e r s k n e w a b o u t th e b u l l y i n g , th e y o f t en tri
ed to stop it, but in many cases the bullying stayed the
same or even got worse. With
regardt o a c t i v e b u l l y i n g , n e i th e r t h e
m a j o r i t y o f t h e teachers nor parents talked to the
bullies abouttheir behavior.Our results
stresstheimportanceo f r e g u l a r c o m m u n i c a t i o n b e t
w e e n c h i l d r e n , parents, teachers and health care
professionalswith regard to bullying incidents. In
addition,teachers needto learneff ective ways todeal
withb u l l y i n g i n c i d e n t s . S c h o o l s n e e d t o a d o p t
a whole-school approach with their antibullyinginterventions.
Introduction

Bullying is a specic form of aggressive behavior and can be described

as a situation when a student:is exposed repeatedly and over time, to
negativea c t i o n s o n t h e p a r t o f o n e o r m o r e s t u d e n t s (Olwe
us, 1993a). These negative actions take placewhen an imbalance of power exists
between the vic-tim and the aggressor. The bullying behavior can bephysical
(e.g. hitting, pushing, kicking),
verbal( e . g . c a l l i n g n a m e s , p r o v o k i n g , m a k i n g t hr e a t s , spreading
slander), or can include other behavior such as making faces or social
exclusion.Studies in several countries indicate a prevalenceof 846% for
regularly bullied children and 5
30%f o r r e g u l a r a c t i v e b u l l i e s ( O l w e u s , 1 9 9 1 ; M o o i j , 1992; Boulton
and Underwood, 1992; Whitney andS mi t h , 1 9 9 3 ; G e n t a
et al.
, 1 9 9 6 ; B o r g , 1 9 9 9 ; Junger-Tas and van Kesteren, 1999; Nansel
et al.
,2 0 0 1 ; Wol k e
et al.
, 2 0 0 1 ) . R e g u l a r b u l l y i n g i s hereby usually dened as recurrent
behavior
witha f r e q u e n c y o f e i t h e r s e v e r a l t i m e s a m o n t h , s o m e t i m
e s o r o n a w e e k l y b a s i s . B o y s a r e generally more often
active bullies than girls, but whereas boys bully in a more direct way
(e.g. hit-t i n g , k i c k i n g ) , g i r l s b u l l y i n a m o r e i n d i r e c t
w a y (e.g.excludingothers,startingrumors)whichissome-times referred to as
relational bullying (Crick andGrotpeter,1995,1996;Wolke
etal.
,2000).Forvictim-ization there are no large gender differencesboysare bullied
as often as girls.