RIVERSIDE – (INT) – A study finds while verbal and physical bullying decrease as children age, cyberbullying increases.

A paper written at UC Riverside is based on data about bullying victimization and perpetration obtained from 1,180 fifth- through eighth- grade students at schools in a mid-western city.

The study also found non-native English speakers are not bullied more often than native English speakers. Bullying increases as students’ transition from elementary to middle school.

The findings:
· Students who are bullied fall into four subgroups: frequent victim (11 percent), occasional traditional victim (29 percent), occasional cyber and traditional victim (10 percent), and infrequent victim (50 percent). (Traditional means verbal, physical and relational, but not cyber.)
· Showing the students who bully fall into three categories: frequent perpetrator (5 percent), occasional verbal/relational perpetrator (26 percent), and infrequent perpetrator (69 percent).
· Bullying victimization and perpetration decreased over time, however there was an increase from fifth to sixth grade, which corresponds with the transition from elementary to middle school at the schools the researchers studied.
· Over all, girls were more likely to experience verbal/relational and cyber victimization than boys, and boys were more likely to be physically victimized.
· Students for whom English is a second language were not bullied more often than native English speakers. This runs counter to previous studies that found students for whom English is a second language were more likely to be victimized.

Story Date: September 17, 2014