The relation between school size and location and bullying

Individual characteristics

The analysis showed that boys were more likely to be aggressors (the effect ceased to be significant when other individual characteristics and discipline were taken into account) and less likely to be victims than girls. This confirmed the results of many previous studies (Stubbs-Richardson et al., 2018; Grizel et al., 2012). Children whose mothers have higher education were less involved in bullying and victimization than children whose mothers do not have a higher education (Kavanagh et al., 2018; Knaappila et al., 2018). Parental education reflects the norms, values and financial situation of the family (Galobardes et al., 2006a, 2006b). This effect also loses significance when other individual characteristics are taken into account and when discipline is added.

The results of analysis showed that GPA was a significant variable: adolescents who study well were less likely to be aggressors and victims, which also confirms the results of previous studies (Strшm et al., 2013; Woods & Wolke, 2004). A comparison of the average school rules between students with different experience of bullying showed that aggressors perceive the existing school rules worse, which can lead to frequent skipping classes and ignoring assignments. Victims also perceive school rules worse than those students who practically or completely did not experience victimization, which also leads to a loss of interest in learning.

Our analysis found that children who have the status of a visual ethnic minority were more likely to be aggressors than representatives of a visually ethnic majority. Graham & Juvonen (2002) obtained the same results, explaining that the ethnic minority group seeks through aggression to overcome the barriers associated with minority status.

3.2 Limitations

In this study, the discipline was measured through the clarity of school rules for pupils, and the information about the percentage of students on account in school and juvenile commission was used additionally. Discipline is an extensive concept that includes many factors: parental discipline (Socolar et al., 2004), the level of school crime (Skiba et al., 2002), the level of discipline training and substance use (Welch & Payne, 2010). One direction for further studies is to use several aspects of discipline; for example, all reports about discipline violations from schools, the influence of family discipline and the prevalence of different types of delinquent behaviour (crimes, using alcohol and drugs etc.).

Another limitation is that there were only self-report cases about status of aggressor and victim. It could be useful to have other indicators (reports from peers, teachers and parents) for creating a clear description of students` involvement in bullying. The correspondence between self-reported and peer-reported cases of bullying and victimization can help to understand the situations, i.e. the level of moral disengagement (Obermann, 2011; Branson & Cornell, 2009). It can be used as a direction for further research since the information about how students perceive their environment in terms of aggressive behaviour was collected through the main survey in Kaluga region.

I used a limited set of characteristics of the settlement for analysis. Continuing to study the impact of the territorial context on the prevalence of bullying makes sense by adding new information about the unemployment rate, crime rate, number of people with disabilities, etc.

References

1. Cohen, E. G., Lotan, R., & Catanzarite, L. (1990). Treating status problems in the cooperative classroom.

2. Juvonen, J., & Graham, S. (Eds.). (2001). Peer harassment in school: The plight of the vulnerable and victimized. Guilford Press.

3. Mouttapa, M., Valente, T., Gallaher, P., Rohrbach, L. A., & Unger, J. B. (2004). Social network predictors of bullying and victimization. Adolescence, 39(154), 315.

4. Thomas, D. E., Bierman, K. L., & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (2006). The impact of classroom aggression on the development of aggressive behavior problems in children. Development and psychopathology

5. Yastrebov, G.A., Bessudnov, A.R., Pinskaya, M.A., & Kosaretsky, S.G. (2013). The problem of the contextualization of educational results: schools, the social composition of students and the level of deprivation of territories. Education Issues, (4).

6. Ybarra, M. L., Espelage, D. L., Valido, A., Hong, J. S., & Prescott, T. L. (2019). Perceptions of middle school youth about school bullying. Journal of adolescence, 75, 175-187.

Appendix

Table 1 Correlation among settlement characteristics about the level of infrastructure

Table 2 Correlation between settlement characteristics, including infrastructure index

Table 5 Results of One-Way ANOVA between types of settlement and school characteristics

Table 6 Results of One-Way ANOVA between types of school and school characteristics

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