Original articleIncome Inequality and School Bullying: Multilevel Study of Adolescents in 37 Countries
Section snippets
Sample
Survey data were collected from 11-year-olds in the 2006 HBSC study (www.hbsc.org). The aim of the HBSC study was to identify behaviors and social factors that influence physical and psychosocial health in youth. Nationally representative samples of students in grades 7, 9, and 11 participated in 42 countries and regions in Europe, North America, and Israel. The average participation rate by students was 81.6% (SD = 12.0%), ranging from 40.6% (Germany) to 97.3% (Lithuania). Survey procedures
Results
Ecological correlations tested associations between wealth, income inequality, mean levels of social support, and the percentage of respondents who bullied others at school. As shown in Table 2, income inequality was significantly correlated with bullying among males, r (36) = .58, p < .01, and among females, r (36) = .64, p < .01. Figure 1 is a scatterplot of this relationship involving males and females, r (36) = .62, p < .01. As shown in this figure, the percentage of respondents who bullied
Discussion
An association was found between country-level income inequality and school bullying. The association was similar in males and females and significant after differences in country wealth and individual wealth were taken into account. The results were consistent with studies on income inequality and violence among adults [17], [20], [23], [24] and replicated the ecological associations reported by Pickett and Wilkinson [29] in their study of income inequality and children's involvement in
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council awarded to the first author. The authors thank Pernille Due, Ron Iannotti, Richard Wilkinson, and Kate Pickett for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
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