Poverty and inequity: multi-country evidence on the structural drivers of bullying

This study is part of a wider UNICEF report 'Ending the torment: tackling bullying from the schoolyard to cyberspace'

Abstract

This is a chapter in a UNICEF report ‘Ending the torment: tackling bullying from the schoolyard to cyberspace’.

The majority of research into peer bullying has focused on children’s individual psychological characteristics or psychosocial well-being, both to identify the predictors of who gets bullied, as well as the effects of bullying on children. Less attention has been given to how structural factors, such as poverty and inequality, shape the contexts within which children interact and where bullying occurs.

This chapter uses data from the Young Lives longitudinal study of childhood poverty in Ethiopia, India (the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Peru and Vietnam to explore how children’s experiences of being bullied occur within the context of wider economic and social inequalities, such as poverty and gender norms. The authors address 2 questions:

  1. which children are at greater risk of being bullied, and how, at age 15?

  2. why are certain groups of children bullied?

Young Lives is an international study of childhood poverty, following the lives of 12,000 children in 4 countries (Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam) over 15 years. Young Lives is funded by the UK Department for International Development.

Citation

Pells, Kirrily, María José Ogando Portela and Patricia Espinoza (2016) ‘Poverty and inequity: multi-country evidence on the structural drivers of bullying’, chapter in UNICEF report: Ending the torment: tackling bullying from the schoolyard to cyberspace, Chapter 6, page 41-49

Poverty and inequity: multi-country evidence on the structural drivers of bullying

Published 1 October 2016