Browsing by Author "Dey, Mira"

Bullying victimization is a multidimensional phenomenon which can be explained by many risk factors. Youths in lower secondary school are particularly vulnerable and may have conflicts with peers which, in turn, can increase the risk of being bullied at school. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of bullying victimization in lower secondary school and possible underlying factors in bullying victimization. In this study, the goal is to examine how sense of belonging at school, immigrant background, socioeconomic status and gender explain the variation in bullying victimization at school. In addition, the aim of this study is to observe the mean difference in bullying victimization between immigrant students and non-immigrant students. The data of this study is from a student answers to the questionnaire used in the PISA (2018) study. A total of 5649 students from different areas in Finland participated in the PISA study in 2018. The participants were mainly 15 to 16 years old lower secondary school students. To analyze the data, IBM Statistics SPSS -27 software and The IEA International Database Analyzer (version 4.0.39) were used. A linear regression analysis and an independent samples t-test were used as the analysis methods. The results from this study indicated that the sense of belonging at school was the strongest and statistically significant explanatory variable of bullying victimization at school. Immigrant background and socioeconomic status were also statistically significant but their explanatory powers were very small. The results from the t-test showed that the mean difference in bullying victimization between immigrant and non-immigrant students was statistically significant but the effect size was weak. The analysis also revealed that verbal and social bullying experiences were more common than physical bullying experiences. Boys were more likely than girls to experience physical bullying and girls were more likely than boys to experience social bullying. It is crucial to pay attention to the social bonds and climate at school to decrease the risk of bullying victimization.