A new study has revealed that although verbal and physical bullying decreases as students grow older, cyberbullying increases.
According to the study, non-native English speakers are not bullied more often than native English speakers and bullying increases as students' transition from elementary to middle school.
The study by lead researcher Cixin Wang, an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education found that 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.)
The researchers also revealed that students who bully fall into three categories: frequent perpetrator (5 percent), occasional verbal/relational perpetrator (26 percent), and infrequent perpetrator (69 percent), while 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 that were studied.
It was also revealed that over all, girls were more likely to experience verbal/relational and cyber victimization than boys, and boys were more likely to be physically victimized and students for whom English is a second language were not bullied more often than native English speakers.
The study was published in the journal School Psychology Quarterly.