ABSTRACT

Bullying in school context represents an important problem worldwide that has severe negative short and long term implications on children’s development. Bullying behaviors involve the deliberate, repetitive exposure to negative acts performed by a person or group of persons and which is characterized by an imbalance of strength and power. By using a representative national sample (N=5404) from Health Behavior in School Children Study 2010 (HBSC, 2010) survey, the present study aims to present bullying prevalence rates among Romanian school aged children, by evidencing gender, age and socio-economic differences. Also, we investigate the tendencies in the manifestation of bullying engagement between the two HBSC data waves: 2006 and 2010. Nonetheless, we aim to present the associations between bullying behaviors and health outcomes (perceived health status, life satisfaction, and psychosomatic complaints). Our results reveal that bullying behaviors have a high prevalence among Romanian school children and that for 13 and 15 years-olds there has been an increase in the interval 2006-2010. Gender, age and socioeconomic differences are discussed and we present several suggestions for national and school level intervention strategies.

KEYWORDS: bullying, victimization, health, socio-economic status

PAGES:263-276