Bullying

Indicator #37: Bullying Rate

Indicator 37A: Percentage of BC students in grades 7–12 who report having been bullied at school or on the way to or from school in the past year.

Indicator 37B: Percentage of BC students in grades 7–12 who report having been bullied over the Internet or other technology in the past year.

Jump to Figure Notes and Sources

Schools are becoming more diverse and things that were formerly kept hidden like sexual orientation are more in the open now, so people who are prone to bullying have more targets to aim at than they used to.

Bullying is easier to do and people have become more subtle about it.

Key Messages

• Bullying is a pattern of unwelcome or aggressive behaviour, often with the goal of making others uncomfortable or scared, or hurting someone. It is almost always used as a way to have control or power over a target, and it is often based on another person’s appearance, culture, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.¹
• There are four common types of bullying: physical (hitting, tripping, pinching, or damaging property); verbal (name-calling, insults, teasing, intimidation, homophobic or racist remarks, or verbal abuse); social-emotional (spreading rumours, negative facial gestures, playing mean jokes to embarrass or humiliate, or social exclusion); and cyber (taunting, threatening, or humiliating over the Internet or through social media).¹
• There is clear evidence of a negative association between bullying and child health and well-being, such as psychological well-being, academic achievement, and later substance use.^2,3 In fact, there is strong, consistent, international evidence that all forms of bullying have harmful mental health consequences for children and youth.^4,5
• Being bullied has also been linked to health risk behaviours such as binge drinking and using marijuana. The fear of being bullied restricted some students’ activities, as they said they had not participated in extracurricular activities for fear of being bullied.⁶
• Evidence has shown that in BC, youth who were victims of bullying by their peers—teasing, exclusion, or assault—in the past year were more likely than those who were not bullied to report skipping class in the past month. The more types of bullying students experienced, the more likely they were to miss school.⁶
• Figure 37A.1 shows that about 50 per cent of youth in grades 7 to 12 surveyed in BC reported being bullied, with a greater proportion of females reporting being bullied than males. While the percentage for males was relatively stable from 2003 to 2013, the percentage among females increased somewhat during that time, from 54.3 per cent in 2003 to 57.7 per cent in 2013.
• It is challenging to determine the prevalence of cyberbullying because of inconsistent definitions and varied data collections methods; however, Figure 37B.1 suggests that it decreased slightly from 2008 to 2013. This figure also shows that females were twice as likely as males to report being cyberbullied.

Figure Notes and Sources