A strong social position provides them with access to resources, including having friends and being treated respectfully by peers (Reijntjes et al. Thus, adolescents have to re-establish their social position in the new peer context, during a period when peer relations are already highly valued (Laursen and Veenstra 2021). Primary school friends might go to different secondary schools, and the selected secondary school is often located outside the trusted environment. The school transition is causing destabilization and re-organization of adolescents’ social landscape. Moreover, in many countries including the Netherlands, these developmental changes coincide with the transition from smaller primary schools to larger secondary schools around the ages of 12-14. 2020) that make them increasingly susceptible to their peers’ perceptions about them and with “fitting in” (Veenstra and Laninga-Wijnen 2021). In the first place because adolescents experience important social, cognitive, and behavioral changes (Viau et al. In early adolescence, youths’ focal goal is to achieve a strong social position in the peer group. Although bullying is functional behavior that serves to optimize adolescents’ social position, anti-bullying interventions may account for the increasing lack of affection that may hinder bullies’ long-term social development. The four trajectories (decreasing bully, stable high bully, decreasing victim, uninvolved) were related to adolescents’ social position using multigroup analysis that examined differences in slope and intercepts (T1 and T6) of social positions, and indicated that the relative social position of the different joint trajectories was determined at the start of secondary education and did not change over time, with one exception: adolescents continuing bullying were besides being popular also increasingly rejected over time. Using longitudinal data spanning the first- and second year of secondary education of 824 adolescents (51.5% girls M age T1 = 12.54, SD = 0.45) in the SNARE-study, joint bullying and victimization trajectories were estimated using parallel Latent Class Growth Analysis (LCGA). The aim of this study was to investigate whether (the development of) bullying and victimization was related to the attainment of status (perceived popularity) and affection (friendships, acceptance, rejection) in the first years of secondary education (six waves). Considering the damage, that bullying can cause to both the perpetrator and the victim, identification and prompt intervention is the need of the hour to curb this menace.Bullying is known to be associated with social status, but it remains unclear how bullying involvement over time relates to social position (status and affection), especially in the first years at a new school. Cyberbullying, using technology to harass or embarrass, is also on the rise. Bullying has its presence at homes, work environments, sports and different industries. Parents’ participation should be made integral in the anti-bullying programs.īullying is an omnipresent threat. It is paramount to create awareness among the students about the existence of bullying, the signs of bullying and the consequences of bullying to save a bully from becoming a criminal and spare a victim from long-lasting hurt.

However, the communities have come up with effective strategies to counter this menace. Some consider bullying as an unavoidable menace during childhood. These victims often go through depression and would try to avoid those environments where they usually are bullied.īullying in schools is a common phenomenon. Handicap of any form and weak and small physical stature too could be reasons for a victim to get repeatedly bullied. They are often left out in parties or gatherings. Generally, their social skills are underdeveloped and hence have few or no friends. Certain traits of a person can suggest that he or she could be a victim of bullying. The person who is bullied develops low self-esteem and anxiety and loses confidence. A bully typically has an overbearing personality causing harm intentionally to a person who is weak or timid.

Threatening someone, causing fear in their mind, to get things done that the person is not comfortable with is called bullying.

Bullying rough draft example