Life satisfaction and school bullying in elementary school students

摘要

This descriptive study examined domain-specific and global life satisfaction, traditional and cyber bullying, and the relationship between perpetrator involvement in school bullying and life satisfaction among 299 elementary school students in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. A self-report bully/victim survey assessed students’ involvement in physical, verbal, social and cyber (internet/computer and cell phone) bullying and victimization and a life satisfaction survey assessed students’ levels of satisfaction with family, school, friendship, self, living environment (neighborhood) and overall life. Results show that for the time period assessed, students report moderately high to high levels of domain-specific and global life satisfaction. Results also show that students’ life satisfaction does not predict their involvement as traditional and cyber bullies and that students’ involvement in traditional bullying is more prevalent than in cyber bullying. Elementary school females report significantly higher satisfaction with their living environment (neighborhood), greater social victimization involving exclusion and isolation, and greater cyber (cell phone) victimization with mean pictures than males. Younger elementary students report significantly higher levels of cyber victimization with mean telephone calls over the Internet using a computer and verbal victimization with mean names, comments or gestures with a sexual meaning than older students.