Students who repeat grades may experience more bullying: Study

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There are many different kinds of effects of bullying and none of them are good, as we all know, and parents have to be weary about it always. Now, a new study of nearly half a million students has found that students who have failed a class and thus repeated the grade have higher risks of being victims of bullying in countries around the world.

Addressing and preventing school violence, including bullying, is a specific target of the United National Sustainable Development Goals. Few studies involving large samples have examined the association between grade repetition and bullying victimisation.

In the study, researchers used data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PIA) 2018, which included information on 465,146 students aged 15 and 16 from 74 countries/economies.

Overall, 12.25 per cent of included students had repeated a grade and 30.32 per cent of students reported having experienced bullying at least a few times a month during the previous year. Students who had repeated a grade were likelier to have been the victim of bullying than their peers (OR 95 per cent CI 1.32-1.52, and 0.001).

The association was observed for students in 46 countries/economies and students of both sexes. Compared to boys, however, girls who repeated a grade had higher risks of being made fun of, being threatened, having possessions taken away, and being pushed around.

The authors note that while the findings support a relationship between the experiences of repeating a grade and bullying victimisation, the cross-sectional study cannot determine if such a relationship is causal or the direction of the relationship. The study was also limited to adolescents attending school when the survey was administered, and the measures of bullying experiences and grade repetition were self-reported.

"These results are of great concern for parents, teachers, principals, and policymakers at different levels, especially in countries where grade repetition is particularly prevalent," the authors say. "Grade repetition is associated with bullying victimization in both boys and girls."

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